"Earth men!" the metallic voice said suddenly, and the leathery body jerked in surprise. "_Homines terrae!_" Professor Haven spoke in Latin. He was imbued with the educated person's ideal of courtesy in the victor. "We regret to inform you that we have destroyed all of your men--" "I have been watching you," the metallic voice said. Its tones conveyed no feeling, but the attitude of the branched body was weary. "I am surprised I must have missed something." "Eh? What's that?" "I must have missed something in my observations. After all, your fighting machines are very simple. I could have destroyed them in a breath, only, I did not know you had such things. I cannot understand why I did not find them before." The men stood in silence, looking at the dry, hard looking thing, not knowing what to say. Finally the metallic speaking began again. John noted that the voice came from a metal diaphragm among the apparatus on the table, to which the cords led from the creature in the jar. "I cannot understand it. When I planned to migrate to the Earth, I came here and remained many years, studying many men, their bodies, their language, their methods of fighting--fighting was something new to me, and I enjoyed it; we do not have fighting on Mars. I took all necessary observations so that I might prepare to live among them. "Then I went back home and spent sufficient time in research to make everything perfect. Of course it took a long time. I devised a suit in which I could stand in your atmospheric pressure, heat, and moisture; methods of transporting the nuclei of my apparatus to the Earth and growing them into proper bulk when I arrived, so that I might carry only very little with me. I was especially interested in devising methods of growing human beings on suitable culture media. I developed men who were just a little larger and a little stronger than yours; yet not too much so, because I wanted to see good sport, though remaining sure of winning you over in the end--" "Cultured these men!" Professor Haven exclaimed. He lagged a little in using his Latin words. "You mean you grow them like we grow bacteria in test-tubes?" He got his meaning across by many words and much effort. "I grew these soldiers on culture media," the metallic voice answered, and a shriveled arm gestured in a circle. "With a forced supply of air for carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, and water for hydrogen, I can grow a man in a few hours; or as many men at once as I have culture medium and containers for. They grow by simultaneous fission of all somatic cells." "So they are not really human?" Haven seemed much relieved at the idea that the destruction might not have been that of human life. "That depends on what you mean by human," the dried-up Martian said, by means of his machine. "To me, it means nothing."