During the meeting, attention would all be centered there. Most of the guards would be at the meeting. Kean planned to investigate conditions at the arsenal--and report to us. If we could get the weapons--get them to our vehicle--We would try attacking Graff first, here in Garla. Or, preferably, as Kean pointed out, catch him on his way to the Braun city. And then, if we brought the wrath of the Garlands upon us, we would all escape to earth. Kean said very solemnly: "I trus' Zetta's woman conscience on this. She heard you talking of it this morning. Did you know that?" "No," I said. "Well, she did--we Garlands have ver' sharp ears. I ask her advice. You see, that man Graff called me traitor. That hurt--I was traitor, from the way he sees it. Not again would I be traitor--mos' of all, not to my own worl'. But I ask Zetta. She says for us to take the Garland weapons to save the other worl' is just." He was very earnest. "Not to take anything which by losing my Garla would be hurt. There is such a thing. If you planned to steal it, Zetta and I would not permit--" "The Infra-red Control?" said Freddie. "Yes. That, Zetta and I would not let you touch. The ordinar' weapons--of those Garla has many. The loss of some will help your worl', and cannot harm mine." A very manly fellow--quaintly dignified as he stood earnestly explaining. One Garland at least, whom we could trust. And Zetta. We said nothing to father, or to Hulda, or Zetta. In mid-afternoon, before starting on this visit to the grotto which father had arranged, he took an hour and told us more of the strange science of this world. I feel that it would be out of place for me to set it forth in detail here. It is not my purpose to encumber this personal narrative with scientific data. Volumes of scientific text books will be written concerning Xenephrene, with father's voluminous notes as a basis. So I have summarized here merely such fundamentals necessary to make clear the strange adventures on earth, so briefly on Xenephrene and back again on earth, into which my family, friends and myself were plunged. The basis, father told us, of all natural scientific phenomena on Xenephrene was an entity called _Reet_. An "etheric fluid." A "movement of detached electrons." He used both phrases. In its essence, Reet, he said, was an enigma. A force "akin perhaps to our electricity." It existed in nature--in the rain, the clouds, the air. It was the growing, life-giving essence of all vegetable and animal organism.