“Oh, she’s not so much,” I said, casually. “She is too pale, for one thing. Tell me, Oomlag, what is this dinner you have ordered for me? How do you grow anything fit to eat down here? What is this soup made of?”
Before me, in hollow stone dishes, was a repast of hot soup, vegetables and bread. The only utensil was a large spoon made of some sort of fibre.
“While you eat,” said Oomlag, stretching his long legs and adjusting his jacket, “I shall endeavor to explain things to you. Before I can answer your questions, it is necessary to trace out certain other things. Take your soup and tell me what you think of it.”
I did so, finding it very delicious, rather like mock turtle. I told him it was very palatable.
“I am glad you like it. It is a combination of crushed yucca roots and prairie dog bones, prepared according to our own formula.”
I made a wry face and laid the spoon down.
“Ah, I see your imagination tells you the soup is not so good.” Oomlag grinned horribly, his yellow lips baring his sharp teeth. “Strange how you creatures allow your imagination to dictate your likes and dislikes. If I had not told you the ingredients of that soup, you would have enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, having told you, you find it disagreeable, though you just finished saying it was good. You might as well learn to like it, for you will have it every day. The vegetables are—but I must begin at the beginning. Not such bad bread, is it?”
“TO begin with, we are, as I told you before, from Venus. Our scientists have spent centuries in perfecting a machine for interplanetary flight. We have long had the necessary power. The problem was to determine the relative position of the two planets, the pull of gravity of the sun, Venus and your earth, the time necessary to make the flight, the provisioning and ventilating of the projectile, the perfecting of a device to detect and repel meteorites, and countless other problems, all vitally important. The data for all this was handed down from generation to generation, and finally everything had been thought of.
“No doubt you have been curious to know why the Field General interrogated you about bismuth and radium. He has had too much to do supervising things here, so has only a smattering of your languages; but that question he felt he should ask you personally. The reason is, we have an element about half-way in the atomic scale between bismuth and radium which gives us unlimited power by the breaking up of its atoms. We know that this element does exist on this earth, and the Field General thought perhaps you knew of its discovery. That, however, is only incidental, and not the reason for bringing you here.