There were four great aisles, leading from the four angles of the lozenge, and many narrower ones, to give ready access to the benches, all radiating from a raised dais in the center, and the whole building illuminated by bluish globes of light that I recognized from descriptions and visits to scientific museums, as replicas of an early form of the ethon tube.

These things I took in at a glance. It was the object upon the huge central dais that caught and held my attention.

"Hendricks!" I muttered, just loud enough to make my voice audible above the solemn chanting. "Are we dreaming?"

"No, sir!" Hendricks' eyes were starting out of his head, and I have no doubt I looked as idiotic as he did. "It's there."

On the dais was a gleaming object perhaps sixty feet long--which is a length equal to the height of about ten full-sized men. It was shaped like an elongated egg--like the metal object surmounting the staffs of the pennon-bearers!

And, unmistakably, it was a ship for navigating s.p.a.ce.

As we came closer, I could make out details. The ship was made of some bluish, shining metal that I took to be chromium, or some compound of chromium, and there was a small circular port in the side presented to us. Set into the blunt nose of the ship was a ring of small disks, reddish in color, and deeply pitted, whether by electrical action or oxidization, I could not determine. Around the more pointed stern were innumerable small vents, pointed rearward, and smoothly stream-lined into the body. The body of the ship fairly glistened, but it was dented and deeply scratched in a number of places, and around the stern vents the metal was a dark, iridescent blue, as though stained by heat.

The chanting stopped as we reached the dais, and I turned to our guide.

He motioned that Hendricks and I were to precede him up a narrow, curving ramp that led upwards, while the three Zenians who accompanied us were to remain below. I nodded my approval of this arrangement, and slowly we made our way to the top of the great platform, while the pennon-bearers formed a close circle around its base, and the people, who had surrounded the great building filed in with military precision and took seats. In the short s.p.a.ce of time that it took us to reach the top of the dais, the whole great building filled itself with humanity.

Artur turned to that great sea of faces and made a sweeping gesture, as of benediction.

"Toma annerson!" His voice rang out like the clear note of a bell, filling that vast auditorium. In a great wave, the a.s.sembled people seated themselves, and sat watching us, silent and motionless.

Artur walked to the edge of the dais, and stood for a moment as though lost in thought. Then he spoke, not in the language which I understood, but in a melodious tongue which was utterly strange. His voice was grave and tender; he spoke with a degree of feeling which stirred me even though I understood no word that he spoke. Now and again I heard one recognizable sequence of syllables, that now familiar phrase, "toma annerson."

"Wonder what that means, sir?" whispered Hendricks. "'Toma annerson?'

Something very special, from the way he brings it out. And do you know what we are here for, and what all this means?"

"No," I admitted. "I have some ideas, but they're too wild for utterance. We'll just go slow, and take things as they come."

As I spoke, Artur concluded his speech, and turned to us.

"John Hanson," he said softly, "our people would hear your voice."

"But--but what am I to say?" I stammered. "I don't speak their language."

"It will be enough," he muttered, "that they have heard your voice."

He stood aside, and there was nothing for me to do but walk to the edge of the platform, as he had done, and speak.

My own voice, in that hushed silence, frightened me. I would not have believed that so great a gathering could maintain such utter, deathly silence. I stammered like a school-child reciting for the first time before his cla.s.s.

"People of Strobus," I said--this is as nearly as I remember it, and perhaps my actual words were even less intelligent--"we are glad to be here. The welcome accorded us overwhelms us. We have come ... we have come from worlds like your own, and ... and we have never seen a more beautiful one. Nor more kindly people. We like you, and we hope that you will like us. We won't be here long, anyway. I thank you!"

I was perspiring and red-faced by the time I finished, and I caught Hendricks in the very act of grinning at his commander's discomfiture.

One black scowl wiped that grin off so quickly, however, that I thought I must have imagined it.

"How was that, Artur?" I asked. "All right?"

"Your words were good to hear, John Hanson," he nodded gravely. "In behalf----"

The hundreds of blue lights hung from the vaulted roof clacked suddenly and went out. Almost instantly they flashed on again--and then clicked out. A third time they left us momentarily in darkness, and, when they came on again, a murmur that was like a vast moan rose from the sea of humanity surrounding the dais. And the almost beautiful features of Artur were drawn and ghastly with pain.

"They come!" he whispered. "At this hour, they come!"

"Who, Artur?" I asked quickly. "Is there some danger?"

"Yes. A very great one. I will tell you, but first--" He strode to the edge of the dais and spoke crisply, his voice ringing out like the thin cry of military bra.s.s. The thousands in the auditorium rose in unison, and swept down the aisles toward the doors.

"Now," cried Artur, "I shall tell you the meaning of that signal. For three or four generations, we have awaited it with dread. Since the last anniversary of his coming, we have known the time was not far off.

And it had to come at this moment! But this tells you nothing.

"The signal warns us that the Neens have at last made good their threat to come down upon us with their great hordes. The Neens were once men like ourselves, who would have none of Him"--and Artur glanced toward the gleaming ship upon the dais--"nor His teachings. They did not like the new order, and they wandered off, to join those outcasts who had broken His laws, and had been sent to the smaller land of this world, where it is always warm, and where there are great trees thick with moss, and the earth underfoot steams, and brings forth wriggling life.

Neen, we call that land, as this larger land is called Libar.

"These men of Neen became the enemies of Libar, and of us who call ourselves Libars, and follow His ways. In that warm country they became brown, and their hair darkened. They increased more rapidly than did the Libars, and as they forgot their learning, their bodies developed in strength.

"Yet they have always envied us; envied us the beauty of our women, and of our cities. Envied us those things which He taught us to make, and which their clumsy hands cannot fashion, and which their brutish brains do not understand.

"And now they have the overwhelming strength that makes us powerless against them." His voice broke, he turned his face away, that I might not see the agony written there.

"Toma annerson!" he muttered. "Ah, toma annerson!" The words were like a prayer.

"Just a minute, Artur!" I said sharply. "What weapons have they? And what means of travel?"

He turned with a hopeless gesture.

"They have the weapons we have," he said. "Spears and knives and short spears shot from bows. And for travel they have vast numbers of monocars they have stolen from us, generation after generation."

"Monocars?" I asked, startled.

"Yes. He Who Speaks gave us that secret. Ah, He was wise; to hear His voice was to feel in touch with all the wisdom of all the air!" He made a gesture as though to include the whole universe.

There were a score of questions in my mind, but there was no time for them then. I s.n.a.t.c.hed my menore from its clip on my belt, and adjusted it quickly. It was a huge and c.u.mbersome thing, the menore of that day, but it worked as well as the fragile, bejeweled things of today. Maybe better. The guard posted outside the ship responded instantly.

"Commander Hanson emanating," I shot at him. "Present my compliments to Mr. Correy, and instruct him as follows: He is to withdraw the outside guard instantly, and proceed with the _Ertak_ to the large domed building in the center of the city. He will bring the _Ertak_ to rest at the lowest possible alt.i.tude above the building, and receive further orders at that time. Repeat these instructions."

The guard returned the orders almost word for word, and I removed the menore with a little flourish. Oh, I was young enough in those days!

"Don't worry any more, Artur," I said crisply. "I don't know who _He_ was, but we'll show you some tricks you haven't seen yet! Come!"

I led the way down the ramp, Hendricks, Artur, and the three Zenians following. As we came out into the daylight, a silent shadow fell across the great avenue that ran before the entrance, and there, barely clearing the shining roof of the auditorium, was the sleek, fat bulk of the _Ertak_. Correy had wasted no time in obeying orders.