"How do we know these facts?"
As though it were a signal, the entire class, with one accord, uttered a single word: "Runled!"
And the doctor found his agent's eyes turned, together with those of every other student in the room, toward the portrait of a highly intellectual-looking man; it hung in the most conspicuous spot on the wall.
"We must never forget," continued the man on the platform, "that, but for the explorations of this man and his space-boat, some eighty years ago, we should know very little. Can any one tell me why his explorations have never been repeated?"
Two hands went up. The professor nodded to a girl seated next to the young fellow whom the doctor now knew as "Ernol." This girl spoke very clearly: "Because the expedition was extremely costly, and the commission has never been willing to appropriate enough to duplicate the work."
"The commission's judgment is, of course, sound," commented the professor calmly. Then he signaled for a change in the picture, which had been showing, in rapid succession, glimpses of world after world. The new picture was more leisurely.
"The planet Alma. Can any one explain why it is of special interest to us?"
For a moment there was no comment, and the doctor found himself studying a "panorama" of some exceedingly striking people. There was quite a crowd; and the doctor was amazed to note how much like the Venusians they were. Without exception they were delicately built, with thin, shriveled legs; all were seated, none standing, in cigar-shaped aircraft of a type entirely new to the doctor.
"The people of Alma," spoke up a boy out of sight of Ernol, "are especially interesting to us because they are, so far as is known, the most highly developed beings in existence."
"In what way are they like us?"