Tragor heard himself speaking in reply. How he managed to find the right words he did not quite know, and perhaps they weren't the right words at all. But he had to say them. He had to speak. "Listen to me," he said, with a pleading urgency in his voice that he could not repress and did not perhaps really want to repress. "I can speak your language. We have been on Earth for almost two years but we have taken care to keep our presence well concealed. We are from Mars. We call our home planet Jagroon, but to you it is Mars. A few of our spaceships have been sighted in the past, for almost twenty years now. But we sent only a few ships to Earth to explore the planet at first and did not come in force until two years ago. "Do you understand? I want it all to be very clear to you." The woman's lips had gone very white. "It is clear enough. It is what I feared. Beasts like you, and men like my husband cannot live on the same planet in peace. You will either destroy us or we will destroy you. My husband took the flying saucer sightings seriously. I did not. I only wish that my blindness had not been shared by so many." "If that blindness had not been widespread you still could not have struck a single destructive blow against us," Tragor heard himself saying, knowing that he lied but determined to prevent the woman from knowing. "You have atomic weapons, but so have we. And our weapons are more destructive than yours. We could destroy all of your cities overnight. We could destroy them instantly." "Then why have you not done so? Isn't that what beasts would normally be expected to do?" "We have a better plan. It is not our purpose to destroy but to build. That is why we are here. To build a better world for both men and Martians." "With the beasts in the saddle, is that it? Peace on your terms. Peace with slavery for every man and woman on Earth." "I did not say that." "No, but you are thinking it. I can see it in your eyes." "And what if it were true? Should a higher race bow to a race that could not hope to build a ship like this? If you could see the Martian cities you would understand." "I have never seen a city built by beasts, filled with beasts. I doubt if I would care to visit such a city. The constant stench would be intolerable--the stench of cruelty and death." "We are not beasts," Tragor said, still looking at her almost pleadingly. "If I were stretched out on a table in the operating room of a New York hospital, the surgeons busy with their scalpels, there would be no horrified faces, I can assure you. There is nothing about my body or brain that is in the least beastlike." "You forget. I have seen a demonstration of just how beastlike Martians can be." "Is there nothing I can say to convince you then?"