As though it had seen and comprehended the action, the robot's eyes blinked once or twice. It was eerie. Then it raised one of its arms and seemed to gesture--not at them, but beyond them. With that, it turned and stalked away, crashing through the forest. "I get it," Mark said thoughtfully. "It was warning us to stay on our side of the fence!" "And that's just what we will do. It's the only place where we can stand up, much less move about." They walked back to the prow of the ship. "Where does this daylight come from?" Brownell was still puzzled. "There's no sun. Seems to me this gravity has something to do with it, too. Say! Do you suppose this light--" He never finished, for at that moment they heard a shout ahead of them, and saw a group of men approaching. They were tall and straight, clean shaven, and dressed in trousers and tunics of rough texture but undoubtedly of Earth pattern--the pattern which had been popular hundreds of years ago! They carried weapons too, the old-type electric rifles which were so devastating at close range but not very effective at longer distances. They came warily at first, but smiled when they saw the newcomers were not going to cause trouble. "Greetings!" their leader said in perfect English. "You're from Earth? We thought we saw your ship crash, and came over to investigate." Janus stepped forward and introduced himself, shook hands. "My name is Donli," the other said. He pronounced it that way, crisply, running the syllables together. Mark suddenly wondered if this could be a contraction of "Donnolly". * * * * * Donli and his men were speechless for a moment, staring in turn at the spaceship, the new-type weapons, and Ral Kaarj. "You have never seen a Martian before?" Kaarj grinned at them in a friendly manner. "Pardon our staring," Donli replied. "We have never seen a Martian, nor such a spaceship as this, nor any other world. We have waited long for this! Long!" "You've seen no other world. But you are Earthmen." "We have been here always." "I begin to understand," Brownell said. "There are others of you here? Where do you stay?" "Our city is only fifty miles from here. We shall be happy if you accompany us there. We have good roads, and surface cars. Our leader, Mari, will explain everything to you." Donli paused, glancing nervously into the twilight strip. "You should be of great help to us against the Perlacs, with your new weapons." "Perlacs? Are those the furry creatures with the lights on their heads?" "Yes. We call them that because Perlac is the name they give to the world. They have warred on us for generations. We number a mere five hundred, and they are thousands." Donli looked worried. "And now that the robots are active again, we are in even more danger." "We saw one of those metal giants," Janus exclaimed, "just a few minutes ago!"