"It was not a rock!"
The thought came into his mind clear and unmistakable. Then Hugh found himself staring into the beryl-green eyes of the stately keeper of the jewel. Like a flash, the scene he had not witnessed, of Jim Brannigan stalking him from the space-ship, the murderous blow and the vision of himself lying in a pool of blood on the glittering expanse of oxide crystals, was etched into his mind by the telepathic power of the Panadur.
"We know you would have spared us," came the uncanny stream of thought. "Your companion captured me when I, as the chosen leader, went to investigate your arrival. But you deliberately let me go when it meant your own life. But he, whose fur was like the angry spot of the greater world, would have destroyed us. We read his thoughts."
"Telepathy, by Mercury's molten heart!" Hugh exclaimed in awe, dimly sensing the prodigious mental power of the being. "And we were going to eat one of them!" He stared around the cave, remembering Jim Brannigan, and it was apparent that Hugh still didn't realize all that had occurred. "I suppose that murdering, mercenary scum's left long ago with the ship, and here I'm stranded! If I ever get my hands on him——"
"That you will never do."
Hugh was aware of the Panadur again, and he saw the shadowy copy of a smile flit over its features.
"We gave you of our energy," the shimmering silver being transmitted. "And we gave you of another life that you might have yours again. It was but justice!"
"What? What other life?" And then Hugh tottered where he stood, swayed sickeningly, as the entire meaning burst upon him. He remembered the scenes in his delirium, when two circles, one of which enclosed him and another that enclosed a huddled figure, had been formed by Panadurs, while a living chain of the brooding creatures joined the two circles together. He shuddered as he remembered that his own circle seemed to expand as the other inexorably contracted!
"There was no choice!" The limpid thought-message from the Panadur impinged upon Hugh's mind. "We know the secret of the release of electronic energy by the disassociation of electronic and neutronic balance in the atomic scale. We reverse the vibration of matter and through magnetic means draw a steady stream of energy—pure energy from matter in whatever state. In your case, we simply transmitted the energy content of the red-furred one to you."