Art called and had a huge two ton block of granite brought in by the overhead crane. In its lower side he ordered some workmen to chip a cavity, a little larger than the creature on the table. The thing was dropped on the floor, and the block carefully lowered over it, so that it was imprisoned in the cavity. Art had a hunch that it would have made little difference to the creature whether it was allowed the cavity, or merely had the block dropped on it. A little shudder ran through him at the thought of such unearthly strength. He decided to go to lunch, before he got too deeply involved.
Passing through the outer office, he met Elene Moor, lovely secretary to Doctor Theller, Chief Director of the Institute and his immediate superior. He had known Elene in college before securing this position, and he remembered the sudden elation he had felt when he discovered that he would be working near the girl for whom he had felt such a hopeless yearning in school. She had been so popular, so surrounded by young men whose zest for life, talent for fun, and supply of ready cash had utterly overwhelmed him. Now, after five years of Interplanetary, such a dull apathy had settled over him that even Elene's golden loveliness failed to stir him.
"Might as well lunch with me, Elene," he said, seeing that she was about to leave. "I have an interesting topic of conversation for the first time in ages, it seems. In fact, I'm very anxious to tell you about it."
She looked at him closely. Something certainly had aroused his interest. His keen blue eyes were alight, and his rugged frame seemed to be invested with a nervous energy which had long been dormant. Elene was glad; he almost looked like the Art she had loved, and had such hopes for, when he had first come to the Institute. But his fine intellect had seemingly withered, stultified by the impossible situation which existed at Interplanetary in the year 2186. Several centuries of scientific struggling had finally produced a mode of interplanetary travel. In 2135, successful landings and safe returns had been made to and from Mars. A year later, Venus was also reached. But fifty-one years had produced little knowledge of any value; progress was at a standstill. Certainly the Martians had been found to be a highly developed and scientific race. They were peaceful and friendly. But they were also very wise. They were acquainted with the history of man on Earth as far back as the time of Christ. Their astronomical instruments made it possible to see plainly events there, under the proper conditions. With the coming of wireless, they had been able to intercept any and all signals they chose. They knew about all they needed or wanted to know about Earth. That was what made them so wary. For they had seen the torture of the early Christians, and the cruel subjugation of the known world by the Romans. They had seen in turn, the overrunning of Rome by the barbarian hordes. They had known Attila the Hun. They had witnessed the Spanish Inquisition. They had seen the slaughter of the aborigines in the new world, their gradual extinction by the white colonists. They had known Napoleon, and most monstrous and horrible of all, Hitler. They had finally seen the Great Gas War, which had so decimated the ranks of mankind, that it had been necessary to set up the International Peace Council, which established peace by the only method which mankind seemed to be able to understand—force.
It was rather simple. The laws were very strict: briefly, the manufacture, transporting, or even possession of any kind of murder weapon, other than what might be carried by a man for his personal defense, was considered sufficient evidence of intent to kill, and carried a death penalty. The agents and inspectors of the Council were everywhere, entering any machine shop or factory at will, constantly checking all sources of raw material, making almost impossible any secret manufacture of any type of armament.
But even this could not convince the canny Martians—for they knew that thousands of years of barbarism were covered only by a thin veneer. At any time, man's innate desire to conquer, pillage, and exterminate another race might break through. The Martians well knew the age-old tactics of infiltration used by colonists of Earth. Consequently, only a few scheduled rocket trips per year were permitted. The personnel of each expedition was restricted to a few scientists, who were carefully investigated. They were allowed to study the language, customs, and art of Mars. But scientific achievements and secrets were taboo. No Earthman was permitted to roam at will on Mars—the knowledge they acquired there was given them by an interviewing committee of high ranking Martians, whose ability to sidestep a direct question was uncanny.
Of course, there were a few political hotheads on Earth who advocated building a huge fleet of rocket ships, powered with disintegrators, and sending an expedition to subdue the red planet. Naturally, this merely served to corroborate the bad opinion of Earth held by the superscientists of Mars. A few men, such as Doctor Theller and Art, knew what awful disasters such a move would bring. Not only did the Martians have weapons which made the terribly effective, but uncontrollable, atomic disintegrator look like a clumsy toy, but they could also throw up a force field around their entire planet, at an unknown height, against which any invading ship would smash into blazing fragments.
True, there was Venus. Venus, the Jungle Planet. There were two environments of Venus—water and jungle. Both were filled with a teeming growth of nightmarish monsters, among which had been found no intelligent beings. The creatures of Venus were born, fought and ate one another, bred and died. That was all. The whole thing was one vast aquarium. Most of the species had been classified during the ten years following the first landing. There had been many expeditions at first. But gradually they tapered off. Attempts at colonization were given up as hopeless. The climate was sultry and oppressive, but worst of all was the fact that practically all of the vegetation of Venus was poisonous to humans. Any food crops introduced from Earth were strangled by the lush native vegetation, which grew at an incredible rate. Venus had no economic value. Minerals there were, but the expense of freighting them back to Earth by rocket ship made mining impractical.