"Yes. Now turn off here."
We turned off the main road and followed a rutted trail onto an old farm.
The farmhouse was a wreck, but the barn still good. Our ship was in there.
The door opened as we walked toward the barn. Ristal's tall figure was framed in the doorway, and behind him stood Kresh, broad and ungainly. The others crowded up behind them.
"Good work, Marko," Ristal said. We went into the ship, which filled the whole interior of the barn.
"This is Commander Ristal, of the Venusian Intelligence," I told Copperd and Beth.
"What's your official title?" Beth asked bitterly.
"I am a special agent and language expert," I told her. Then I explained why I had brought them here.
"Our civilization is in some way far in advance of yours. As you see, we have mastered interplanetary travel. But it is essentially a peaceful civilization. Our weapons, such as we have, are of limited range and power.
"When it became known that Earth was developing monstrous weapons of aggression we realized that we must be prepared for the worst. There was only one way to discover what you already had and what you were working on. Once we arrived here we found that a man named Copperd was the prime figure in his country's atomic weapons research. It became our duty to seek him out."