why. The whole populace was gathered there; they weredrawn up around the building in orderly groups, with a great laneopened to the mighty entrance.
There were women waiting there, thousands of them, the most beautiful Ihave ever seen, and in my younger days I had eyes that were quick tonote a pretty face.
Through these great silent ranks we passed majestically, and I feltvery foolish and very much bewildered. Every head was bowed as thoughin reverence, and the chanting of the men behind us was like thesinging of a hymn.
* * * * *
At the head of the procession, we entered the great domed,lozenge-shaped building, and I stared around in amazement.
The structure was immense, but utterly without obstructing columns, theroof being supported by great arches buttressed to pilasters along thewalls, and furnished with row after row of long benches of somepolished, close-grained red wood, so clear that it shone brilliantly.
There were four great aisles, leading from the four angles of thelozenge, and many narrower ones, to give ready access to the benches,all radiating from a raised dais in the center, and the whole buildingilluminated by bluish globes of light that I recognized fromdescriptions and visits to scientific museums, as replicas of an earlyform of the ethon tube.
These things I took in at a glance. It was the object upon the hugecentral dais that caught and held my attention.
"Hendricks!" I muttered, just loud enough to make my voice audibleabove the solemn chanting. "Are we dreaming?"
"No, sir!" Hendricks' eyes were starting out of his head, and I have nodoubt I looked as idiotic as he did. "It's there."
On the dais was a gleaming object perhaps sixty feet long--which is alength equal to the height of about ten full-sized men. It was shapedlike an elongated egg--like the metal object surmounting the staffs ofthe pennon-bearers!
And, unmistakably, it was a ship for navigating space.
* * * * *
As we came closer, I could make out details. The ship was made of somebluish, shining metal that I took to be chromium, or some compound ofchromium, and there was a small circular port in the side presented tous. Set into the blunt nose of the ship was a ring of small disks,reddish in color, and deeply pitted, whether by electrical action oroxidization, I could not determine. Around the more pointed stern wereinnumerable small vents, pointed rearward, and smoothly stream-linedinto the body. The body of the ship fairly glistened, but it was dentedand deeply scratched in a number of places, and around the stern ventsthe metal was a dark, iridescent blue, as though stained by heat.
The chanting stopped as we reached the dais, and I turned to our guide.He motioned that Hendricks and I were to precede him up a narrow,curving ramp that led upwards, while the three Zenians who accompaniedus were to remain below. I nodded my approval of this arrangement, andslowly we made our way to the top of the great platform, while thepennon-bearers formed a close circle around its base, and the people,who had surrounded the great building filed in with military precisionand took seats. In the short space of time that it took us to reach thetop of the dais, the whole great building filled itself with humanity.
Artur turned to that great sea of faces and made a sweeping gesture, asof benediction.
"Toma annerson!" His voice rang out like the clear note of a bell,filling that vast auditorium. In a great wave, the assembled peopleseated themselves, and sat watching us, silent and motionless.
* * * * *
Artur walked to the edge of the dais, and stood for a moment as thoughlost in thought. Then he spoke, not in the language which I understood,but in a melodious tongue which was utterly strange. His voice wasgrave and tender; he spoke with a degree of feeling which stirred meeven though I understood no word that he spoke. Now and again I heardone recognizable sequence of syllables, that now familiar phrase, "tomaannerson."
"Wonder what that means, sir?" whispered Hendricks. "'Toma annerson?'Something very special, from the way he brings it out. And do you knowwhat we are here for, and what all this means?"
"No," I admitted. "I have some ideas, but they're too wild forutterance. We'll just go slow, and take things as they come."
As I spoke, Artur concluded his speech, and turned to us.
"John Hanson," he said softly, "our people would hear your voice."
"But--but what am I to say?" I stammered. "I don't speak theirlanguage."
"It will be enough," he muttered, "that they have heard your voice."
He stood aside, and there was nothing for me to do but walk to the edgeof the platform, as he had done, and speak.
My own voice, in that hushed silence, frightened me. I would not havebelieved that so great a gathering could maintain such utter, deathlysilence. I stammered like a school-child reciting for the first timebefore his class.
"People of Strobus," I said--this is as nearly as I remember it, andperhaps my actual words were even less intelligent--"we are glad to behere. The welcome accorded us overwhelms us. We have come ... we havecome from worlds like your own, and ... and we have never seen a morebeautiful one. Nor more kindly people. We like you, and we hope thatyou will like us. We won't be here long, anyway. I thank you!"
* * * * *
I was perspiring and red-faced by the time I finished, and I caughtHendricks in the very act of grinning at his commander's discomfiture.One black scowl wiped that grin off so quickly, however, that I thoughtI must have imagined it.
"How was that, Artur?" I asked. "All right?"
"Your words were good to hear, John Hanson," he nodded gravely. "Inbehalf----"
The hundreds of blue lights hung from the vaulted roof clacked suddenlyand went out. Almost instantly they flashed on again--and then clickedout. A third time they left us momentarily in darkness, and, when theycame on again, a murmur that was like a vast moan rose from the sea ofhumanity surrounding the dais. And the almost beautiful features ofArtur were drawn and ghastly with pain.
"They come!" he whispered. "At this hour, they come!"
"Who, Artur?" I asked quickly. "Is there some danger?"
"Yes. A very great one. I will tell you, but first--" He strode to theedge of the dais and spoke crisply, his voice ringing out like the thincry of military brass. The thousands in the auditorium rose in unison,and swept down the aisles toward the doors.
"Now," cried Artur, "I shall tell you the meaning of that signal. Forthree or four generations, we have awaited it with dread. Since thelast anniversary of his coming, we have known the time was not far off.And it had to come at this moment! But this tells you nothing.
* * * * *
"The signal warns us that the Neens have at last made good their threatto come down upon us with their great hordes. The Neens were once menlike ourselves, who would have none of Him"--and Artur glanced towardthe gleaming ship upon the dais--"nor His teachings. They did not likethe new order, and they wandered off, to join those outcasts who hadbroken His laws, and had been sent to the smaller land of this world,where it is always warm, and where there are great trees thick withmoss, and the earth underfoot steams, and brings forth wriggling life.Neen, we call that land, as this larger land is called Libar.
"These men of Neen became the enemies of Libar, and of us who callourselves Libars, and follow His ways. In that warm country they becamebrown, and their hair darkened. They increased more rapidly than didthe Libars, and as they forgot their learning, their bodies developedin strength.
"Yet they have always envied us; envied us the beauty of our women, andof our cities. Envied us those things which He taught us to make, andwhich their clumsy hands cannot fashion, and which their brutish brainsdo not understand.
"And now they have the overwhelming strength that makes us powerlessagainst them." His voice broke, he turned his face away, that I mightnot see the agony written there.
"Toma annerson
!" he muttered. "Ah, toma annerson!" The words were likea prayer.
"Just a minute, Artur!" I said sharply. "What weapons have they? Andwhat means of travel?"
He turned with a hopeless gesture.
"They have the weapons we have," he said. "Spears and knives and shortspears shot from bows. And for travel they have vast numbers ofmonocars they have stolen from us, generation after generation."
"Monocars?" I asked, startled.
"Yes. He Who Speaks gave us that secret. Ah, He was wise; to hear Hisvoice was to feel in touch with all the wisdom of all the air!" He madea gesture as though to include the whole universe.
* * * * *
There were a score of questions in my mind, but there