"If you were not before my eyes," said Sir George Graham Harris, president of the Australian Scientific Commission, "as living proof of what you say, and if our biological and metallurgical experts did not report that your physiology is utterly beyond their comprehension, I do not know but that I would believe you were some cleverly constructed machines, actuated in some way by radio. However, that is not the point ... I have here a series of reports from different quarters on such explorations as have been made since the arrival of the comet and our recovery from its effects. We are, it appears, confronted with a menace of considerable seriousness in the form of these birds. "In the light of your closer acquaintance with them and with conditions generally in the devastated areas, they may be more suggestive to you than to us." He stopped and ruffled over the papers piled beside him at the big conference table. He was a kindly old gentleman, whose white Van Dyke and pale blue lips contrasted oddly with the almost indigo tint of his visage (before the comet it had been a rich wine-red, the result of a lifelong devotion to brandy and soda). Smiling round the table at his scientific colleagues and at Ben, Murray, Gloria and Beeville, who occupied the position of honor, he went on: "I give you mainly excerpts.... The first is from the South African government. They have ... hm, hm ... sent an aerial expedition northward, all lines of communication appearing to be broken. At Nairobi, they report for the first time, finding a town entirely unoccupied and its inhabitants turned into cast-metal statues ... Addis Ababa the same ... Wadi Hafa likewise. Twenty miles north of Wadi Hafa they noted the first sign of life--a bird of some kind at a considerable distance to the west of them and flying parallel with them and very rapidly." The scientist looked up. "It would appear beyond doubt that this bird belonged to the species we call dodos and to which Dr. Beeville has given the excellent scientific name, tetrapteryx.... As the expedition proceeded northward, they encountered more of them; sometimes as many as four being in sight at one time. At Alexandria, where they halted for supplies, the dodos closed in. When the expedition took the air again with the object of flying to Crete and thence to Europe, these remarkable avians came very close, apparently trying to turn the expedition back. They reached Crete that afternoon, in spite of the interference of the birds, but that night were actively attacked on the ground. The phenomena that accompanied all other attacks were observed; the birds used incendiary bombs of great intensity. One machine was entirely destroyed with its aviators. The others, since their object was exploration, at once took to the air and returned.