"They have arrived in the Universe to Venone, and gone to the planet Venone. They were on the planet when I left. None of our scouts were able to approach the place, as there were innumerable Venonian watchers who would have recognized our deeper skin-color, and destroyed us. Two scouts were rayed, though the Galactians did not see this. Finally we captured two Venonians who had seen it, and attempted to force the information we needed from them. A young man and his chosen mate. "The man would tell nothing, and we were hurried. So we turned to the girl. These accursed Venonians are courageous for all their pacifism. We were hurried, and yet it was long before we forced her to tell what we needed to know so vitally. She had been one of the notetakers for the Venonian government. We got most of their conversation, but she died of burns before she finished. "The Galactians know nothing of the twin-ray beyond its action, and that it is an electro-magnetic phenomenon, though they have been able to distort it by using a sheet of pure energy. But their walls are impregnable to it, and their power of creating matter from the pure energy of space, as we saw from a distance, would enable them to easily defeat it, were it not that the twin-ray passes through matter without harming it. Any ray which will destroy matter of the natural electrical types, will be stopped. "The girl was damnably clever, for she gave us only the things we already knew, and but few new facts; knowing that she would inevitably die soon, she talked--but it was empty talk. The one thing of import we have learned is that they burn no fuel, use no fuel of any sort but in some inconceivable manner get their energy from the radiations of the suns of space. This could not be great--but we know she told the truth, and we know their power is great. She told the truth, for we could determine when she lied, by mental action, of course. "But more we could not learn. The man died without telling anything, merely cursing. He knew nothing anyway, as we already had determined," concluded the scout. Silently the Sthanto sat in thought for some moments. Then he raised his head, and looked at the scout once more. "You have done well. You secured some information of import, which was more than we had dared hope for. But you managed things poorly. The woman should not have died so soon. We can only guess. "The radiation of the suns of space--hmmm--" Sthanto Thalt's brow wrinkled in thought. "The radiation of the _suns_ of space. Were his power derived from the sun near which he is operating, he would not have said _suns_. It was more than one?" "It was, oh Sthanto," replied the scout positively. "His power is unreasonable. I doubt that he gave the true explanation. It may well have been that he did not trust the Venonians. I would not, for all their warless ways. But surely the suns of space give very little power at any given point at random. Else space would not be cold.