“It is just about twelve o’clock at night,” Steinholt informed him.
“Have these Lodorians made any demands yet?” Dirk asked. “Does anybody know what they are going to do or what they want?”
“They are liable to do almost anything,” said Lazarre, “and it looks as though they will be able to get anything that they want. Teuxical, as I understand it, just gave you a slight shock with his death-ray device. If he had pulled the trigger all the way you would have become just a little pile of dust that the first breeze would have blown away.”
“Our own death-rays are somewhat similar,” said Steinholt, “but they are not a hundredth as powerful. And they won’t work on the Lodorians, either,” he added, “because those metal sheaths that they wear make them immune to all kinds of destructive rays.”
“It appears,” remarked Lazarre morosely, “as if this little world of ours is going to be taken for a ride. And it’s too bad, considering that it’s the only world we’ve got. There has been no formal presentation of demands yet, but it seems to be sort of understood that the earth is going to become a tributary of Lodore. It is a good thing,” he added, “that Teuxical, and not Zitlan, is the boss of that outfit. I don’t like the looks of that young fellow. He’s only twelve hundred years old and he is sort of hot-blooded, I guess.”
“I was talking with Anteucan,” said Steinholt, “and he told me that the Lodorians usually make heavy levies on worlds which they discover and dominate. As soon as Teuxical returns to Lodore and announces a new discovery a fleet of those damned monsters is sent out to mop up the new planet. That Malfero, who is the emperor of Lodore, is considerable of a monarch, and it seems that he has a passion for piling up wealth. Gold and platinum are as precious on Lodore as they are here and he also likes pretty stones.”
“And what is worse,” added Steinholt, “is his practice of enslaving entire populations and making toilers or warriors out of them. Those soldiers on the ship are not Lodorians. Millions of them were seized on some planet and converted into troops. It was a strange conversion, too,” said Steinholt with a shudder. “Their brains were operated on and most of their faculties removed. They have no sense of fear, no consciences, no power of reasoning. They respond only to certain signals on a whistle and their only definite and active impulse is that of murder and destruction.”
“There is nothing to do,” said Dirk positively, “but to kill all of these interlopers, if we hope to save our world from being desolated.”