No muscle moved on the aged Martian's features, but his eyes were dark pools of bewilderment. "There is something terribly wrong. I did depress the button. The force-shield should have worked. I—I do not understand!"
Then there was time for no more, for the Jovian commander was prodding them into motion, and his voice was unequivocably harsh.
"To the Hall with them, that they may be judged and sentenced for this vile treachery!"
Thus, not as free men freely seeking a gift of equals, but as already half-adjudged and half-condemned captives, were the space venturers transported to the Council Hall of Pangré.
Here sat in judgment upon them white robed and diademed beings of a race not now to be found on any of the inner planets. The azure-tinted people who, if Dr. Kang's explanation were true, had in eons past spread culture throughout the whole of the solar system.
The judging of the Liberty's equipage was a swift formality, speedily concluded. The Jovian council's handling of the case was a travesty of justice. It listened to the tale told by its fellow members, crisply abbreviated Gary Lane's attempt at explanation, and the half score Councillors conferred briefly amongst themselves.
Then one, their leader, turned to address the Earthmen. "It is enough! We have decided. By the powers invested in us, the Supreme Council of Ahura-Pangré, we do hereby determine and judge—"
"But," cried Gary Lane, "you haven't listened to our story ... haven't heard our reasons for coming here...."
"That since in violation of every rule and precept of interplanetary law you, a group of criminal felons from a neighbor planet, have made landing without permission upon our world—"