of Molo, whispered: "What are they doing up
there?"
The faint hiss and throb of the devices were audible. I stared, trying
to understand. Images, and sounds, invisible and inaudible were being
received from across the millions of miles of space, and they were
being transmuted within the brains themselves. I saw that discs were
fastened upon the bulging foreheads of the brains, upon which the tiny
light-beams carrying the vibrations impinged.
These brains, receiving "waves" of some unknown variety were, within
the mechanism of the brain-cell, transmuting, translating the
vibrations into things knowable. They were not seeing, not hearing,
but _knowing_ what went on millions of miles across space!
Again Molo bent over me. "They are about to show this audience what is
happening on the three worlds."
Upon the thirty-foot globe I saw now a dozen or so balls of about
three-foot diameter. These had been dark and I had not noticed them.
Now they began glowing, not from wires carrying the current, but from
the little hands of the brains touching them.
I stared at the brain nearest me. His flabby little arm was extended;
his hand touched the image-ball; gave it light and color, like a
fortune-teller of Earth with a crystal before her.
Even though I was some sixty feet from it, I could see the moving
images clearly, and recognized the scene. The Tappan Interplanetary
Stage. Ships were rising; two of our spaceships mounting.
And all in an instant the scene blurred, took form again. The
red-green spires and minarets of Ferrok-Shahn. The Central Canal
extended like a gash across the foreground; the "Mushroom Mountains"
were in a line upon the horizon. Three Martian space-flyers slid up
while we watched.
And now Grebhar. The silver forest in all its shining beauty, where
Venza was born. The sunlight sparkled on the river. A spaceship was
rising in the distant sky over the shining forest.
Beyond Anita, I heard Venza murmuring, "Home! If only we were there."
I could feel Anita move to silence her.
Molo was whispering: "They come. But we will be ready for them."
Another image: mid-space. The allied ships gathering, waiting for
others to arrive. A group here of about ten of our ships from the
three worlds: poised, waiting.
I was aware that upon the mound-like protuberance of the room-floor
where we were sitting, a door was opening. It slid, or melted away. At
our feet was an opening downward into the small inte
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