“You know what is bismuth?”
“Yes.”
“You know any in between?”
“What do you mean by that, sir?” I inquired.
The Field General spoke a few rapid words to Oomlag, who said to me: “He means, do you know of any element of atomic weight between bismuth and radium? You know, of course, they are roughly 208 and 225, using 16 for oxygen as the standard, and I promise you, on my word, that if you can place any element in that gap, you will be well rewarded for the information.”
“There has been none discovered that I know of,” I replied.
“That is all,” said the Field General, curtly, adding something in his own tongue to Oomlag.
Again came the high-pitched humming sound, and the lights dimmed perceptibly. The creatures round about, who had regarded me stolidly during my short conversation with the Field General, now broke up into little groups of four or five and walked off in different directions.
From this large room, which was the executive chamber of the Field General, branched four tunnels, about twenty feet in height and the same in width, lighted at intervals of some hundred feet by octagonal globes, set in niches in the solid rock and projecting out at an angle of 45 degrees. Down one of these tunnels Oomlag now bade me walk, himself striding along beside me, like some over-fantastic figure in a parade of mummers. We had only gone a short distance from where the tunnel branched from the Executive Chamber when I noticed that on both sides appeared, at regular intervals, large curtains or hangings of material resembling the jackets these people wore, both in color and material.
“These hangings,” said Oomlag, in the same way a guide would point out and explain objects of interest to a tourist, “conceal doors to our apartment houses. Our mode of life is practically the same as yours; we breathe, we take food through our mouth, we require shelter, we mate, we are gregarious. The apartments proper I am not permitted to show you, but this I can say: they are hewn from the solid rock, as are all these tunnels, by our own machine brought from Venus. As you shall probably spend several years down here with us, it is desirable that you should have this preliminary trip and explanation before you are assigned to quarters. By the way, Stan-lee—I forgot you are an earth creature and subject to more frequent pangs of hunger than we. Do you care for food or drink? It is only a short distance to the dining room of our involuntary visitors, and I shall be glad to take you there before we go further. What do you say?”