The globe was silent a moment, then spoke on, the thirty whose minds spoke through it never turning. "When you two were captured upon our great world, others, no doubt like you, were discovered in a space-vehicle which, it was apparent, was operated by the same principle of force-rays which we of Neptune (it was their own word-equivalent for the name of the planet) have long used in our own space-vehicles, and in other ways. That vehicle and those inside it, it has been reported to us, were destroyed by those who discovered it, but we desire to know from whence it and you two came, and in what way you were able to reproduce the force-rays which we of Neptune have long used. From the structure of your bodies it is apparent that you come from a small planet, in all probability the second or third of the sun's worlds. But from which, and why, have you come here?" Marlin did not answer for some moments, then spoke back through the little mechanism he held. "It is from the sun's third world, indeed, that we have come," he said. "And we have come here, have plunged out through the void to this, the sun's outermost world, to find out why you of Neptune are loosing doom on the solar system with that great force-ray of yours that spins the sun ever faster, and to use all our power to halt that doom!" * * * * * In that tense moment a thrill of irrepressible pride shot through me, even in the dark peril in which we stood, at Marlin's words. For they were not his alone; they were the words of Earth, the words of Earth and all its races to Neptune and all its hordes! And at that bold defiance, flung across the void from world to world and issuing here from Marlin in the very face of this supreme Council of the Neptunian rulers, of this great globe-mechanism that held their gathered, synthesized minds for the time being, an order to the guards behind us for our instant death would not have surprised me. Yet here again we were given proof of the difference between the mind-workings of the Neptunians and ourselves. It was evident that the human passions of hate and anger held small place in their cold, machine-like minds, for the great globe that spoke for the minds of the assembled thirty was silent for a time, and when it did speak it seemed not to regard the passion of Marlin's words. "When you speak of halting the doom that confronts your world," it said, "it is apparent that you do not know the necessity of that doom, the great necessity which has caused our races of Neptunians, under the direction of the Council of Thirty, to loose that doom upon the solar system. Learn now, therefore, that it is to save our own world, our own races, that we are loosing this death upon the sun's other worlds and peoples!"