The Men From Arcturus [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONE Ryklo looked back at the swirl of contorted space behind him and was amazed at his own ingenuity. Why, he had travelled what might be called an infinite distance from Arcturus in practically no time at all. The distance was infinite to the ordinary mind, he told himself. His own mind did not consider it so. He was one of the Master Race, the Edaphi, which was extraordinary in matters intellectual; the spaceship that had brought him such a vast distance was a simple mechanical contrivance, to him. The mathematics might have been a trifle steep, what with geometrical calculus and all, but it only meant that he was the most sagacious of the mental luminaries of his race. It was not immodest of him to admit this; he was only stating a fact. The little star ahead of him, one of the ordinary G-type, was Sol. Ryklo had a name for it in his own language, but he was soon to call it by the name given it by the inhabitants of the system. On Vroob, the Arcturian planet which was Ryklo's home, Sol was considered part of the Centauri group - but names are only for identification, Besides, Ryklo's name for Sol included a number of sounds not translatable to any other language. A number of planets circled Sol and one or two might contain life as Ryklo knew it. He couldn't expect bona fide intelligence, like his own, but there might be an environment suitable for him and his kind. Then, if everything went right, he would be a wealthy man and , ^ the potentate of a pleasant little universe. 5