Fletcher Pratt

“ The machines pierce to it and draw it up for our uses.”
“What is this substance of life?”
“You would not understand if we told you. Sufficient that it is nothing known on the surface of your world. Your idea that most nearly approaches it is—” he paused for a moment, feeling about in Sherman's mind for the proper expression “—is pure light; light having material body and strength. Now let me ask—do you use explosives as we use the substance of life, to fight your enemies?”
“Yes.”
“What weapons do you use them in?”
Sherman thought of a revolver and then of a cannon. ”

“ Those who have become solid, of course, nothing can be done for. We have found in the past that when we take a new planet and make the individuals over into machines, unless we return them to familiar surroundings, they lose their brains when they reawake. ”

“ It is a material not unlike your radium, but a thousand times more powerful. When we reached your planet, your atmosphere carried it to every part of the earth, and all living things received it. Those who were most affected by it were turned to metal which retained that quality called 'life' within its interior reaches; the others became merely solid metal.
“Our birds are under instructions to bring us all such individuals as possess life. In our laboratories we make their forms over, so they will be useful to us as servants. ”

“ The army was a thing of the past, and if there were other people out in the world, and he could take them a knowledge of the Lassan fighting machines it would be of as much value as any information he could give. ”

“ I perceive your knowledge of the nature of light is elementary... But the material with which we surrounded the space-ship in which we came, in order to protect it from the radiation of suns unknown to you, has a powerful action on all animal substances. ”