weren't so stupid we'd
never capture them. So let's stop this foolishness, this dreaming...."

That was the clue. After all, Hiah-Leugh hadn't been made chief of all
the Gomans for nothing. He proved his right to the leadership then.

"That's it!" he said. "The artists and writers of the human world have
made monsters of us, even though we can't do any of the things they
pretend we can. There is but a single attribute we possess which they
have said we do. We can project ourselves through space and time. So
let us to the Earth, and pluck one or two of these humans, and if I
may offer a suggestion, let us take a writer and artist from among
them and bring them back with us...."

* * * * *

Harry Zmilch, writer-extraordinary of science-fiction, passed weary
fingers across a furrowed brow. A few feet to the rear of the desk at
which Zmilch labored stood the drawing board of Jack Gangreneyellow,
the artist. He too paused in his labors. At one and the same instant
they turned and regarded each other with solemn, staring eyes.

"No use, Joe," Harry said. "I can't do it. I've beaten my brain until
it refuses to function. I keep typing the same word over and over
again ... nuts ... nuts!... Bug-eyed monsters! There aren't such
things. My imagination just can't bring them to paper."

"Nor can mine to the board," Jack said.

"Still it's easier for you," Harry said. "All you've got to do is draw
a spider or huge bug of sorts, put a man and woman somewhere in the
drawing, make the woman appear as if she'd lost half her clothes in a
struggle, and you've got your piece. With me it's different."

Gangreneyellow snorted. This character, he thought, knew as little of
art and the difficulties of composition as the next guy.

"That's what you think," he retorted. "All you guys have to do is
_imagine_ a monster, have a man and woman placed in peril by the
monster's presence and you've got a story. With us it's different...."

Zmilch was half-turned, facing his friend across the width of one
shoulder. At the other's words, Zmilch turned all the way, got up from
his chair and strolled to the board on which a drawing in full color
was in its last stages. The drawing depicted a jungle scene. In the
foreground a man and woman stood in petrified stance, the man's arm
around the woman's shoulders. He was dressed for safari, pith helmet,
breeches, boots, open shirt and all. The woman looked like she'd spen