"It was decided that one master-scientist was to go, regardless of his age, to act as guide and counselor to the new race. I was chosen, and it was a very bad choice. You see, I was dying of cancer of the stomach at the time. Naturally, I protested, but they paid no attention. Instead they killed me."
"What?" gasped Myra.
"Exactly," said Gion. "They killed my body and locked my wise old brain in this glass case. Would you believe it—sometimes I get bored."
Steve laughed. "You know, Mr. Gion, you're amazing. Tell me, did your party ever get here?"
"No I'll tell you about the hairy people," said Gion reprovingly. "After we had set up our village and things were going along nicely, we met the people who lived on the planet long before we arrived. Those peach-colored scoundrels you've already met. Pack of thieves. They used to come around at night and steal anything they could lay their hands on. They would also watch up for hours while we worked and later imitate what we did. It didn't take them long to develop from dumb animals to malignantly intelligent creatures. Naturally we had to get rid of them.
"We drove them down to the sea. As we might have expected, they played a foul trick on us. They stole one of our ships and escaped across the ocean. Ever since they've been getting brighter and brighter and breeding like rabbits, until now they've overrun their continent and want ours. Naturally, we had to take steps."
"So you surrounded your continent with a field of insanity, producing vibrations to send them back gibbering?" asked Steve.
The voice laughed. "Is that what they told you? Crazy beasts—we did no such thing. It would be too much bother, too expensive and—well, impossible. Our defense is much simpler. We merely let them land and get out of their ships—then biff them with our insanity beam. And since we don't want any idiotic foreigners running around our forests, we pile them back into their ships and shoot them back home. Nothing to it."
Gion paused. Myra, who had been waiting for a propitious moment, said: