ds, to the infinite benefit of both.

There was silence until he finished. The faces before him were
immobile. But a hawk-faced man in brown asked dry questions. Were
there more races than one upon Earth? Were they of diverse colors? Did
they ever war among themselves? At Tommy's answers the atmosphere
seemed to change. And the hawk-faced man rose to speak.

Tommy and Evelyn, he conceded caustically, had certainly come from
another world. Their own most ancient legends described just such a
world as his: a world of many races of many colors, who fought many
wars among themselves. Their ancestors had fled from such a world,
according to legend through a twisting cavern which they had sealed
behind them. The conditions Tommy described had been the cause of
their ancestors' flight. They, the people of Yugna, would do well to
follow the example of their forebears: strip these Earth folk of their
weapons, exile them to the jungles, destroy the Tube through which the
Mist of Many Colors had been sent. All should be as in past ages.

* * * * *

Tommy opened his mouth to answer, but another man sprang to his feet.
His face alone was not weary and worn. As he stood up, Aten murmured
"_Cuyal!_" and Tommy understood that this man used the drug which was
destroying the city's citizens, but gave a transient energy to its
victims. He spoke in fiery phrases, urging action which would be
drastic and certain. He spoke confidently, persuasively. There was a
rustling among those who watched and listened to the debate. He had
caught at their imagination.

Evelyn, exerting every faculty to understand, saw Tommy's lips set
grimly.

"What--what is it?" she whispered. "I--I don't understand...."

Tommy spoke in a savage growl.

"He says," he told her bitterly, "that in one blow they can defeat
both the jungle and the invaders from Earth. In past ages their
ancestors were faced by enemies they could not defeat. They fled to
this world. Now they are faced by jungles they cannot defeat. He
proposes that they flee to our world. The Death Mist is a toy, he
reminds them, compared with gases they know. There is a gas of which
one part in ten hundred million is fatal! In a hundred of their days
they can make and send through the Tube enough of it to kill every
living thing on Earth. They've figures on the Earth's size and
atmosphere from me, damn 'em! And he reminds them that that deadly gas
changes of itself i