the thought of
the threat that hung over the earth he would have found nothing but
intensest pleasure in the experiences that were his.

But night after night they had heard the reverberating echoes of the
giant gun speeding its messenger of death toward the earth, and he saw
as plainly as if he were there the terrible destruction that must come
where the missiles struck. Gas, of course; that seemed the chief and
only weapon of these monsters, and Djorn, the elected leader of the
Venus folk, confirmed him in this surmise.

"We had many gases," he told McGuire, "but we used them for good ends.
You people of Earth--or these invaders, if they conquer Earth--must
some day engage in a war more terrible than wars between men. The
insects are your greatest foe. With a developing civilization goes the
multiplication of insect and bacterial life. We used the gases for
that war, and we made this world a heaven." He sighed regretfully for
his lost world.

"These red ones found them, and our factories for making them. But
they have no gift for working out or mastering the other means we had
for our defense--the electronic projectors, the creation of tremendous
magnetic fields: you saw one when we destroyed the attacking ships.
Our scientists had gone far--"

"I wish to Heaven you had some of them to use now," said the
lieutenant savagely, and the girl, Althora, standing near, smiled in
sympathy for the flyer's distress. But her brother, Djorn, only
murmured: "The lust to kill: that is something to be overcome."

The fatalistic resignation of these folk was disturbing to a man of
action like McGuire. His eyes narrowed, and his lips were set for an
abrupt retort when Althora intervened.

"Come," she said, and took the flyer's hand. "It is time for food."

* * * * *

She took him to the living quarters occupied by her brother and
herself, where opal walls and jewelled inlays were made lovely by the
soft light that flooded the rooms.

"Just one tablet," she said, and brought him a thin white disc, "then
plenty of water. You must take this compressed food often and in small
quantities till your system is accustomed."

"You make this?" he asked.

"But certainly. Our chemists are learned men. We should lack for food,
otherwise, here in our underground home."

He let the tablet dissolve in his mouth. Althora leaned forward to
touch his hand gently.

"I am sorry," she said, "that you and Djor