For days now they had been keeping up the barrage, hoping to get a response. Their electro-telescopes had shown them that this planet housed a people as intelligent as their own. Their great cities, ships, and power stations made them long to be with the planet's peoples. Together they could do wonders and here they were waiting in space. Why this waste of time? Of course the Council was right in believing that the sudden appearance of unfamiliar beings might start an interplanetary war, and they could not fight a war. Their resources were practically exhausted, their peoples few, and they had no desire to cause trouble. They only wanted peace and a place to live. He shrugged his scaly shoulders and cocked his vertical eye at the meters covering the walls. No response to their messages yet. What could be the matter? Of course the planet had a denser atmosphere than that they had been accustomed to, but no matter. They could adjust themselves to it. Strange about the messages though. They had been exactly within the audibility range of the Murians and their antennae had no difficulty in reading them. Of course the planet's men would receive them just the same. Still the prediction of Tum-tak that the denser atmosphere would increase the pitch of the ozone molecules had to be considered. However this increased pitch should not harm the inhabitants. Their antennae received them very well tests demonstrated. They had not tested them for an effect on an inner ear structure, for they had never possessed them. Their sound transmission had been direct. If they did not get a response within a few more revolutions about the planet they would be compelled to go down into the atmosphere. Wonder what that unusual activity about the power plants and the great crystal globes on one of the major continents meant anyway? Perhaps they were preparing to answer their calls. But why so much power as they seemed to be accumulating? What a peculiar field! That was unknown to them. Why these peoples had pumped more power into that one field than the Murians had developed for ages. Great peoples these inhabitants of the third planet. Well, he would take one more glance at the great crystal globes before turning over his place to his aide. There it was now. The crystal globes were surrounded in crimson flame, they disappeared in blinding incandescence, and horrors, simultaneously their projector had been surrounded by a halo of radiation that arced across to the generators. These exploded showering molten metal on the frightened Murians. Phor did not see the full charge arrive, blasting the moonlet into incandescence and destroying the last of the Murians. [Illustration: "_The generators exploded showering molten metal on the frightened Murians._"] A great flare came into being in space between earth and moon. The earthlings were greatly mystified at it, but the Whispering Death had ceased. They were satisfied.