The Gogean shrugged. "Darkness ... light ... what difference do these things make? We whose lives are spent in everlasting night make no distinction. Long years ago we were forced to either lose the power uff vision entirely or adapt our eyesight to seeing in the dark. Our people haff done the latter.
"When, years ago, the Magogeans with the help of their diabolic ultrawave cannon succeeded in overthrowing our empire, those uff us who were not slain sought refuge here on the eternally dark side of Magog."
"Eternally dark side!" broke in Dr. Kang. "But of course! I had guessed the period of axial revolution might be slow, but did not realize it coincided exactly with that of your planet's orbital revolution about its primary. Like our solar planet Mercury, Magog presents always the same face to its sun!"
"True," said Tsalnor bitterly. "And for two decades haff our people languished here, never seeing the glorious light uff day, save when a few members uff daring expeditions venture into the Twilight Zone for essential supplies we cannot here obtain."
"But—but don't the Magogeans know you are here? There must be many of you."
Tsalnor said bitterly, "We number in the hundreds uff thousands. And they know we are here, yes. But they dare attack us no more than we have dared attack their fortified cities. There exists between us an implacable hatred, but an armed truce. For neither force dares meet its enemy on that enemy's home terrain.
"Yes," he continued, "we who were millions now number in the hundreds uff thousands. But those who claim Gog is dead would eat their words to see the cities we haff hewn from these harsh rocks. We haff culture here, libraries and science.
"And—" he gritted—"an ever watchful army uff men who will someday arise to reclaim that which is rightfully theirs!"
Dr. Kang roused suddenly from an attitude of thought. "There is one thing which puzzles me, Tsalnor. Your knowledge of the language of our universe. You addressed us not only in modern Jovian tongue but in Universal and English as well. How knew you these languages?"