"Ah, yes! That would be the invention of the Gaanelian lord, Rudra. He was a brilliant one. He invented also a Bow. A frightful weapon. Had it been mine, never would Ravana have dared rise against me. Where is the Bow now? Does not Sugriva have it?"
"It is here," Ramey told him grimly, "at Lanka. So far it has done Ravana no good, because it isn't charged for operation. But he has sent his men out to find the precious element which operates it. If he gets the ammunition before we can invade Lanka, I'm afraid the fight will be over. What is this ammunition, anyway?" It was a question that had long puzzled Ramey. "Some rare type of explosive?"
"A metal," explained Vibhishana. "What your tongue would call it, I do not know. We know it as the element banaratha. A metal more rare than perfect gold; yea, even rarer than the dull platinum of Earth's frigid poles. You are indeed undone, Ramey Winters, if my brother has located enough of it to fuel the Bow of Rudra." He shook his head sadly. "It is a shame he brings down upon the fair name of Videlia, my power-greedy brother. Whether he win or lose, for ages to come shall the name of my home planet be associated with the thoughts of war, death and conquest."
He spoke, thought Ramey with a strange tingling in his spine, more truly than he knew. And a dim wonderment grew in Ramey that he, a Twentieth Century man, should listen to a prediction made centuries before his birth, and recognize that prophecy to have been fulfilled. For in the world from which Ramey had come, the name of Vibhishana's homeland, Mars, was invariably, inevitably, associated with thoughts of war, death and conquest. And this for no reason known to the memory of living man....
But he said, "Then you shared not Ravana's desire?"
"Shared it!" Vibhishana's voice deepened angrily. "You dare accuse me—I am sorry, Ramey Winters. You did not mean to offend, I know. But believe me, never for an instant did I, when I ruled Lanka, harbor any lust for dominion over your people. With the Gaanelian lord I cherished the dream that we of the more advanced cultures might help improve your planet, make it a finer world for your people. All I asked of earthmen was their allegiance, small territorial rights on which to base a sound commerce and a solid economy between our two homelands.
"Perhaps—" he continued almost wistfully—"even more than Sugriva I cherished this hope. For his race, the blue ones of Gaanelia, are after all of a different stock. We of Videlia, and you of Earth, are of the same seed. Behold your companion, Ramey Winters. Can you deny that from the same source sprang the root which was to nourish us both?"
There was, indeed, a great similarity between Sheng-ti and Vibhishana. Both were tall, both almost beardless by nature, both ochre-skinned. And the "Mongolian fold," that small, peculiarly creased fold of flesh which lends obliquity to the typical Oriental eye, was common to both men.
Ramey said, perplexed, "But—but that would indicate that ages before this your world must have had intercourse with ours. Yet Sugriva said his planet was the first to develop space-travel—"