of the
worlds, before passing on to another universe. We are a planet without a
universe. We will wander and pillage until we find a universe like the
one we come from, or until Xlarbti itself disintegrates and we perish.

* * * * *

"We could easily wipe out all the dwellers on Earth and mine the ores
ourselves. But that would be a needless waste of our powers, for since
you can not defy us, and since the desire for life burns as high in you
as in us and as it does in all sensate things in all universes, your
people will save themselves from death and save us from wasting energy
by mining the ores for us. What happens afterwards, we do not care.

"The seven new suns that you saw were dead worlds that we used as
buffers to slow down Xlarbti. The full strength of our repulsion-force
directed against any single world necessarily turns it into a liquid or
gaseous state depending on various factors. Your planet Neptune was
pulled out of the solar system by the attraction of Xlarbti's mass. The
flame-paths, as you call them, are directed streams of energy for
different purposes: the one to the sun supplies us, for instance, with
heat, light, and electricity, which in turn are stored up for eventual
use.

"The orange-ray that you felt is one of our achievements. It is similar
to the double-action pumps used in some of your sulphur mines, whereby a
pipe is inclosed in a larger pipe, and hot water forced down through
the larger tubing returns sulphur-laden through the central pipe. The
orange-ray instantaneously dissolves any portable object up to a certain
size, propels it back to Xlarbti through its center which is the reverse
ray, and here reforms the object, just as you were recreated on the disk
that you stood on when you regained consciousness.

"But I have not enough time to explain everything on Xlarbti to you; nor
would you comprehend it all if I did. Your stay is almost up.

"In that one control-panel lies all the power that we have mastered,"
boasted Garboreggg with supreme egotism. "It connects with the
individual controls throughout Xlarbti."

"What is the purpose of some of the levers?" asked Phobar, with a
desperate hope in his thoughts.

* * * * *

A filament of metal whipped to the panel from the lord of Xlarbti. "This
first section duplicates the control-panel that you saw in the
laboratory where you opened your eyes. Do not think that you