"You would not understand if we told you. Sufficient that it is nothing known on the surface of your world. Your idea that most nearly approaches it is--" he paused for a moment, feeling about in Sherman's mind for the proper expression "--is pure light; light having material body and strength. Now let me ask--do you use explosives as we use the substance of life, to fight your enemies?" "Yes." "What weapons do you use them in?" Sherman thought of a revolver and then of a cannon. "And do these weapons act at a distance?" "Yes. May I ask a question?" "If it is a brief one. This interview is important to us." "How many of your people are there on the earth?" "It is inadvisable to answer that fully, but there are some hundreds. Now tell us, are there any of these weapons near this place?" Sherman thought. West Point--Watervliet Arsenal--Iona Island, leaped into his mind. All three Lassans leaned back with a sigh of satisfaction and exchanged thoughts among themselves so rapidly that he could not follow the process. Then the two younger Lassans disconnected their helmets and the older one said, "We are disposed to be generous to you, we will demonstrate one of our fighting machines to you if you will show us how to use these explosives." There could be no particular harm in it, he argued to himself. The army was a thing of the past, and if there were other people out in the world, and he could take them a knowledge of the Lassan fighting machines it would be of as much value as any information he could give. He agreed. The old Lassan rose. "You will retain your helmet. It is a rule that none of the lower races are allowed in the fighting machines without them, and you would be unable to control one without our help in any case." The car carried them to the blue-domed hall where he and Marta Lami had hidden behind the shining fish. A little pang of loneliness leaped up in him at the sight; he wondered where she was and whether she had been sent back to the machines. "No," the Lassan's thought answered his, "the other servant has not been returned to the machines. Many of them are not working as a result of the recent trouble and the servant has been placed on other work instead. But I do not understand your idea that the other servant is somehow different from you." "Do the Lassans, then, have no sex?" the thought raced through his brain. "Sex? Oh, I understand. The difference between two of the lower soft races that makes reproduction possible. Our birds have it. No, we have abolished it of course, as all higher races have. Our young are produced artificially." CHAPTER XVI A Dash for Freedom They stood before the big machine. "You must do exactly as I tell you," the Lassan informed him. "The machinery of this instrument is very delicate. First, to enter, you must reach up there, by that fin, and insert one of your fingers in the hole you will find."