e!"

So it was that we retreated--those who remained of us--to the capitol,
and prepared to make a formidable stand. The other armies of our empire
had done likewise. Who would have thought that this despised,
destructive form of life could ever become such a menace! We remembered
one of Thid's treatises on the noxious pests, in which he had maintained
that they had rudimentary intelligence and an interesting, if
sub-primitive, form of social life. How we had laughed at the thought of
imputing a social order to these subterranean aphids!

But we weren't laughing now! A race of malignant monsters had sprung up
in the twenty years that Thid had vanished into the desert.

* * * * *

Of Thid, nothing more was seen. But we knew he must still exist
somewhere among the Termans. Under that baleful inventive genius their
weapons seemed to multiply, and we were forced to tax our scientists to
the utmost in order to have weapons, of offense--and yes, O
Beneficence--defense!

For now, though we had managed to stem their attack on our capital, they
were steadily encroaching on our territory. Underground lakes and
streams were dammed by these fiends. Vast areas of vegetation were
denuded. Precious mines of rare metals were converted by them, under
Thid's direction, into sources for their ceaseless attacks. Aye! We died
a thousand deaths multiplied a thousand times.

Our ethero-magnum, by which our telepathic vibrations were amplified for
planetary broadcast, became a monotonous recorder of tragedy as city
after city fell to the hordes. For untold years this savage struggle
went on. How well we realized that this was a war for sole dominance of
the planet!

Until at last, only our proud capital by the shores of the scarlet sea,
and its immense valley was left to us.

"We must evolve the principles of inter-spacial travel," Palladin told
us sadly. "The day may come when we shall need it."

Hitherto, our rare flights to Venia and Mirla had been primitive affairs
in which the dangerous rocket principle was employed, with the terrific
effects of acceleration crushing the crews and making landing an even
greater hazard than the flight itself. But now, through inconceivable
efforts of thought--aye, through sheer desperation!--our scientists
evolved a system of atomic integration in which free orbital electrons
were utilized to create atomic quantities beyond our known table,
drawing upon the energy