"Sure I know more about it than they do. I understand the fifth and sixth orders, and you can't get the full benefit of any order until you know all about the next one. Just like mathematics—nobody can really handle trigonometry until after he has had calculus. And as to who they are, the folks in that fort are of course natives of the planet, and they may well be people more or less like us. It's dollars to doughnuts, though, that those vessels are manned by the inhabitants of that interloping planet—that form of life I was telling you about—and it's up to us to pull their corks if we can. There, I'm ready to go, I think. We'll visit the ship first."
The visible projection disappeared and, their images now invisible patterns of force, they stood inside the control room of one of the invaders. The air bore the faint, greenish-yellow tinge of chlorin; the walls were banked and tiered with controlling dials, meters, and tubes; and sprawling, lying, standing, or hanging before those controls were denizens of the chlorin planet. No two of them were alike in form. If one of them was using eyes he had eyes everywhere; if hands, hands by the dozen, all differently fingered, sprouted from one, two, or a dozen supple and snaky arms.
But the inspection was only momentary. Scarcely had the unseen visitors glanced about the interior when the visibeam was cut off sharply. The peculiar beings had snapped on a full-coverage screen and their vessel, now surrounded by the opaque spherical mirror of a zone of force, was darting upward and away—unaffected by gravity, unable to use any of her weapons, but impervious to any form of matter or to any ether-borne wave.
"Huh! 'We didn't come over here to get peeked at,' says they." Seaton snorted. "Amœbic! Must be handy, though, at that, to sprout eyes, arms, ears, and so on whenever and wherever you want to—and when you want to rest, to pull in all such impedimenta and subside into a senseless green blob. Well, we've seen the attackers, now let's see what the natives look like. They can't cut us off without sending their whole works sky-hooting off into space."
The visibeam sped down into the deepest sanctum of the fortress without hindrance, revealing a long, narrow control table at which were seated men—men not exactly like the humanity of Earth, of Norlamin, of Osnome, or of any other planet, but undoubtedly men, of the genus homo.
"You were right, Dick." Crane the anthropologist now spoke. "It seems that on planets similar to Earth in mass, atmosphere, and temperature, wherever situated, man develops. The ultimate genes must permeate universal space itself."
"Maybe—sounds reasonable. But did you see that red light flash on when we came in? They've got detectors set on the gravity band—look at the expression on their faces."
Each of the seated men had ceased his activity and was slumped down into his chair. Resignation, hopeless yet bitter, sat upon lofty, domed brows and stared out of large and kindly eyes.
"Oh, I get it!" Seaton exclaimed. "They think the chlorins are watching them—as they probably do most of the time—and they can't do anything about it. Should think they could do the same—or could broadcast an interference—I could help them on that if I could talk to them—wish they had an educator, but I haven't seen any—" He paused, brow knitted in concentration. "I'm going to make myself visible to try a stunt. Don't talk to me; I'll need all the brain power I've got to pull this off."