Hul Jok, war prince, solved our dilemma. He grasped a young tree, thick as his wrist, tore it from the ground, broke it across his knee—
"Club!" he grunted. "Our million-year-ago ancestors used such on Venhez. There are records of such in the Central War Castle!"
Hurriedly he prepared one for each of us, talking as he wrought.
"They can feel," he growled, "for all that they may not be slain. Very well! We will beat them from the Aethir-Torp!"
And that is precisely what occurred. On Venhez I had, at times, worked with my hands, for sheer delight of muscle-movement. But never had I dreamed what actual hard work was until that hour, during which, club in hand, we stormed our own craft, until at last we stood watching the last of the Things as they rapidly passed through the air toward their cliff-abode—all but one, which we had finally cornered alone in a compartment into which it had strayed from the rest. We hemmed it about, beat it with our clubs until it cringed from the pain. Then Ron Ti thrust his face close to its face. . . .
We caught Ron's idea, added our wills to his, overbore that of our captive. It became confused, bewildered, shifted from silver to black, to silver again, the black became dull, smoky, the silver paled to leaden hue, the Thing crouched, palpitant with fear-waves, manifest in dim coloration!
"We have learned enough!" declared Ron Ti, solemnly. "Back to Venhez! This is matter for the Supreme Council, as I feared even before we started. Here we cannot cope with conditions: we seven are too small a force. Back to Venhez!"
"Nay," Hul Jok demurred. "Let us remain and clean Aerth of this spawn!" And he indicated the captive Thing with a contemptuous gesture of his foot.
But Vir Dax added his voice to that of Ron Ti; and I—I was eager to go—to stay—I knew not which. The others felt as I did. Both courses had their attractions—also their drawbacks. For myself, I fear me very greatly that I, Hak Iri, who ever held myself aloof from all emotions of violence, desiring clear mind that I might better chronicle the deeds of others—I fear, I say, that in me still lives something of that old Hak Iri, my remote ancestor who, once in the Days of Wildness of which our minstrels still sing, made for himself a name of terror on all Venhez for his love of strife.
But Mor Ag really settled the argument.
"We have this—Thing," he declared. "It must be examined, if we would learn aught of its nature, and that must be done if we hope ever to cope with such as it has proved to be in structure" (here an unholy light shone transient in the keen, cold eyes of Vir Dax), "and," continued Mor Ag, "we can, while on the return to Venhez, learn what has actually happened to Aerth from the two Aerthons—"
"One Aerthon!" interrupted Vir Dax. "The other died. Hul Jok knows not his own strength!"
He bent over, examined the living Aerthon and promptly brought him back to consciousness. Mor Ag spoke to him. The Aerthon brightened a trifle as he became assured we meant him no harm. He brightened still more when he observed that we held captive one of his former masters.
Then the Thing caught the Aerthon's eye, and Lan Apo hastily turned to Hul Jok.
"It were well to confine this—where the Aerthon may not win to it," he warned emphatically. "Otherwise the will of the Thing will compel the enslaved fool to assist it to
(Continued on page 183)
