Earth girls were to be captured in large numbers. The most desirable
of them would go into the harems of the princes. The others would be
given to the workers. The desire for them was growing rapidly,
incited by the talk of the overlords. The common man could have more
than one wife--two, even three perhaps--supported by the princely
master. And Tako was dreaming of a new Empire; increased population;
some of the desert reclaimed; a hundred principalities banded
together into a new nation, with himself as its supreme leader.
* * * * *
And then the attack upon Earth had begun. A few Earth girls were
stolen; then more, until very quickly it was obvious that a wider area
than Bermuda was needed. Tako's mind flung to New York--greatest
center of population within striking distance of him.[3] The foray
into Bermuda--the materialization of that little band on the Paget
hilltop was more in the nature of an experiment than a real attack.
Tako learned a great deal of the nature of this coming warfare, or
thought he did.
[3] The extent of the Fourth Dimensional world was never
made wholly clear to us. Its rugged surface was coincident
with the surface of our earth at Bermuda, at New York City,
and at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of the United
States. For the rest, there is no data upon which one may
even guess.
As a matter of actuality, in spite of his dominating force, the
capacity for leadership which radiated from him, there was a very
naive, fatuous quality to this strange ruler. Or at least, Don and I
thought so now. As the details of his plot against our Earth world
unfolded to us, what we could do to circumvent him ran like an
undercurrent across the background of our consciousness. He knew
nothing, or almost nothing of our Earth weapons. What conditions
would govern this unprecedented warfare into which he was
plunging--of all that he was totally ignorant.
* * * * *
But, we were speedily to learn that he was not as fatuous as he at
first seemed. These two worlds--occupying the same space and
invisible to each other--would be plunged into war. And Tako
realized that no one, however astute, of either world could predict
what might happen. He was plunging ahead, quite conscious of his
ignorance. And he realized that there was a vast detailed knowledge
of the Earth world which we had and he did not. He would use us as
the occasion arose to explain what might not be understandable to
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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