"And what is worse," added Steinholt, "is his practice of enslaving entire populations and making toilers or warriors out of them. Those soldiers on the ship are not Lodorians. Millions of them were seized on some planet and converted into troops. It was a strange conversion, too," said Steinholt with a shudder. "Their brains were operated on and most of their faculties removed. They have no sense of fear, no consciences, no power of reasoning. They respond only to certain signals on a whistle and their only definite and active impulse is that of murder and destruction." "There is nothing to do," said Dirk positively, "but to kill all of these interlopers, if we hope to save our world from being desolated." * * * * * The three men looked at each other in silence for a moment and then Dirk, somewhat weakly, rose into a sitting position in the bed which he had been occupying. "But how," asked Steinholt, "can we kill them? We might, of course, get rid of a few of them, but that simply would lead to our destruction by those who were left." "There must be some way," asserted Dirk, "and it is up to us to think of it without delay. If we let those Lodorians get a foothold on the world all will be lost." "The old man seems to be reasonable enough," said Lazarre. "He doesn't seem inclined to be destructive." "We must not trust him or any of the others," said Dirk imperatively. "We must rid the earth of every one of them. And the sooner we strike the better!" "It had best be soon if it is to be at all," said Steinholt. "Fragoni has arranged to have Teuxical appear before the Congress, and the meeting has been called for to-night when, I imagine, certain specific demands will be made upon us. We all will go to The Hague together on the ship of the Lodorians." "And we leave?" questioned Dirk. "The meeting is set for ten P. M., New York time," said Lazarre. "We will start east at about four o'clock in the morning, I guess, because it will only take a minute or so to arrive at our destination." "Is Fragoni going?" asked Dirk. "Naturally," replied Lazarre. "And Inga?" "I believe so," Lazarre told him. "Fragoni was both afraid to take her and to leave her behind, but finally he decided that he wanted her with him in case of trouble." * * * * * "And are they--the Lodorians--still here?" queried Dirk. "Yes," responded Lazarre. "Teuxical returned to his ship last night with Zitlan and his other followers, but they came back late this afternoon, and they are still here. Zitlan seemed to be all right this afternoon, too. They must have used some means of bringing him out of the daze that he was in. We did everything we could to revive you, but none of our measures were effective." "I'm all right now," asserted Dirk, as he finished attiring himself. "I want to see Fragoni at once." "We'll go out on the terrace then," said Steinholt. "They are all out there."