"Hey!" cried out another civilian. "I thought there were only five psychos in camp! One billion years! What the—"
"Yes," put in Dr. Edwards, with an impatient scowl, "this business of extrapolating is next to nothing, as it leads nowhere. By the boy's own argument I could give the rebuttal that if a billion years have passed then Venus may have had time to finally develop an ionosphere and thus be able to support the higher forms of life. Behold! I submit that we are on Venus!" This was followed by sympathetic laughter all around.
"Wait now," insisted Dr. Bauml. "Give the boy a chance! Henry, you have let me down into mere hypothesis, but we might as well have all of it. Let me ask you a question. If the sun has cooled, why are we surrounded by all this evidence of lush, tropical life? We should be freezing!"
Henry replied immediately. "Either the ionosphere has developed a sustained reaction that provides us with heat and the regular, life sustaining quanta, while absorbing the hard radiations, or—" He paused, groping suddenly for words.
"Or what!" demanded Dr. Edwards.
"Or someone has set up nuclear heating plants all over the planet, or their equivalents. Wait!" He held up his hand as Dr. Edwards joined half the others in derisive laughter. "Go back to that alien creature who stole the babies. Just before he disappeared, precipitating us into our present environment, he spoke to us in a gutteral language that was vaguely familiar. You were present, Doctor Bauml, when he spoke. I understand you recognized that language. What was it?"
Dr. Edwards sobered. He and Merman and Burley and the others stared at the diminutive astronomer. The latter looked embarrassed.
"I—am German, as you know," he said. "As such I was naturally familiar with Middle High German, owing to my educational background. That is what this alien spoke. I only caught a few words, which were to the effect that no harm would come to any of us if we did something or other."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" queried Merman. "If that freak spoke German—"