They investigated the phenomenon, and came to the conclusion that the faleena, in the comparative vacuum which lies on the borders of our atmosphere, had acted with its electric motors like the lavolan, one of their medical instruments for the inspection of the inner tissues, whilst the wings acted like the films of a photographic apparatus, and retained a shadowed impress of the inner structure of all the beings or forms coming between them and the body of the car. A new world was opened up to them beyond even their electric sense. Outside of the denser envelope of our orb the rarefaction of space meant no longer lifeless desolation traversed only by beams of light, electric impulses from other worlds, and the flight of occasional meteors. Now they knew that there were ethereal beings living in infinite space, and that their inner structure differed in density from their enveloping material. Some of this life was manifestly minute and attenuated, unsuited to the medium in which it floated, waiting for some fit orb to land on. But under their powerful clirolans it was as clear that there were highly developed organisms fitted to this element in which they swam, organisms probably higher than any to be found on the earth, yet too ethereal and shadowy to touch any of even the latest-evolved senses of the Limanorans. What possibilities this glimpse into the vast unknown opened up for them they shrank for a time from imagining, lest they should again enslave themselves to superstition and absurd fancy. For astrobiology they saw at a glance there was begun a new and lofty career. Soon would they modify and improve the lavolan to fit the conditions of interstellar space, and the faleena, if not their own organs, for venturing far into the rarest ether. And then what reports, what pictures of the invisible universes would they bring before the eyes and the firlas of their fellow-islanders! How would they ever have time to investigate and classify the genera and species that inhabited the ether? What limit was there to the ambitions and ideals they would be able to set before the race?