But Danny motioned helplessly to the official at his side. "Maybe you can savvy that," he suggested; "it's new talk to me."
The newcomer repeated the guttural sounds. Upon the Director's face was a frown of suspicion and puzzled wonder; the Director General did not like to encounter either happenings or persons he could not readily understand; it was disturbing to one's official dignity. The giant must have read some of this, for he tried to make himself clear.
He repeated the sentences slowly. Then he waved one huge hand in air and pointed upward, and the hand moved up and up as if to indicate some tremendous distance. He pointed to himself; then brought one aiming finger down as if he were coming from that far-off place. And Danny got the significance.
"It's happened!" he told the Director explosively. "I knew it would come some day—I knew they'd get here! And us monkeyin' with our stratosphere ships and thinkin' we were beatin' the rest of the Universe!"
The Director regarded the young American with about the same degree of disfavor as he had shown the giant. "What is it you say?" he questioned. "You mean—what? I do not understand."
And, in careful words, Danny explained. He told the Director of District Three something of his dreams that space might not be an insurmountable bar; he told him, with enthusiasm driving his words out faster and faster, that here was a man—or if not a man, a living creature of some sort—that had come out of space.
"Where did they find him?" he demanded. "Where is his ship?"
But he ceased to ask questions as he noticed the Director's mirth. For that official was rocking with roaring laughter that had a distinctly uncomplimentary sound. And he added some words in Russian that were as incomprehensible to Danny as the growling talk of the giant man, but the O'Rourke temper flamed as he saw the other Russians in the room smiling appreciatively.
Then: "Take him away!" the Director thundered. "We'll see where he comes from. Search him! And if he hasn't any passports—" The unended sentence was suggestive.