"Thank you, Klalmar-lan," answered Denny simply. "However, I've got to warn you—there's something rotten on our side of it. Those Things spoke English—and had a pretty fair knowledge of Earth science and Earth affairs."
"Yes, we know where the rotten spot is located," replied Klalmar-lan. "He's been building up a machinery against us for some time, unknown to some of you who worked nearest him. Got away with several of our secrets, too—the force field, for one—"
"The force field!" ejaculated Art. "That's how he got Haight! Remember that night, Elene?"
"Of course," she cried. "Haight had found the secret of the Ghlak-Ileth and their high radium content."
"Yes," agreed Klalmar-lan, "and that secret Dr. Theller knew he must suppress at all costs. The force field he no doubt projected as a beam through some hidden port in the laboratory roof. Playing it about like an invisible searchlight, he met the incoming flier with a barrier as effective as a stone wall."
"The Voornizar must have contacted him long ago, and made some kind of deal—probably offered him all the radium he could use," mused Art. "I would guess that he planned to establish a new laboratory on Venus—that's why he was so interested in that city you found, Denny—interested enough to discredit your story on Earth, and order you held by the Voornizar!"
"And to go a step farther," interjected Klalmar-lan, "I will wager that we find the Voornizar's base not so far from that city."
"What ghastly treachery!" gasped Elene. "To betray his own Mother Earth to annihilation. Already millions have died—"
Art, watching her, saw her freeze in silence. He tried to glance at the others, but his eyeballs would not move in their sockets. He tried to move; his whole body was gripped in a rigid paralysis! There was utter silence and stillness in the hurtling ship. Art's thoughts were racing. What fools they had been, flocking around Denny's bunk when he came to. They had totally neglected to watch the control panel, where the mass detector would have warned them of an approaching ship. Now they had been surprised and seized with the same deadly paralysis that had trapped Denny before.
The air lock swung inward. None of the four were surprised to see Dr. Theller step through the port, keeping a careful distance between himself and the two grotesque monstrosities who followed him. Theller was without space suit or arms. Art stared with horrified fascination at the two Voornizar. The dazzling, white hot radiance that ceaselessly flowed from them made it difficult to identify their form. They seemed to have none; yet they could take any shape. Fundamentally, they were a tube about a foot in diameter and some seven feet high. They had a slit-like mouth near the top, and a huge crystalline eye which surmounted their exact top. They seemed to favor a bilateral form, although the number of pairs of arms appeared indeterminate. But as Art watched, above each slit mouth appeared a huge beak nose and above this, deep, staring sightless hollows. A horrible caricature of a human face! Demoniac laughter came from the lipless mouth of one!