“Why has Elmer got Charlie?” he demanded. “What did he say in that book?”
Buster hesitated. From where he sat, the Earthman could sense the confusion that tore him.
“O. K.,” said Lathrop calmly, “I’ll have to let you have it.”
“Wait!” shrieked Buster. “I’ll tell you!”
His thought-words were tumbling over one another. “Dr. Carter said the Martians might be still alive. Elmer doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want anyone to even think they’re still alive.”
“Are they?” snapped Lathrop.
“Yes. Yes, they’re still alive. But they aren’t here. They’re some place else. They went into another world. They were afraid of the things from outer space. So they made themselves small. Too small to be of any consequence. They reasoned that when the Evil Beings came they would pass right by them, never even guess that they were there.”
“The thing that took me out in space was a Martian, then?”
“Yes, they come out of their world, get big again, to take Earthmen out in space. To show them the evil out there, convince them they cannot fight it, hoping they, too, will do what the Martians did.”
Lathrop was silent, reflecting, trying to straighten out his mind. At the bottom of the stairs, Buster fidgeted.