"Listen," commanded Ron, and swung the pointer to the symbol of our own world.
Instantly there broke forth in that quiet room all the sounds of diversified life with which we Venhezians are familiar. All six of us who listened nodded comprehension. Already our science knew the principle, for we had long had dials that surpassed this one, apparently; for ours, while but attuned to our planet alone, could, and did, record every event, sight, or sound thereon, at any distance, regardless of solid obstacles intervening. But this dial—it bore the symbols of all the inhabited worlds. Could it—?
Ron swung the indicator to the symbol of Markhuri, and the high-pitched uproar that immediately assailed our earswas characteristic of that world of excitable, volatile-natured, yet kindly people.
Planet after planet, near and far, we contacted thus, regardless of space, until Ron swung the pointer to the symbol of Aerth.
And silence was the result!
Ron's look was significant. It spoke volumes. One and all, we looked into each other's faces, and read therein reflected the same anxiety, the same apprehension which we each experienced.
That something was radically wrong with our neighbor, everybody already knew, for many years before the green light of Aerth had become perceptibly dimmer. Little attention, however, had been paid at first, for, by interplanetary law, each planet's dwellers remained at home, unless their presence was requested elsewhere. A wise idea, if one stops to consider. And no call had come to us nor to any other world from Aerth; so we had put it down to some purely natural cause with which, doubtless, the Aerthons were perfectly capable of coping without outside help or interference.
But year by year the green light waned in the night skies until finally it vanished utterly.
That might have been due to atmospheric changes, perhaps. Life, even, might have become extinct upon Aerth, so that no one lived to hold communication with anyone on any of the other inhabited worlds of the Planetary Chain, but it was hardly likely, unless the catastrophe were instantaneous; and in that case it would needs be violent. Anything so stupendous as that would have been registered at once by instruments all over the universe.
But now—this invention of Ron Ti's placed a remarkably serious aspect upon the question. For, if Aerth still occupied its old place—and we knew beyond doubt that it did—then what lay behind this double veil of silence and invisibility?
What terrible menace threatened the universe? For whatever had happened on one planet might well occur on another. And if Aerth should perchance be wrecked, the delicate balance of the universe would be seriously shaken, might even be thrown out completely, and Markhuri, so near the sun, go tumbling into blazing ruin.
Then, horror upon horror, until chaos and old night once more held sway, and the unguessed purposes of the Great Mind would be—
Oh, but such thoughts led to madness! What to do? That course alone held fast to sanity.
"Well?" demanded Hul Jok, the practical. "What are you going to do about it, Ron?"
That was Hul Jok all over! He was Ron's best friend and ardent admirer. He knew Ron's scientific ability, and firmly believed, should Venhez crack open, that inside of an hour Ron Ti would have the crevice closed tight and re-welded until in-
