"I have been on a quest," said Peachy. "I have traveled through several solar systems looking for two subjects for experimentation. All that I visited, however, I found far too intelligent for my purposes. Now, at last, I am successful."
"Wh-at?" said Steve.
"Imagine," said Myra softly. "This little one-legged, three-armed, potato-headed, noseless squirt of fuzz came um-teen trillion miles just to insult us. Imagine!"
Peachy's home, the second of five planets that circled the sun, Bungula, in the constellation of Centauri, was a world about the size of Mars, but more nearly resembling Earth in every other respect. Seven-eighths of its surface was covered with water. The atmosphere they breathed was essentially Earth air. There were two continents on Siykul, on opposite sides of the globe, as well as minor islands scattered here and there in the seas. The poles were covered with ice the year round.
There were two dominant races on Siykul, one on each continent. According to Peachy, each was covetous of the other's land. His race was young, brilliant, industrious and ingenious. Their technicians, inventors and mechanics were unequaled anywhere in the cosmos, so far as he knew.
Theirs were great cities, factories, ships of the sea, land and air. Buildings stretched scores of tiers into the sky and down into the ground as far again. Rich in minerals and raw materials, their race was one with a brief past, but a promising future.
The other continent, however, was shockingly primitive. Vast forests and jungles stretched from one sea to the other. Aircraft passing overhead could make out only scattered and far apart settlements that might, possibly, house life. There were hundred-mile stretches in which no trace of a living thing could be found. The inhabitants, glimpsed occasionally, were immense, red, spidery things, evidently very savage.
Steve and Myra interrupted Peachy's story long enough to make themselves comfortable on chairs and choose fresh cigarettes.
"About how tremendous are these creatures, compared, say—to me?" asked Steve.