Fletcher Pratt

“ Sherman looked round at the others, then at the passage, and smiled with satisfaction.
“That old Lassan,” he remarked, “told me the metal evolution would reverse if we got the emanation without letting the stuff touch us. Well, he was a sport.”
“Yes, but—” said Marta Lami, standing up and feeling of herself. “Look what they did to us. My toes are flexible and my figure bulges in such queer places. I'll never be able to dance again. Oh, well, I suppose it doesn't matter—I'll be marrying the boy friend anyway.” She took Sherman's hand and he blushed with embarrassment. ”

“ She swung with that underarm motion which is the nearest any woman can achieve to a throw. The pin struck the gleaming car-rail, skidded, turned and came to rest before Sherman's cage. He reached for it, but the ape-man in the cage, who had been watching with interested eyes, was quicker. Fending Sherman off with one huge paw, he reached one of his feet through the bars for the object and held it up before his eyes admiringly. ”

“ Impassively, oblivious of the invasion about them, the workers kept on at their machines like ants when their nest is broken open. Sherman and Gloria dodged around one of them, avoiding the direct line of sight of the robot who worked at it and walked rapidly toward the door giving on the car-tracks. The man on duty had no weapon, but paid them no attention, being occupied in watching a car just sliding in to the station. “It's a shame” began Gloria, but “Shoot!” insisted Sherman and the light-ray struck him in the back of the neck fusing head and neck to a single mass. ”

“ It is our failure that we have depended too much on naked intellect; learned to do too many things through the hands of our servants. Had Lassans been at the controls of our fighting ships, instead of the automatons we used, you would never have conquered them so easily.
“Be that as it may. We have lost and you have won. I can show myself more generous than you would have been, and thus can gain a victory over you. If you would escape, follow the car-track straight on to where it forks ”

“ Your curious race, for all its defects, has certain qualities of intelligence, and above all that strange quality of activity and what you call courage. If we could have summoned up the same activity; if we had possessed the same courage to attack against odds, this would not have happened. ”