THE lights had now reached their maximum, giving the huge room the effect of being flooded by intensely bright moonlight. Behind me, and on all sides, stood scores of these creatures, similar in appearance to the Field General on the throne, except that they wore dull green jackets instead of brick-red. They stood motionless, regarding me stolidly with their smoldering, beady eyes.
Oomlag stepped forward and saluted his commander with a sweeping motion of his right arm. He said something in a strange, guttural tongue, and the Field General evidently plied him with questions about me, for they kept up a long conversation, often glancing my way. Finally Oomlag turned to me.
“The Field General wants to ask you a few questions,” he said, stepping to one side.
The Field General regarded me intently for several moments. I quailed under the inspection of those calculating, cat-like, inhuman eyes of his. The only difference between him and what might be imagined in a nightmare was that he was the real thing—actual and horrible to look upon. With his loose, ochre lips exposing the sharp front teeth at every word, he spoke in a pronounced guttural accent, his English quite limited and hard to understand.
“You work rock work?” he asked with difficulty.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, my heart pounding against my ribs for all I could do to calm myself. “I’m a geologist.”
A short interjection by Oomlag evidently explained to the Field General what a geologist was.
“You know then what is r-r-radium?”
“Yes.”