from his eyes.

"I know. I'm just trying to think aloud and I'm liable to say anything.
But this sort of business is the work of humans as sure as you're born.
Still I believe that what Simler says is true. I can't believe that any
country on earth is back of the thing. It must be an attack from beings
of another planet, but I think they have as a leader a man who is of
our own earth."

Marie's eyes opened wide at this. "But how could that be?" she asked.
"Surely no one from our earth has made the trip to one of the other
planets?"

"It may be that someone has," replied Hart. "Do you remember Professor
Oradel? Remember, about ten years ago, I think it was, when he and a
half dozen or more of extremely radical scientists built a rocket they
claimed would reach the moon? They were ridiculed and hissed and
relegated to the position of half-baked, crazy inventors. But Oradel had
a large private fortune, and he and his crowd built themselves a
workshop and laboratory in a secluded region in the Ozarks. Here they
labored and experimented and eventually the rocket ship was constructed.
No person was in their confidence, but when the machine was completed
they issued a statement to the press to the effect that they were ready
for the voyage to the moon, and that, when they returned, a reckoning
with the world was to be made for its disbelief and total lack of
sympathy. Again the press subjected Oradel to a series of scathing
denunciations, and the scientific publications refused to take
cognizance of his claims in any way, shape or form."

* * * * *

"Then, one night, a great rocket roared into the heavens, leaving a
terror-stricken countryside in the wake of its brilliantly visible tail.
Several observatories whose telescopes picked up and followed the trail
of the contraption reported that it described a huge parabola, mounting
high into the stratosphere and falling back to earth, where it was lost
in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. There the thing ended and it was
soon forgotten. But I believe that this rocket ship of Oradel's reached
Mars or Venus and that the peoples of whichever planet they reached have
been prevailed upon and prepared to war upon the world."

"That would explain their knowledge of our languages and codes." I
ventured, "and would likewise account for the fact that the first of our
ships to be attacked were those carrying large shipments of currency.
Though if these