"I not only want it," said Gary earnestly, "but must have it. Time is growing perilously short."
"And how do we know that this message is not a trick of your Earth government to save your spying hides? We have no reason to trust Earth."
Lane bit his lip. There it was again, the old, oft-told story of Earth's greed and selfishness now working against the better interests of all the planets.
"No, maybe not," he acknowledged, "but—"
"But—" interrupted Flick Muldoon, always to be depended upon in an emergency for clear and logical reasoning—"All our talk ain't worth a tinker's dam. The proof lies in the sky above us. Tell your astronomers to turn their 'scopes on Mercury. What's happening there should prove or disprove that radiogram's honesty."
The Chief Councillor nodded judicially.
"The Earthman is right. The truth or falsity of this message is beyond Earth's power to dissemble. We shall see and judge for ourselves. You leaders of the Earth party, come with us. Your crew shall remain here." He addressed his own warriors. "Show them every comfort—but guard them well. For if this message turns out to be a hoax—"
He let his words dwindle into silence, but the silence was pregnant with meaning.
Thus it was that the members of the Jovian Supreme Council and the arbiters of the Liberty's course convened presently within Pangré's magnificent observatory. Here, awed, they saw proof of the great and learned culture which was Jupiter's. For not even upon Earth nor sage Mars had ever been erected an edifice so complete and so impressive as this.
The size of the reflecting telescope to which a hurriedly summoned Chief Astronomer led them was one to stagger the imagination. It was greater by half again than the monstrous tube constructed by Kang's people on the desert planet. So huge was it that a 200 inch 'scope, equal in size to the proud but primitive instrument used by Earthmen at Mount Palomar in the Twentieth Century, was here employed simply as a spotter for the larger telescope.