“The body is ours, for the time! We can feel its physical power; our brain animates it. We are one being. One entity when that connection is made.” Ren spoke up softly, “Why did you go to that city where you captured us? Those people there haven’t harmed you. But you captured their prince and princess.” The huge face grinned with a look of cunning. “We cannot get back to our world. We do not like these bleak mountains, these dark caves where we have been living. We must have a better land, and other people; we want to establish our own race. And there is little food, here in the mountains. We began wandering, searching. We brought this one boat with us from our own world.” He described the workings of the boat, and went on. “One day I came upon that man and that woman you call prince and princess. He says he is called Altho. They escaped from me, climbed to a cliff. But we caught them again finally.” He paused. Then he added slowly: “The princess is dead now. I did not want her to die . . . but the prince killed her.” It brought a shudder to Jim. He said, cautiously, “What are you going to do now? What do you want of us?” “I was thinking that if you were important, like Prince Altho, to this other world, I might offer to release all of you, not kill you, if they would let us live among them in the city. But I have decided now not to bother with that. I think, if you annoy us too much, we shall kill you before we start.” “Start where?” Ren demanded. His voice was steady. “Start upon our attack. We brought little with us from our world, a few devices and scientific supplies; but for all this time since we arrived we have been manufacturing. It is difficult with so few materials at hand. But we are nearly ready. When I return now, we will start our last preparations.” His voice rose to a sudden grim power, “We have prepared well for this conquest. It is a beautiful land down there; the women, so many of them like the princess, are very beautiful. The men, they are not like you two—they are already afraid of us. Some have seen us wandering near the cave entrances. They always run in terror.” His chuckle had a horrible gloating. “They will be easy to kill. A swift attack upon the city; we are almost ready for it now!” The boat at last came to the surface; the cover rolled back; the stars gleamed overhead as before, but the yellow moon had crossed the sky and was falling to the horizon behind them. Jim saw that they had come to the surface of a very small lake. He could see all around its shore, a circular lake of black, cold-looking water. It lay unrippled, smooth as polished black stone, unbroken except as the boat’s gas bubbles rose, and by the V-shaped waves the boat left behind it. Around the shore was a ring of mountains. Bleak, naked cliffs of rocks came down sheer to the water; behind them the mountains rose in tumbled, serrated ranks, naked crags and spires, snow-capped with yellow snow where the moonlight struck them.