“I am Carza, the queen of the moon.” She drew her form proudly erect and stared arrogantly at the little blonde girl on the couch. “You are aware of that now, Moawha,” she continued addressing the girl. “From this on you are my slave. Perhaps, a little later I shall slay you, and be rid of your pretensions forever.”
She paused, shrugged her shoulders, and smiled softly. It was not an angelic expression but it exhibited her even, white teeth, and proved exceedingly attractive to Toplinsky, and the others thought that she was quite exquisite.
“You are earth men.” She turned imperiously to Toplinsky. “You are wondering how I am able to speak to you in your own language? It is simple. For years our scientists have been getting peculiar words out of the air, and recording them on their space records. For a long time they could make little out of the noises from space but in time they concluded that they were hearing the people on the great world around which our smaller planet revolves every twenty-eight days. Were they correct in their surmise?”
She looked inquiringly at Toplinsky. He nodded in the affirmative, and with the grace of a courtier.
“Ah, ha, it is so, your most gracious majesty. We are charmed to meet a lady of such distinction.”
Carza knitted her eyebrows slightly, and then smiled sweetly at the giant.
“So they put their intellects to work, and gradually worked out an understanding of things that you call earthly as well as an ability to talk in your language.”
“Wonderful! Wonderful!” Toplinsky added. “Did they also discover a way of sending to the earth?”
She shook her head.
“Our instruments, it seemed, are not of a character that will put us into direct communication. We can hear but not send. However I do not understand how you gained your liberty. I was told that you were bound hand and foot, and that my people only waited word from me to slay you.”