The Thing could not tell Tommy in mind-to-mind converse. The thought it had could not be translated into words by Tommy Driscoll's brain. But the distance was very great, and It explained quickly that they were able to talk over so vast a chasm as if face to face because of—

Again Tommy's brain was not able to translate the mental impressions he received. He could recognize the meanings the Thing wanted to convey, if the meanings were stored away in his memory. But naturally, complex technical concepts were simply not in his vocabulary. The Thing seemed satisfied to fail.

"Have you got space-ships and ray-guns and gravity nullifiers and mysterious rays?" asked Tommy eagerly. "Our scientists haven't even made ray-guns yet!"

The Thing said that of course Its race had such things. It added encouragingly that men would have them soon, of course. With heavy elements—even copper and iron—it would be easy.

Then an overtone came into the thoughts that crowded into Tommy's brain from somewhere beyond the stars. Tommy did not notice the overtone at first. It was a feeling of eagerness and triumph and of a sneering superiority.

Tommy got just a momentary impression of Its thought of a Space Patrol subjugating all the Galaxy to Earth. And the barest, instantaneous flash of hatred because of that thought. But he was too much excited to notice. He was absorbed in his question about ray-guns.

It said that they were simple. In fact, It would tell him how to make one. And It began, simply, to explain—a bit of copper wire, twisted just so, and a bit of carbon and a morsel of iron.

It urged Tommy to make one immediately. It would guide his hands. The adjustment of the iron and carbon was delicate.

Tommy was a small boy, and he sturdily controlled his own hands. In the end the Thing simply told him what to do. He made the contrivance It suggested, putting the wire and iron and carbon together on a bit of board, having salvaged them from his father's supplies.

The result did not look too impressive, to be sure. It did not even look like a ray pistol, and that may account for what ultimately happened. Because when it was finished and Tommy regarded it with a faint and illogical disappointment because it didn't look like Captain McGee's ray pistol, he suddenly felt the eager triumph in the Thing which had instructed him.

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