ward some types of new things, it is true," I agreed.
"You don't know how hard we have tried to make them able to be of use to us. We are in constant bitter warfare with the insane Hobloks. Come, I will show you. The mind-record workers tell me you are wholly trustworthy."
The rest of my party never missed me. A group of uniformed officers surrounded the girls, some of whom, like Fanny de Moina, were real beauties. The six engineers were likewise surrounded by a bevy of underworld charm and MacCarthy's red face was wreathed in grins. I guessed he was describing the expansive Mula; I could hear them laughing.
Queen Shola led me into an adjoining apartment. Here the walls were a series of television screens on each of which a scene of struggle was taking place. On the center of each, some far distant ancient giant of a ray generator, topped by a Hoblok, sent vast streams of energy toward the receiver. These were met and neutralized by great black shorter rays somewhere between. In the lower part of the screen could be seen the uniformed head and shoulders of a snail man, his peculiar webbed hands manipulating the defense mechanisms. At some of the rays were humans, also in uniform.
"This particular war is ten years old," said Queen Shola. "You see, the ancient rays were so built and situated that they could not successfully fight against each other so that no revolution could take place by their use. At the same time they are so strong and well constructed that no weapon our weak modern minds can devise will subdue them. It is a premeditated deadlock so designed by the ancient Godrace. The Hobloks, of course, cannot understand this and try to fight with them; and, perforce, we must fight back with the ancient stationary ray. It is all extremely stupid and repetitive, but so far we have not found the answer. We are defeated by the brilliance of the ancient minds which built and placed the ancient rays as a check on any attempt to dominate their life. Do you follow?"
"I begin to understand," I mused aloud, "why Hobloks are such a menacing nuisance, yes."
"You see," she went on, "when you grow a larger alligator you have created a greater menace to your limbs. When a Hoblok steps into an ancient ray operator's seat he becomes a much larger bit of deviltry though just as stupid and undesirable."
"Multihead stupidity is still stupidity."
"Exactly," she answered. "That is what war is — stupidity multiplied by a force. And that is what Hoblok ray is—stupidity multiplied by titanic ancient force. Thus all our brilliance and knowledge of growth and science is neutralized by the Hoblok multiple—titanic idiocy."
"They are charming creatures. How did they get that way?" I asked.
"Endless centuries of secret parasitism on surface people have given them a sort of leech-soul! They never learned to use the growth generators or synthetic food machines of the ancients, but they did learn to use the view rays and some of the weapons. They used them so long that the worn-out machines give off a detrimental emanation which contributed to the degeneration of the original flesh pattern into the leechlike form of flesh it is. They are in truth a different form of life: more akin to such parasitic creatures than to man."
"You certainly confirm my suspicions on the matter. Have you tried bribery, turning them against each other?"
"They have so little organization it is not hard. We have had some success in that line. But in reality we are fighting the ancient mechanisms and when they get hold of one, they live in it. It becomes their life and they are unapproachable then, as you learned yourself when you argued with Mula. You could have held out for years there if you kept careful watch. Mula himself is checkmated and made the thing he is by these creatures. So he amuses himself with torture and waits for death. His thought is now a fixed pattern as is theirs.
"You will find many such products of growth-force generators in the underworld. Our own ruler is one. But she is different, younger; and we ourselves have worked with and renewed the growth-force mechanism till there is little danger of unbalanced growth."
"You mentioned that Mula's thought is fixed pattern as is the Hobloks. Will you explain?" I asked Shola.
"When we look at an insect like a
