Then he spoke, slowly with a measured, sonorous voice of weird sepulchral tone. And what he said—it was as though here we faced a mental power too great to resist; as though there could be no question but that his thoughts must be our thoughts. I felt it with a sudden strange shudder—a radiance of thought from him, beating down, destroying whatever was within me of independent individualism. And the realization swept me; if I yielded to this radiance—these thought-waves, whatever they might be, then all that was Robert Rance would be gone. I would be nothing but an automaton.
He was saying, "You will listen. There are things I shall explain to you Earthmen. I have sent to Earth and brought you here—because each of you has a knowledge of many things on Earth that I wish to know."
I listened, numbed, somewhat perhaps as though hypnotized. In this Radak ruler's judgment, Blaine the banker, Mack the derelict, Shorty, myself and Vivian—the sum total of the myriad things that were stacked in our brains—were what now must go into his. Certainly a varied, representative strata of Earth-knowledge.
"You want to learn everything we know?" Blaine suddenly said. "How can you do that? Suppose we don't want to teach you? And why do you want to learn it? What are your plans? What I want to know is—do you realize who and what I am, on Earth?"
Of us all, undoubtedly the dominating nature of J. Walter Blaine made him best able to resist that weird mental force that was engulfing us. Yet his manner, his querulous, arrogant questions under these strange, unearthly conditions here on the Crimson Comet certainly were fatuous, childish. Mack gave a short, disagreeable laugh.
"On Earth, okay," Mack muttered. "But you don't amount to much here."
"Money of course, won't mean anything to you," Blaine was saying. "But I have other things on Earth—things you would want. Look here, if you'll send all these people away, I'll have a talk with you. I'll—"
He got no further. It seemed that a look of wonderment was upon the shriveled, ancient grey face. The eyes were darting little green fires. The measured voice said, "I shall attend to you later—" And then droned into the Radak tongue. Four of the squat little men marched upon Blaine, seizing him.
"What in the devil—stop that!" Blaine remonstrated. There was a scuffle beginning. I recall that I shouted,