mood.

"My mission throughout eternity, Earthling--can't you sense it?
Forever and ever I shall roam infra-dimensional space, watching and
waiting for evidence that a similar catastrophe might be visited on
another land where warm-blooded thinking humans of similar mold to my
own may be living out their short lives of happiness or
near-happiness. Never again shall so great a calamity come to mankind
anywhere if it be within the Wanderer's power to prevent it. And that
is why I snatched you up from your friend's laboratory. That is why I
have shown to you the--"

"Me, why me?" Bert exclaimed.

"Attend, O Earthling, and you shall hear."

The mysterious intangibilities of the cosmos whirled by unheeded by
either as the Wanderer's tale unfolded.

* * * * *

"When I returned," he said, "the gateway was closed forever. I could
not reenter my own plane of existence. The metal monsters had taken
possession; they had found a better and richer land than their own,
and when they had completed their migration they destroyed the
generator of my force area. They had shut me out; but I could visit
Urtraria--as an outsider, as a wraith--and I saw what they had done. I
saw the desolation and the blackness of my once fair land. I saw
that--that none of my own kind remained. All, all were gone.

"For a time my reason deserted me and I roamed infra-dimensional space
a madman, self-condemned to the outer realms where there is no real
material existence, no human companionship, no love, no comfort. When
reason returned, I set myself to the task of visiting other planes
where beings of my own kind might be found and I soon learned that it
was impossible to do this in the body. To these people I was a ghostly
visitant, if they sensed my presence at all, for my roamings between
planes had altered the characteristics of atomic structure of my
being. I could no longer adapt myself to material existence in these
planes of the fifth dimension. The orbits of electrons in the atoms
comprising my substance had become fixed in a new and outcast
oscillation interval. I had remained away too long. I was an outcast,
a wanderer--the Wanderer of Infinity."

There was silence in the sphere for a space, save only for the gentle
whirring of the motors. Then the Wanderer continued:

"Nevertheless, I roamed these planes as a nonexistent visitor in so
far as their peoples were concerned. I learned their languages and
ca