THE
RADIO
PLANET

Ralph Milne Farley

ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036

THE RADIO PLANET
Originally published in 1926 as a serial in
Argosy All-Story Weekly.

Cover by John Schoenherr. Illustration by Jack Gaughan.

Ralph Milne Farley is also the author of
The Radio Beasts
available now from Ace Books (F-304)

Printed in U. S. A.

Author’s Foreword

Could you make a radio set? Don’t answer rashly. Don’t say that you have already built several. For note that we did not ask whether you could assemble a set from parts already manufactured by others, but rather whether you could build the entire set yourself—from the ground up. That means making every part you require, including the vacuum tubes, the acid in the batteries, the wires, the insulation.

If you think that you could do this, let us ask you one further question. Put yourself in the place of the hero of the following story, and imagine yourself stranded amid intelligent savages who have not progressed beyond the wood age. Under such circumstances, with nothing to guide you but your scientific memory, with no tools except those of your own creation, and with no materials save those furnished by nature, could you, though the lives and happiness of your dear ones depended upon it—could you make a radio set?

—R. M. F., 1926.

Contents

I [(untitled)] 5 II [Too Much Static] 8 III [Yuri or Formis?] 14 IV [The Coup D’etat] 18 V [Lost Amid the Rocks] 27 VI [The Vairkings] 36 VII [Radio Once More] 42 VIII [But Why Radio?] 49 IX [A Prisoner] 60 X [The Siege of Sur] 69 XI [Att the Terrible] 80 XII [Companions in Misery] 85 XIII [Further Progress] 93 XIV [Old Friends] 101 XV [Plans for Escape] 108 XVI [Afterthoughts] 117 XVII [The Battle for Vairkingi] 124 XVIII [The Fall of Vairkingi] 133 XIX [The Battle in the Air] 142 XX [The Whoomangs] 149 XXI [Souls?] 160 XXII [Flight] 169 XXIII [Luno and Beyond] 180 XXIV [The Lobsteroid Circuit] 189 XXV [All Kinds of Trouble] 199 XXVI [The Debacle] 206 XXVII [Peace on Poros] 217

I

“It’s too bad that Myles Cabot can’t see this!” I exclaimed, as my eye fell on the following item:

SIGNALS FROM MARS FAIL TO REACH HARVARD

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wednesday. The Harvard College Radio Station has for several weeks been in receipt of fragmentary signals of extraordinarily long wave-length, Professor Hammond announced yesterday. So far as it has been possible to test the direction of the source of these waves, it appears that the direction has a twenty-four hour cycle, thus indicating that the origin of these waves is some point outside the earth.

The university authorities will express no opinion as to whether or not these messages come from Mars.

Myles, alone of all the radio engineers of my acquaintance, was competent to surmount these difficulties, and thus enable the Cambridge savants to receive with clearness the message from another planet.

Twelve months ago he would have been available, for he was then quietly visiting at my farm, after five earth-years spent on the planet Venus, where, by the aid of radio, he had led the Cupians to victory over their oppressors, a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven the last ant from the face of continental Poros, and had won and wed the Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia.

While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio set and a matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had (presumably) shot himself back to Poros on the night of the big October storm which had wrecked his installation.

I showed the newspaper item to Mrs. Farley, and lamented on Cabot’s absence. Her response opened up an entirely new line of thought.

Said she: “Doesn’t the very fact that Mr. Cabot isn’t here suggest to you that this may be a message, not from Mars, but from him? Or perhaps from the Princess Lilla, inquiring about him in case he has failed in his attempted return?”

That had never occurred to me! How stupid!

“What had I better do about it, if anything?” I asked. “Drop Professor Hammond a line?”

But Mrs. Farley was afraid that I would be taken for a crank.

That evening, when I was over in town, the clerk in the drug store waylaid me to say that there had been a long-distance phone call for me, and would I please call a certain Cambridge number.

So, after waiting an interminable time in the stuffy booth with my hands full of dimes, nickels, and quarters, I finally got my party.

“Mr. Farley?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Professor Kellogg, O. D. Kellogg,” the voice replied.

It was my friend of the Harvard math faculty, the man who had analyzed the measurements of the streamline projectile in which Myles Cabot had shot to earth the account of the first part of his adventures on Venus. Some further adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay on my farm.

“Professor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the air,” the voice continued.

“Yes,” I replied. “I judged as much from what I read in this morning’s paper. But what do you think?”

Kellogg’s reply gave my sluggish mind the second jolt which it had received that day.

“Well,” he said, “in view of the fact that I am one of the few people among your readers who take your radio stories seriously, I think that Hammond is getting Venus. Can you run up here and help me try and convince him?”

And so it was that I took the early boat next morning for Boston, and had lunch with the two professors.

As a result of our conference, a small committee of engineers returned with me to Edgartown that evening for the purpose of trying to repair the wrecked radio set which Myles Cabot had left on my farm.

They utterly failed to comprehend the matter-transmitting apparatus, and so—after the fallen tower had been reerected and the rubbish cleared away—they had devoted their attention to the restoration of the conversational part of the set.

To make a long story short, we finally restored it, with the aid of some old blue prints of Cabot’s which Mrs. Farley, like Swiss Family Robinson’s wife, produced from somewhere. I was the first to try the earphones, and was rewarded by a faint “bzt-bzt” like the song of a north woods blackfly.

In conventional radioese, I repeated the sounds to the Harvard group:

“Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dit dit. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dit dit dit dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dit-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dit-dit-dit-dah dah-dah-dah.”

A look of incredulity spread over their faces. Again came the same message, and again I repeated it.

“You’re spoofing us!” one of them shouted. “Give me the earphones.”

And he snatched them from my head. Adjusting them on his own head, he spelled out to us, “C-Q C-Q C-Q D-E C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T—”

Seizing the big leaf-switch, he threw it over. The motor-generator began to hum. Grasping the key, the Harvard engineer ticked off into space: “Cabot Cabot Cabot D-E—”

“Has this station a call letter?” he hurriedly asked me.

“Yes,” I answered quickly, “One-X-X-B.”

“One-X-X-B,” he continued the ticking “K.”

Interplanetary communication was an established fact at last! And not with Mars after all these years of scientific speculations. But what meant more to me was that I was again in touch with my classmate Myles Standish Cabot, the radio man.

The next day a party of prominent scientists, accompanied by a telegrapher and two stenographers, arrived at my farm.

During the weeks that followed there was recorded Myles’s own account of the amazing adventures on the planet Venus (or Poros, as its own inhabitants call it,) which befell him upon his return there after his brief visit to the earth. I have edited those notes into the following coherent story.

II
TOO MUCH STATIC

Myles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the latest developments of modern terrestrial science for the benefit of the Cupian nation. He was the regent of Cupia during the minority of his baby son, King Kew the Thirteenth. The loyal Prince Toron occupied the throne in his absence. The last of the ant-men and their ally, the renegade Cupian Prince Yuri, had presumably perished in an attempt to escape by flying through the steam-clouds which completely hem in continental Poros. What lay beyond the boiling seas no man knew.

During his stay on my farm, Cabot had built the matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had shot himself off into space on that October night on which he had received the message from the skies: “S O S, Lilla.” A thunderstorm had been brewing all that evening, and just as Myles had placed himself between the coordinate axes of his machine and had gathered up the strings which ran from his control levers to within the apparatus, there had come a blinding flash. Lightning had struck his aerial.

How long his unconsciousness lasted he knew not. He was some time in regaining his senses. But when he had finally and fully recovered, he found himself lying on a sandy beach beside a calm and placid lake beneath a silver sky.

He fell to wondering, vaguely and pleasantly, where he was and how he had got here.

Suddenly, however, his ears were jarred by a familiar sound. At once his senses cleared, and he listened intently to the distant purring of a motor. Yes, there could be no mistake; an airplane was approaching. Now he could see it, a speck in the sky, far down the beach.

Nearer and nearer it came.

Myles sprang to his feet. To his intense surprise, he found that the effort threw him quite a distance into the air. Instantly the idea flashed through his mind: “I must be on Mars! Or some other strange planet.” This idea was vaguely reminiscent of something.

But while he was trying to catch this vaguely elusive train of thought, his attention was diverted by the fact that, for some unaccountable reason, his belt buckle and most of the buttons which had held his clothes together were missing, so that his clothing came to pieces as he rose, and that he had to shed it rapidly in order to avoid impeding his movements. He wondered at the cause of this.

But his speculations were cut short by the alighting of the plane a hundred yards down the beach.

What was his horror when out of it clambered, not men but ants! Ants, six-footed, and six feet high. Huge ants, four of them, running toward him over the glistening sands.

Gone was all his languor, as he seized a piece of driftwood and prepared to defend himself.

As he stood thus expectant, Myles realized that his present position and condition, the surrounding scenery, and the advance of the ant-men were exactly, item for item, like the opening events of his first arrival on the planet Poros. He even recognized one of the ant-men as old Doggo, who had befriended him on his previous visit.

Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been naught but a dream; a recurring dream, in fact? Were his dear wife Lilla and his little son Kew merely figments of his imagination? Horrible thought!

And then events began to differ from those of the past; for the three other Formians halted, and Doggo advanced alone. By the agitation of the beast’s antennae the earth man could see that it was talking to him. But Myles no longer possessed the wonderful electrical headset which he had contrived and built during his previous visit to that planet, so as to talk with Cupians and Formians, both of which races are earless and converse by means of radiations from their antennae.

So he picked up two sticks from the beach, and held them projecting from his forehead; then threw them to the ground with a grimace of disgust and pointed to his ears.

Doggo understood, and scratched with his paw in Cupian shorthand on the silver sands the message: “Myles Cabot, you are our prisoner.”

“What, again?” scratched Myles, then made a sign of submission.

He dreaded the paralyzing bite which Formians usually administer to their victims, and which he had twice experienced in the past; but, fortunately, it was not now forthcoming.

The other three ants kept away from him as Doggo led him to the beached airplane, and soon they were scudding along beneath silver skies, northward as it later turned out.

Far below them were silver-green fields and tangled tropical woods, interspersed with rivulets and little ponds.

This was Cupia, his Cupia. He was home once more, back again upon the planet which held all that was dear to him in two worlds.

His heart glowed with the warmth of homecoming. What mattered it that he was now a prisoner, in the hands (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies, the Formians? He had been their prisoner before, and had escaped. Once more he could escape, and rescue the Princess Lilla.

Poor girl! How eager he was to reach her side, and save her from that peril, whatever it was, which had caused her to flash that “S O S” a hundred million miles across the solar system from Poros to the earth.

He wondered what could have happened in Cupia since his departure, only a few sangths ago. How was it that the ant-men had survived their airplane journey across the boiling seas? What had led them to return? Or perhaps these ants were a group who had hidden somewhere and thus had escaped the general extermination of their race. In either event, how had they been able to reconquer Cupia? And where was their former leader, Yuri, the renegade Cupian prince?

These and a hundred other similar questions flooded in upon the earth-man, as the Formian airship carried him, a captive, through the skies.

He gazed again at the scene below, and now noted one difference from the accustomed Porovian landscape, for nowhere ran the smooth concrete roads which bear the swift two-wheeled kerkools of the Cupians to all parts of their continent. What uninhabited portion of Cupia could this be, over which they were now passing?

Turning to Doggo, Myles extended his left palm, and made a motion as though writing on it with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. But the ant-man waved a negative with one of his forepaws. It was evident that there were no writing materials aboard the ship. Myles would have to wait until they reached their landing place; for doubtless they would soon hover down in some city or town, though just which one he could not guess, as the country below was wholly unfamiliar.

Finally a small settlement loomed ahead. It was of the familiar style of toy-building-block architecture affected by the ant-men, and, from its appearance, was very new. On its outskirts further building operations were actively in progress. Apparently a few survivors of the accursed race of Formians were consolidating their position and attempting to build up a new empire in some out-of-the-way portion of the continent.

As the earth-man was turning these thoughts over in his mind the plane softly settled down upon one of the flat roofs, and its occupants disembarked. Three of the ants advanced menacingly toward Myles, but Doggo held them off. Then all of the party descended down one of the ramps to the lower levels of the building.

Narrow slitlike window openings gave onto courtyards, where fountains played and masses of blue and yellow flowers bloomed, amid gray-branched lichens with red and purple twig-knobs. It was in just such a garden, through just such a window, that he had first looked upon the lovely blue-eyed, golden-haired Lilla, Crown Princess of Cupia.

The earth-man sighed. Where was his beloved wife now? That she needed his help was certain. He must therefore get busy. So once again he made motions of writing on the palm of his left hand with the thumb and forefinger of his right; and this time the sign language produced results, for Doggo halted the procession and led Cabot into a room.

It was a plain bare room, devoid of any furniture except a small table, for ant-men have no use for chairs and couches. The sky outside was already beginning to pinken with the unseen sun.

With a sweep of his paw, Doggo indicated that this was to be Cabot’s quarters. Then, with another wave, he pointed to the table, where lay a pad of paper and stylus, not a pencil-like stylus as employed by the Cupians, but rather one equipped with straps for attaching it to the claw of a Formian.

Even so, it was better than nothing. The earth-man seized it eagerly, but before he could begin writing an ant entered bearing a Cupian toga, short-sleeved and bordered with Grecian wave designs in blue. Myles put on this garment, and then quickly filled a sheet with questions:

“How is my princess and my son, the baby king? Whence come all you Formians, whose race I thought had been exterminated? What part of Cupia is this? What is this city? Where is Prince Yuri? And what do you intend to do with me this time?”

Then he passed the paper and stylus over to his old friend Doggo. They were alone together at last.

The ant-man’s reply consumed sheet after sheet of paper; but, owning to the rapidity of Porovian shorthand, did not take so very much more time than speaking would have required. As he completed each sheet he passed it over to Myles, who read as follows:

“As to your princess and your son, I know not, for this is not Cupia. Do you remember how, when your victorious army and air navy swept to the southern extremity of what had been Formia, a few of our survivors rose in planes from the ruins of our last stronghold and braved the dangers of the steam clouds which overhang the boiling seas? Our leader was Prince Yuri, erstwhile contender for the throne of Cupia, splendid even in defeat.

“It was his brain that conceived our daring plan of escape. If there were other lands beyond the boiling seas, the lands which tradition taught were the origin of the Cupian race, then there we might prosper and raise up a new empire. At the worst we should merely meet death in another form, rather than at your hands. So we essayed.

“Your planes followed us, but turned back as we neared the area of terrific heat. Soon the vapor closed over us, blotting our enemies and our native land from view.”

For page after page Doggo, the ant-man, related the harrowing details of that perilous flight across the boiling seas, ending with the words:

“Here we are, and here are you, in Yuriana, capitol of New Formia. But how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have arrived here on this continent in exactly the same manner and condition in which I discovered you in old Formia eight years ago?”

When Myles reached the end of reading this narrative, he in turn took the pad and stylus and related how he had gone to the planet Minos (which we call the Earth) to learn the latest discoveries and inventions there, and how his calculations for his return to Poros had been upset by some static conditions just as he had been about to transmit himself back. Oh, if only he had landed by chance upon the same beach as on his first journey through the skies!

Wisely he refrained from mentioning the “S O S” message from Lilla. But his recollection of her predicament spurred him to be anxious about her rescue.

His immediate problem was to learn what the ant-men planned for him; so the concluding words which he wrote upon the pad were: “And, now that you have me in your power, what shall you do with me?”

“Old friend,” Doggo wrote in reply, “that depends entirely upon Yuri, our king, whose toga you now have on.”

III
YURI OR FORMIS?

The earth-man grimaced, but then smiled. Perhaps, his succeeding to the toga of King Yuri might prove to be an omen.

“So Yuri is king of the ants?” he asked.

“Yes,” his captor replied, “for Queen Formis did not survive the trip across the boiling seas.”

“Then what of your empire?” Myles inquired. “No queen. No eggs. How can your race continue? For you Formians are like the ants on my own planet Minos.”

Doggo’s reply astounded him.

“Do you remember back at Wautoosa, I told you that some of us lesser Formians had occasionally laid eggs? So now behold before you Doggo, Admiral of the Formian Air Navy, and mother of a new Queen Formis.”

This was truly a surprise! All along Cabot had always regarded the Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they performed in their own country the duties assigned to men among the Cupians. Furthermore, all Formians, save only the reigning Formis herself, were called by the Porovian pronoun, which corresponds to “he” in English.

When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, he warmly congratulated his friend by patting him on the side of the head, as is the Porovian custom.

“Doggo,” he wrote, “this ought to constitute you a person of some importance among the Formians.”

“It ought to,” the ant-man replied, “but as a matter of fact, it merely intensifies Yuri’s mistrust and hatred of me. Now that I am mother of the queen, he fears that I may turn against him and establish Formis in his place as the head of an empire of the Formians, by the Formians, and for the Formians exclusively.”

“Why don’t you?” Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be a bully good idea, and incidentally a solution of his own difficulties.

But Doggo wrote in horror, “It would be treason!” Then tore up all the correspondence. It is difficult to inculcate the thought of independence in the mind of one reared in an autocracy.

The earth-man, however, persisted.

“How many of the council can you count on, if the interests of Yuri should clash with those of Formis?”

“Only one—myself.”

And again Doggo tore up the correspondence.

Myles tactfully changed the subject.

“Where is the arch-fiend now?” he asked.

“We know not,” the Formian wrote in reply. “Six days ago he left us in his airship and flew westward. When he failed to return, we sent out scout planes to search for him, and we have been hunting ever since. When we sighted you on the beach this morning we thought that you might be our lost leader, and that is why we landed and approached you.”

At about this point the conversation was interrupted by a worker ant who brought food: roast alta and green aphid milk. With what relish did the earth-man plunge into the feast, his first taste of Porovian delicacies in many months.

During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty of writing and eating at the same time. But now Myles Cabot seized his pad and stylus and wrote:

“Have you ever known me to fail in any undertaking on the planet Poros?”

“No,” the ant-man wrote in reply.

“Have you ever known me to be untrue to a principle, a cause, or a friend?”

“No,” Doggo replied.

“Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as in name.”

“It is treason,” Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he did not tear up the correspondence.

“Treason?” Myles asked. If he had spoken the word, he would have spoken it with scorn and derision. “Treason? Is it treason to support your own queen? What has become of the national pride of the once great Formians? Look! I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of Formia. Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?”

This time, as he tore up the correspondence, Doggo signified an affirmative. And thus there resulted further correspondence.

“Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?”

The ant-man indicated that he could.

“If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, “she will assert herself, if given half a chance.”

So the Pitmanesque conversation continued. Long since had the pink light of Porovian evening faded from the western sky. The ceiling vapor-lamps were lit. The night showed velvet-black through the slit-like windows. And still the two old friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the Bostonian, and Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros.

Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators ceased their labors. All was arranged for the coup d’ etat.

They tore into shreds every scrap of used paper, leaving extant merely the ant-man’s concluding words: “Meanwhile you are my prisoner.”

Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered by a worker ant, whom he inaudibly directed to bring sufficient draperies to form a bed for the earth-man. These brought, the two friends patted each other a fond good night, and the tired earth-man lay down for the first sleep which he had had in over forty earth hours.

It hardly seemed possible! Night before last he had slept peacefully on a conventional feather-bed in a little New England farmhouse. Then had come the S O S message from the skies; and here he was now, millions of miles away through space retiring on matted silver felting on the concrete floor of a Porovian ant-house. Such are the mutations of fortune!

With these thoughts the returned wanderer lapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When he awakened in the morning there was a guard posted at the door.

Doggo did not show up until nearly noon, when he rattled in, bristling with excitement.

Seizing the pad he wrote: “A stormy session of the Council of Twelve! We are all agreed that you must be indicted for high crimes and misdemeanors. But the great question is as to just what we can charge you with.”

“Sorry I can’t assist you,” the earth-man wrote. “How would it be if I were to slap your daughter’s face, or something? Or why not try me for general cussedness?”

“That is just what we finally decided to do,” the ant-man wrote in reply. “We shall try you on general principles, and let the proper accusation develop from the evidence.

“At some stage of the proceedings it will inevitably occur to some member of the council to suggest that you be charged with treason to Yuri, whereupon two members of the council, whom I have won over to the cause of my daughter, will raise the objection that Yuri is not our king. This will be the signal for the proclaiming of Queen Formis. If you will waive counsel the trial can take place to-morrow.”

“I will waive anything,” Myles replied, “counsel, immunity, extradition, anything in order to speed up my return to Cupia, where Lilla awaits in some dire extremity.”

“All right,” Doggo wrote, and the conference was at an end. The morrow would decide the ascendancy of Myles Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the new continent.

IV
THE COUP D’ETAT

The next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the council chamber of the dread thirteen: Formis and her twelve advisers. The accused was placed in a wicker cage, from which he surveyed his surroundings as the proceedings opened.

On a raised platform stood the ant queen, surmounted by a scarlet canopy, which set off the perfect proportions of her jet-black body. On each side of her stood six refined and intelligent ant-men, her councillors. One of the twelve was Doggo.

Messenger ants hurried hither and thither.

First the accusation was read, Myles being furnished with a written copy.

The witnesses were then called. They were veterans who had served in the wars in which Cabot had twice freed Cupia from the domination of its Formian oppressors. They spoke with bitterness of the downfall of their beloved Formia. Their testimony was brief.

Then the accused was asked if he wished to say anything in his own behalf. Myles rose, then shrugged his shoulders, sat down again, and wrote: “I fully realize the futility of making an argument through the antennae of another.”

Whereupon the queen and the council went into executive session. Their remarks were not intended for the eyes of the prisoner, but he soon observed that some kind of a dispute was on between Doggo, supported by two councillors named Emu and Fum on one side, and a councillor named Barth on the other.

As this dispute reached its height, a messenger ant rushed in and held up one paw. Cabot’s interpreter, not deeming this a part of the executive session, obligingly translated the following into writing:

The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his command that Cabot die.”

Barth: “It is the radio. Know then, O Queen, and ye, members of the council, that when we fled across the boiling seas under the gallant leadership of Prince Yuri, the man with the heart of a Formian, he brought with him one of those powerful radio sets invented by the beast who is our prisoner here to-day.

“Supporters of Yuri still remained among the Cupians, and he has been in constant communication with these ever since shortly after our arrival here. From them he learned of the return of Myles Cabot to the planet Minos.

“Then Yuri disappeared. Those of us who were closest to him suspected that he had gone back across the boiling seas to claim as his own the throne of Cupia. But we hesitated to announce this until we were sure, for we feared that some of our own people would regard his departure as desertion. Yet who can blame him for returning to his father-land and to the throne which is his by rights?”

To which the messenger added: “And he offers to give us back our own old country, if we too will return across the boiling seas again.”

“It is a lie!” Doggo shouted.

“Yuri, usurper of the thrones of two continents. Bah!” shouted Emu.

“Yuri, our rightful leader,” shouted Barth.

“Give us a queen of our own race,” shouted Fum.

“Release the prisoner,” shouted the Queen.

And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation, for his interpreter at this juncture stopped writing and obeyed the queen. The earth-man was free!

With one bound he gained the throne, where fighting was already in progress between the two factions. Barth and Doggo were rolling over and over on the floor in a death grapple, while the ant-queen had backed to the rear of the stage, closely guarded by Emu and Fum.

Seizing one of the pikes which supported the scarlet canopy, Myles wrenched it loose and drove it into the thorax of Barth. In another instant the earth-man and Doggo stood beside the queen.

Ant-men now came pouring into the chamber through all the entrances, taking sides as they entered and sized up the situation. If it had still been in vogue among the Formians to be known by numbers rather than names, and to have these identifying numbers painted on the backs of their abdomens followed by the numbers of those whom they had defeated in the duels so common among them, then many a Formian would have “got the number” of many another, that day.

As Myles battled with his pike beside Formis, queen of the ants, he could well imagine the conflicting shouts of “Death to the usurper!” “Formia for the Formians!” “Long Live Queen Formis!” “Long live Prince Yuri!” which must have resounded throughout the chamber; but to him all was silence, for he was without the antennae wherewith to pick up the radiated speech of the contenders.

So as he wielded the pike in silence, he had opportunity to reflect on the incongruity of his position. Here was he, Myles Cabot regent of Cupia, the man who had driven the ants forever from their dominion over his people, and yet now fighting side by side with their leaders defending the life of their queen.

Yet was she not the daughter of Doggo his only friend among the ants? And would not her victory mean the speedy return of Myles to his own continent?

As the earth-man jabbed to right and left among the supporters of his enemy Yuri there came to his human ears the sound of rifle fire. It might prove a godsend or an added menace, according to whose paw held the rifle. But no chances must be taken on the life of the queen. So Myles made frantic signs to Doggo of impending danger.

The queen and her supporters, outnumbered, were fighting with their backs to one of the walls of the room. A short distance along this wall on the side where Cabot stood was a door; so he now began edging his way along the wall to this door. This was not difficult, as the ant-men, having only their mandibles to fight with, greatly respected his pike.

He gained the door and passed by, but not through it. The shots came nearer and nearer. Then Doggo opened the door and slipped through with Formis and the rest of her immediate supporters; the door closed, and Myles Cabot stood guarding the exit with his pike—alone against the hordes of antdom.

He had no difficulty in defending himself from those in front of him, but the ants who began to close in on him from each side were a different matter.

He received several bad scratches on his shoulders and hips, and his toga was ripped and torn; but fortunately he was able to ward off their paralyzing bites. Nevertheless, his enemies pressed so close that it was difficult for him to manipulate his long weapon. In fact, it was only the jamming of the ants upon one another and upon the dead bodies of their slain comrades that kept them from him.

He now was holding his pike by the middle, with both hands, using one end as a club and the other as a dagger. The black circle of the ants was steadily closing in on him. A pair of mandibles from the left snapped angrily within a few inches of his throat. Instantly he drove the point of his lance home between horrid jaws. But at the same instant its butt was seized by a pair of jaws to his right. He could not pull it free.

At last he was weaponless, and not only that, but pinned to the wall by the shaft of his own pike as well.

And then to his surprise the ants before him separated as at a command. The butt of his lance was dropped. As Myles wrenched the point loose from the dead body of the Formian in which it had been stuck, and gazed expectant down the long aisle which had opened before him, he saw confronting him at the other end an ant-man armed with the peculiar type of claw-operated rifle which the Formians had adapted from those which Myles himself had built for Cupian use in the first war of liberation.

Briefly the two surveyed each other. Then slowly the rifle was raised until its aim settled squarely upon the earth-man’s chest.

Instantaneously the glance of Myles Cabot swept the black hordes which hemmed him in on each side. There was no escape!

Yet how can man die better,

Than facing fearful odds?

With a wild warwhoop, which was utterly lost on the radio-sense of the assembled Formians, Myles charged down the narrow way, straight into the muzzle of the rifle of his antagonist. The astonished ant-man hastily pulled the trigger. A shot rang out. But still the impetuous rush of Myles continued, and before the rifle could be discharged a second time, Myles had driven his spear deep into the leering insect face.

The Formian staggered back. The rifle clattered to the floor. The earth-man, not waiting to withdraw his own weapon, stooped, seized the fallen firearm, and wheeled to confront his enemies, who fell back in a snarling arc before this new menace.

Myles stood now in one of the entranceways of the council chamber, and thus was secure against flank attack. But not against an assault from the rear. In fact, even as he stood thus irresolute, a rattling noise behind him in the hallways revealed to his human ears the approach of a new enemy. What was he to do? To remain as he was meant carte blanche to this newcomer, whereas to turn about would mean that those within the chamber would undoubtedly rush him.

In this predicament Myles grasped his gun firmly, and wheeled backward to the left until he was flattened against the wall of the corridor in which he was standing. From this position he could turn his head slightly to the left and see into the council chamber, or to the right and look down the long hall.

Directly opposite him was one of those narrow, slitlike windows, so typical of Porovian architecture. It was too narrow for the passage of the huge body of an ant-man, but a human being could conceivably squeeze through. Thus it offered a means out, a way of escape.

The lone ant in the corridor was joined by the others. They and their compatriots within the chamber slowly closed in on the cornered earth-man.

There was no time to speculate upon the depth of the drop outside. With a suddenness which caused his aggressors to recoil momentarily, Myles dashed across to the window, forced his way through, and, still grasping his rifle, plunged headlong two stories into a clump of gray lichens in the courtyard below.

Hastily extricating himself, he looked up at the window which he had just quitted. There, framed by the masonry, was the head of an ant-man. A quick shot, and the head stared at him no more.

Before another Formian could take post at the window to observe the direction of Cabot’s departure, the latter ran quickly from the courtyard garden into the interior of the building again.

His first thought was to join Doggo, Queen Formis, and their faction; so, taking a firm hold on his rifle, he hurried in the direction in which they had made their escape.

The first ant-man whom he met within the building was Emu, one of the three members of the council who had been a party to the original conspiracy. This ant was fleeing from something in very evident terror, so that it was all Cabot could do to stop him, but the threat of rifle-shooting was finally effective.

Then, extracting a cartridge from the magazine of his firearm, Cabot scratched upon the smooth wall the brief question: “What of Doggo and Formis?”

Emu snatched the cartridge and quickly wrote the reply: “Dead, both dead. The revolution has collapsed. Flee for your life!”

Then the ant-man clattered rapidly off down the corridor, taking the precious cartridge with him. He had not been too flustered to think of that.

Myles heaved a sigh of self-reproach at having brought his friends to this sad end. But then, he reflected, Doggo had been in a situation in which conflict with the authorities and then execution would have been inevitable sooner or later. The revolution had been his one best bet, and it was no one’s fault that it had failed.

Now that Doggo and Formis were dead, there was no longer any obligation binding Myles to stay and fight. In fact, he owed it to his loved ones in Cupia to preserve his own life until he could find some way of rejoining them. So he set out to escape from the city.

For some time he threaded the corridors without meeting any ants, although occasionally there drifted down to him the sounds of fighting on the upper levels. But at last, as he rounded a turn, he saw before him a Formian, and it was one whom he recognized, namely the messenger ant who had brought to the trial the radiogram from Prince Yuri. The ant’s back was toward him. Cabot cautiously withdrew a step; then raising his rifle, he again advanced and fired full at his enemy.

But the hammer merely clicked. There was no explosion. The magazine was empty.

Cabot’s first impulse was to throw the weapon away. Then he reflected that even an unloaded gun might well serve to awe his enemies and hold them at a distance; so he retained it.

By this time the messenger ant had disappeared around a turn farther down the corridor, so Cabot hastened after him; for it had suddenly occurred to the earth-man that this ant was undoubtedly returning to the hidden radio set, whence he had come.

Radio! Means of a communication with his own continent, if he could but reach the instruments!

The messenger had announced at the trial that Yuri was in Cupia and knew of Cabot’s presence in this new land. Thus it was certain that complete wireless communication had been established between the two continents. But, equally, undoubtedly, this communication had been established at a wave-length which kept the knowledge of Cabot’s return pretty much a secret of Prince Yuri and his own followers. This information would probably induce the renegade prince to speed up whatever nefarious schemes he had afoot in Cupia.

But if Cabot could once get on the air and adjust the Formian sending set to the wave-length of Luno Castle, or run it through all its available wave-lengths, he could broadcast to the Cupian nation the fact that he was alive and well, and would return again—though he knew not how—to lead them. Such news should strengthen the hearts of the loyal Cupians to rally to the cause of his wife, the Princess Lilla, and his son, the baby king.

So he quickened his pace, and soon caught sight again of the messenger ant. From, then on he stealthily stalked his quarry, who led him through many a winding passage-way, before finally they emerged from the city into the open fields.

Beyond the fields lay the rocky foothills of a mountain range. Caution dictated that Cabot remain under the shelter of the city walls until the Formian disappeared among the rocks. Then he ran lightly across the plain to take up the trail once more.

As he, too, gained the rocks, he glanced back to see if his departure had been noted. No, there was no sign of life. Evidently the fighting had drawn all the inhabitants to the interior of the city. So, with a sigh of relief, Myles hurried after the messenger ant.

At the place where Myles had noticed the Formian enter the rocks there was the well-defined beginning of a trail; so up this winding trail he sped, and soon caught sight of his quarry. From that time on more caution was necessary, but nevertheless the pursuer was able to keep the pursued always in sight until, just after a turn in the road had obscured his view, Myles came upon a place where the way forked.

Pausing, he scratched his head in dismay, then carefully examined the ground for evidences of claw marks; but none were apparent. Dropping to his hands and knees, the earth-man scrutinized the dirt with even more care; and at last, imagining that he observed some slight scratches to the right, he took the right-hand branch.

It was necessary for him to proceed with great rapidity, if he would catch up with the messenger ant, so Myles broke into a dog trot. On and on he ran; up, into the rocky mountains.

At last he sat down exhausted on a large boulder, just as the silvery sky turned crimson in the west, and darkness crept up out of the east. It was quite evident that he had taken the wrong road at the fork, and also that he must now spend the night, half clad and alone amid the rocks of the mountains of this strange new continent.

V
LOST AMID THE ROCKS

But although Myles Cabot was lost, he was free for the first time since his return to Poros.

So not disheartened he arose and proceeded along the trail, looking for food and a place to spend the night; and presently came upon a “green cow,” as he was wont to call the aphids which are kept both by Cupians and Formians for the honey-dew which they produce.

It made no objection to Cabot’s approach, nor to his manipulating the two horns which projected from its back, with the result that the tired man was presently regaling himself with a satisfying drafts of green “milk” from a leafy cup.

The bush, which furnished the leaf to fashion the cup, closely resembled the tartan bushes of Cupia, whose heart-shaped leaves are put to so many uses in that country. Myles Cabot accordingly stripped off a considerable portion of the foliage, and lay down in a bed of warm, thick green for the night.

The morning dawned silver bright. Myles drew another meal from the grazing aphid and then pressed on up the rocky defile. He did not dare return for fear of meeting ant-men; and besides, now that a night’s rest had to some extent tempered his chagrin at not catching up with the particular ant-man whom he had been pursuing, he could not be sure he had taken the wrong road after all. So on he went, up the rocky path.

Around noon the path petered out at the top of an eminence which gave Cabot an opportunity to survey the surrounding scenery. To the westward lay the city from which he had fled. What had become, he wondered, of the supporters of his friend Doggo and of Formis, the ant-queen, whose cause he had espoused? According to Emu, Doggo and Formis were both dead, or Cabot would never have deserted them.

Cabot turned his attention next to the northward. To his great joy, on the next peak to the one where he sat, there stood two rough wooden towers, spanned by an aerial.

He decided to cut across country and attempt to approach the installation by stealth. So he started scrambling down into the intervening valley.

Never before had the earth-man traveled through such difficult country. As soon as he had gone a short distance below the summit he encountered a continuous expanse of boulders, ranging in size from a man’s head to twenty feet or more in diameter, and piled aimlessly together. Lying crossways in every direction, upon and between the rocks, were the gaunt skeletons of fallen trees in all stages of decay.

The sharp edges of the rocks cut and tore the bare feet of the earth-man, while the splinters of the fallen trees jabbed his body. Time and again he slipped and nearly fell into one of the chasms which yawned between the boulders, and on one of these occasions he must have inadvertently let go the ant-rifle which he had treasured so far so carefully, for presently he noticed that it was gone.

But to all this there was one extenuating feature, although Myles did not realize it at the time, namely that his physical pain and the need for constant vigilance on his part so occupied his mind as to spare him from the mental pain which had been his almost constant companion since his return to Poros. The attention necessary to avoid misjudging a jump, or slipping into a dark deep hole, or being impaled by a tree-branch, crowded out of his mind even his great love and anxiety for Princess Lilla and Baby Kew.

Through the maze of obstacles Cabot toiled all day long.

Oh, to reach the radio station established by his enemy Yuri, and get into touch with his own continent. Thus he could learn what was happening in Cupia, and also give word of his own safe arrival on the planet. Safe, hm! He smiled grimly at the word.

“I must reach that station,” he thought, “and then, when I have talked with Cupia, I must secure a Formian plane by hook or by crook, and brave the boiling seas. If ants have crossed those seas safely, if Yuri has safely crossed them twice, then why cannot I, the Minorian?”

As he communed thus with himself, a faint pink flush appeared in the sky. Slowly, painfully he continued his way. Gradually the pink light turned to crimson in the west and then darkened to a royal purple. Gradually the black night crept up out of the east. But also gradually the boulders became smaller and smaller as he clambered upward, until just as darkness finally enveloped the planet, the tired man gained the smooth rocks of the summit, and lay down amid some leaves.

He had had nothing to eat or drink since his breakfast of green milk that morning. He had undergone an exhausting journey. His feet were bruised and cut, his body covered with innumerable scratches, and he was weary, thirsty and hungry. But he had almost reached the point which he had been seeking, and this thought comforted him as his eyes closed in healthy and dreamless sleep.

Next morning early he was up, rested, parched and ravenous. As the first faint pink tinged the eastern sky Myles Cabot shook off the leaves and completed the ascent.

It only required a few moments for him to reach the top, a narrow plateau, about a mile in length, near the farther end of which there stood a small cabin with its two towers and aerial.

With a cry of joy—which he knew the earless Formians could not hear—he raced toward it. The huge chain and lock, which secured its door on the outside, indicated that it was unoccupied, and a glance through the narrow slitlike windows confirmed this.

The glance through the window also revealed the presence of a complete radio sending and receiving set of the same general hook-up which he himself had adapted for the use of Cupians and Formians on the other continent.

“Imitation is the most insulting form of flattery,” as Poblath, the Cupian philosopher, used to say. Yet Cabot was willing to brook the insult, until suddenly it dawned on him that the set had no earphones nor microphone!

Of course not, since it was designed for use by creatures who possessed neither ears nor vocal speech! Gone then was all hope of news from home, even if he could succeed in breaking in. At the most, he would merely be able, by interposing an interrupter in the primary or secondary of that aerial circuit, to send a dot-dash message across the boiling seas—I use the term “aerial circuit,” because “antenna circuit” would be ambiguous, as the latter term might have either its conventional earth significance, or might mean the circuit in which the Formian operator would place his living antennae in sending and receiving.

Well, even a chance to send to Cupia a message to the effect that he was free and safe, would be worth something. Myles Cabot tried the slitlike windows, and finding them too narrow, slid quickly down the near-by slope, soon to return laboriously with a twenty-pound rock, which he heaved against the door.

Again and again he heaved the rock, until he had the satisfaction of seeing the door crack and then give. Finally a large enough opening was effected to afford passage for a man, although not for a Formian; and through this breach Myles Cabot squeezed into the station.

A few minutes’ scrutiny familiarized him with the details of the hook-up, the generator set, and the trophil-engine. Everything was in running order and the fuel tank was full. So he fashioned a rude sending key, broke one of the circuits and tied in the key. Then he warmed-up and cranked the trophil-engine, clutched-in the generator, threw the main switch, and sat down to flash across the seas the message which was to hold firm his partisans in Cupia until he could join them.

But at that instant an arrow hummed through the hole in the door, and struck quivering in the bench beside him.

Cabot sprang to his feet and slid home the huge beam which barred the door on the inside. This was a precaution which he had neglected to take before. Next he filled the hole in the door with some boards hastily wrenched from the work-bench. Then picking up a Formian rifle and bandolier which hung on the wall, he made his way to one of the slit windows on the same side as the door and peeped cautiously out.

The result was immediate; an arrow sped through the window and passed just above his head. But even as he ducked instinctively, he saw a dark form moving behind a bush at some distance outside; so quickly rising again, he discharged the rifle square at the bush.

There came a cry of pain, followed by silence. And there were no more feathered incursions.

Not knowing whether his enemy had been disposed of, or whether the cessation of the stream of arrows was merely a ruse to entice him from his shelter, Myles did not dare venture forth to investigate.

From the first time the arrow had struck the work-bench until this final squelching of the unknown enemy, Myles had been engrossed in action. Now came the reaction, as he realized how narrowly he had twice escaped from death in the last few minutes. He shuddered at the thought, and turned pale; not, however, at the danger to himself, but rather at the danger to his loved ones in Cupia. He must keep himself alive until he could reach and save them from whatever peril it was that had caused Lilla to send the SOS which had recalled him to Poros.

But being ever the inquisitive scientist, his attention was soon distracted by the arrow which stood sticking to the bench.

Its shaft was of some hard and very springy wood. Its tip was of chipped stone resembling flint, and bound to the shaft by vegetable fibers. Its “feathers” were thin laminae of wood, doubtless because birds, and hence true feathers, are unknown on Poros.

Why on earth—or rather, on Poros—were the ant-men employing such crude weapons? Rifles they had aplenty, and powder was easy to manufacture. Besides what did they know of bows and arrows, which had never been used by them, even in the days before Cabot the Minorian introduced firearms upon the planet?

Thus these arrows presented a perplexing problem. But a practical job remained to be performed before Myles was to have any time for abstract questions. The message to Cupia must be sent off.

The earth-man returned to the radio set. The trophil-engine and the generator were still running. The whole apparatus appeared to be functioning properly. And so Myles ticked off into space the following message:

CQ, CQ, CQ, DE, Cabot, Cabot, Cabot. I have returned to Poros from Minos. I am on the continent of the Formians. I am in complete control there.

That was a lie, but it would serve to hearten his supporters, or throw the fear of the Supreme Builder into the partisans of Yuri, whichever it reached. The message continued:

Do not expect me soon, for first I must consolidate what I have gained here. But when I do come, Yuri beware! My friends, hold out until then. I have spoken.

DE, Cabot.

This message he sent again and again, at every wavelength of which the installation was capable. He repeated and repeated it until he was tired.

And then, for the first time, he remembered his thirst and his hunger. Fortunately there was both food and drink in the shack; so Cabot satisfied his wants, and then went at his message again.

When at last he paused once more for a rest, and shut off the trophil-engine, his human ears caught a familiar rattling sound. Instantly he realized the situation; one or more ant-men were approaching. Sure enough, as he looked out of a window in the direction of the sound, he saw two of these creatures trotting toward him across the plateau.

Both carried rifles slung at their backs; so without waiting for their nearer approach Myles opened fire. One of the Formians dropped, but the other turned and fled; and in spite of the hail of bullets which the earth-man sent after it, reached the crest in apparent safety, and disappeared from view.

Cabot knew what that meant to him. It portended the early return of the fugitive ant with scores of his fellows, to lay siege to the radio station. Then a doubt occurred to him. What if these ants were members of Doggo’s faction, and he had killed a friend?

And so at the risk of his life, he unbarred the door and rushed out to inspect the dead body. But it was no ant whom he knew. Time would tell whether the surviving ant would return with friends or foes. Meanwhile Cabot must get busy with his message. So at it again he went, first barring the door again.

From time to time he rested and listened for the approach of Formians. Occasionally he ate and drank. During his longer rests, he carted the rifle, the ammunition and some provisions to a point quite a distance down the mountainside, and cached them there; for he had formulated a plan of escape. But mostly he stuck to his signaling. All Cupia, or such of it as might still possess long-distance radio sets in spite of the renewed dominion of Yuri, must be made to know of the return of Myles Cabot from the earth.

Night fell, and with it came a respite from the danger of Formian attack; for these creatures would never venture forth in the darkness without lights, and lights would betray them. Myles spent part of the night in sending his message, part in watching for approaching lights, and part in dozing.

Finally along toward morning he set about wrecking the set, for he did not wish the Formians to get into communication with Cupia and undo the effect of his own message by pointing out its falsity. Accordingly he smashed the tubes, unwound the inductances and transformers, cut all the wiring into little bits, bent the plates of the condensers, chiseled through the coils of the generator, pounded the trophil-engine to pieces, and drained the trophil tank. It would be many sangths before a new radio set could be built, if indeed these Formians knew enough of the art to ever build another.

His work of destruction completed, he sat down to wait; but the inaction palled on him, and before he knew it he had fallen sound asleep.

He awakened with a start. It was broad daylight. He listened. There was much rattling outside. So he walked to the door, unbarred it, and stepped out.

He was not afraid; for on the evening before he had nailed above the door two crossed sticks, the Porovian equivalent of a flag of truce.

At a short distance stood a band of thirty or forty ant-men, their leader holding a pair of crossed sticks. Accordingly the ragged earth-man advanced. Not one of them did he recognize, but this was no indication of their identity.

Were these members of the Yuri faction, he wondered, or of the faction recently captained by the now deceased Doggo? If the former, they were conquerors intent on adding him to their list of conquests; but if the latter, then they might be fugitives like himself. It behooved him to find out.

So he proceeded to a slight depression in the mountain-top, very near the group of Formians. This depression contained soil, and in it he scratched in Porovian shorthand the words: “Yuri or Doggo?” Then pointed to his message and withdrew for a slight distance.

One of the ant-men advanced alone to the depression, stared at the words, rubbed one part of them, and returned to his comrades, at which Cabot in turn advanced.

The one word remaining written in the dirt was “Yuri!”

So these were victorious enemies, rather than fugitive friends.

Waving a signal that the interview was at an end, Myles Cabot returned with dignity to the shack and pulled down his crossed sticks.

But then, instead of entering, he suddenly dashed around the house and slid down the mountainside amid a shower of pebbles.

Instantly the Formian pack rushed after him, but they were too late; for by the time they had gained the crest he was safely under cover of the bushes, making his way down the slope with his rifle, ammunition, and provision. The ant-men evidently feared an ambush, for they did not follow.

This side of the mountain (the eastern) was wooded, instead of the almost impassable boulders over which he had climbed up the other side two days ago. Accordingly the descent was easy, almost pleasant. Soon he struck a path beside a little brook, and followed it until it led out onto the fertile eastern plains which he had observed when first he had topped this range of hills.

Beneath a large tree beside the brook, at the edge of the plain, Myles Cabot stopped and sat down for lunch; and it was while seated thus, with his back against the tree trunk, that an arrow suddenly whistled through the woods and imbedded itself in the bark just above his head.

Startled, he sprang to his feet, seized his rifle, and looked around.

A second arrow sped through the air, and this one did not miss him.

In due course of time, Myles regained consciousness. He was lying on the ground beneath the same tree. There was an ugly gash in his head. His rifle, ammunition, and food were gone. His face and body were covered with clotted blood, and he felt very faint.

With difficulty he dragged himself to the stream, tore off a piece of his ragged toga, and washed away some of the gore. But it required an almost superhuman effort. He lay on the bank and panted. His head swam. His surroundings began to blur and dance about. And then he swooned again.

After what seemed an interminable time he became dimly conscious that he was lying on something less hard than the ground. Soft arms were around him. Some one was crooning to him sweet words and low.

Was this a dream? Or was he back once more in Cupia with his loved ones?

VI
THE VAIRKINGS

Myles Cabot opened his weary eyes. Around him hung barbaric tapestries. He was lying on a couch covered by the same materials.

Seated on the couch beside him was a creature human in form, but covered with short golden-brown fur. It seemed to be a young woman of some species. But of what species?

Myles threw back his head and studied the creature’s face, expecting to see the prognathous features of some anthropoid ape. But no; for eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and all were human, distinctly human, and of high type. They might have been the features of an earth-girl, except for the fact that the short brown fur persisted on the face as on the rest of the body. The general effect reminded Cabot for all the world of a teddy bear. Yes, that is what this creature was, an animated human teddy bear.

Seeing Cabot looking at her, the creature smiled down at him, and murmured some strange words in a soothing musical voice. Also she stroked his cheek with one of her furry paws.

At this moment the hangings parted, and there stepped into their presence a man of the species, wearing a leather tunic and leather helmet, and carrying a wooden spear. Bowing low before the furry lady, he spoke to her in the same soft tongue which she had employed in addressing Myles.

Not a single syllable was familiar to the earth-man, but he caught the words “Roy” and “Vairking” repeated a number of times, and also made out that the furry man had addressed the furry lady as “Arkilu.”

Arkilu now arose from the couch and, taking a tablet and a stick of charcoal from a near-by stand, wrote some characters upon a sheet of paper and handed it to the man, who bowed and withdrew.

The pad and charcoal gave Myles an idea. If he was to stay any length of time with these creatures he had better start in at once learning both their written and their spoken language.

And perhaps, when he had mastered it, he could persuade these kindly yet warlike folk to assist him against the Formians. He judged that they were kindly, because of the actions of the furry lady; and they were warlike, because of the habiliments of the furry man.

Putting his idea into action, Myles sat up, gathering a gaudy blanket about his shoulders, and pointed to the writing materials. With a furry smile Arkilu brought them to him.

Having been through this game once before, he knew just where to begin. He pointed to the couch, and handed her the pad and charcoal.

Whereupon the lady spoke some absolutely unintelligible sound, and wrote upon the pad, in unmistakable Cupian shorthand, the familiar Cupian word for couch!

Myles could hardly believe his senses. He stared at the paper, rubbed his eyes, and then stared again. How was it that this creature employed a written character identical with the word used by another race, far across the impassable boiling seas, to designate the same thing? But perhaps this was merely a coincidence.

So he pointed to another object. Again there came a strange sound, coupled with the familiar Cupian symbol.

The experiment was repeated and repeated, always with the same result.

Then Cabot himself took the writing materials and inscribed a number of words which sounded somewhat alike in Porovian antenna speech. To these words Arkilu gave an entirely different set of similar sounds.

“Aha,” said Cabot to himself, “this language employs exactly the same words as are used on our continent, but translates the sound-symbols of these words into entirely different sounds!”