"But what the devil is it all about?" he demanded explosively. "Why all
the dirty looks? You've got us here as prisoners--now what do you expect
us to do? Whatever it is, you'll have to quit singing it and talk
something we can understand."

He knew his words were useless, but this reception was getting on his
nerves--and his arm still tingled where the scarlet one had gripped
him.

It seemed, though, that his meaning was not entirely lost. His words
meant nothing to them, but his tone must have carried its own message.
There were sharp exclamations from the seated circle. The one who had
brought them sprang forward with outstretched, clutching hands; his face
was a blood-red blotch. McGuire was waiting in crouching tenseness that
made the red one pause.

"You touch me again," said the waiting man, "and I'll knock you into an
outside loop."

The attacker's indecision was ended by a loud order from above. McGuire
turned as if he had been spoken to by the leader on the throne. The thin
figure was leaning far forward; his eye were boring into those of the
lieutenant, and he held the motionless pose for many minutes. To the
angry man, staring back and upward, there came a peculiar optical
illusion.

The evil face was vanishing in a shifting cloud that dissolved and
reformed, as he watched, into pictures. He knew it was not there, the
thing he saw; he knew he was regarding something as intangible as
thought; but he got the significance of every detail.

He saw himself and Professor Sykes; they were being crushed like ants
beneath a tremendous heel; he knew that the foot that could grind out
their lives was that of the one on the throne.

* * * * *

The cloud-stuff melted to new forms that grew clearer to show him the
earth. A distorted Earth--and he knew the distortion came from the mind
of the being before him who had never seen the earth at first hand; yet
he knew it for his own world. It was turning in space; he saw oceans and
continents; and before his mental gaze he saw the land swarming with
these creatures of Venus. The one before him was in command; he was
seated on an enormous throne; there were Earth people like Sykes and
himself who crept humbly before him, while fleets of great Venusian
ships hovered overhead.

The message was plain--plain as if written in words of fire in the brain
of the man. McGuire knew that these creatures intended that the vision
should be true--th