"Oh, yes, the birds," said the captain. "Have they been annoying you, too? That's one of the reasons, aside from exploration, why we're here. I assume you mean the big four-winged birds that we call dodos down under. We haven't seen much of them, but occasionally they come and fly away with a sheep or even a man. One of our aviators chased one several hundred miles out to sea recently and we had assumed they came from one of the islands. Our scientists don't know what to make of them." "Neither do ours, except that they're an unadulterated brand of hell," put in Murray. "We were all living in New York, snug as bugs in a rug, when they began dropping incendiary bombs on us and carrying off anyone they could get hold of." "Including this insignificant person," said Yoshio, proudly. "Incendiary bombs! Do you mean to tell me they have intelligence enough for that?" "I'll tell the cockeyed world they have! Did you see the prow of our ship? That's where one of their little presents got home. If anyone had been there, he wouldn't be anything but scrap iron now. If you really want to find out what it's all about come on up to New York, but get ready for the fight of your life." The captain leaned back, sipping his drink meditatively. "Do you know," he said, "that's just what I was thinking of doing? Frankly your story is all but incredible, but here you are as proof of it and you don't seem to be robots, except in appearance." "Oh, boy," whispered Murray to Gloria, "wait till these babies get after the birds with their eight-inch guns. They'll wish they'd never heard of us. I'm glad I'm going to be on hand to see the fun." "Yeh, but maybe the birds will have something up their feathers, too," she replied. "I wouldn't like to place any bets. We thought we had them licked when we got the destroyer and now look at us." "Well, I'm willing to try an attack, or at least a reconnaissance of them," said the captain. "Just now we're in the position of an armed exploring party. The Australian government has sent out several ships to see what it could find on the other continents. After the comet struck all the cables went dead. We got into radio communication with the Dutch colonial stations at Batavia and later with South Africa, but the rest of the world is just being re-explored and my commission authorizes me to resist unfriendly acts. I think you could call an incendiary bomb an unfriendly act." * * * * *