In another section, the earth-men saw for the first time certain bodies preserved in a clear solution, which they recognized from the historic thought-pictures they had previously seen, as being the original plasmic bodies of some of the Tloongs. Later, they found out that most of these people had retained their own physical envelopes, and kept them about their households even as others might keep statues or family portraits. But some had been donated to the laboratories, where they were held as specimens for study, and were used as reference in repairing any of the metal organs and members which might have suffered damage. Tloongs engaged in such labors of restoration were to be seen toiling like plastic surgeons; and ever and anon a new subject for their ministrations entered, displaying injuries of mysterious origin, which occurred oftener about the head than any other part, and were like the ravages of some corroding acid. Also, new frames were being made for those who had tired of the old ones; and new heads of enormous capacity for brains that had outgrown their former tenements.

Here Volmar and his crew underwent one of the strangest of all their experiences in the red world. They were led before certain of the beings in this section of the laboratory, who forth with made an incredibly minute examination of their bodily structure. These beings differed from most of the Tloongs in that they possessed two sets of eyes. One of the sets was dull and lifeless during the first half of the examination but lit up with a blinding luster when all the external parts had been examined closely. Numerous life-size drawings and diagrams of each man were made on huge sheets of a parchment-like material; and when the drawings began to reveal every bone, muscle, nerve, and internal organ, it was clear that the second set of eyes owned by the examiners was similar or superior to the X-ray in its visual powers. It was a weird ordeal, and the men felt as if they were being dissected. They surmised that the Tloongs were merely gratifying their biologic curiosity regarding the formation of beings who differed so basically from themselves. The true reason was beyond the wildest dreams and maddest theorizings of the earth-men.

After the examination was completed and the drawings were all made and filed away in special cabinets, the men were shown through other parts of the laboratory, where they saw the chemical genesis of new plant-growths, and the minerals that grew visibly beneath rays designed to promote the integration of the required atomic patterns. Their guides continued, as on the previous day, to instruct them in the language by naming every object and class of person encountered; and in this way their vocabulary was materially enriched, despite the difficulty of simulating the flute-like or horn-like intonations of the Tloongs.

After this tour of inspection, the earthlings were taken back to the Alcyone once more, and were permitted another term in which to eat, sleep, and otherwise recuperate. Every day, during the weeks that followed, they were conducted on other tours, some of which were quite extensive and were made possible in one diurnal period only by the use of passenger-bearing projectiles drawn by magnetic force through underground tubes. They were even shot through the great shaft which penetrated the world, and saw the multiform wonders of the antipodes. They soon formed a general idea of the conditions of life among the Tloongs, and, after weeks of linguistic study, were able to converse in a limited manner with their hosts.

These people, they found, were exempt from all the ordinary biological needs and desires. In their pre-metallic stage, they had respired, eaten, drunk and propagated themselves in a fashion not so widely dissimilar to that of other animal types. But now they needed nothing more in the way of nourishment than the mysterious ruby-colored fluid in which their brains floated; and through which they could seemingly convey the impulse of any desired action to their metal members, and could receive most if not all of the sense-impressions transmittable by physical nerves. Indeed, it appeared that some of them were the owners of faculties which implied a radio-like extension of hearing, sight, and tactility.

Their lives were devoted wholly to invention and research. The infinite grotesqueries which they devised and created, the vast gardens and forests which they tended, the animal monstrosities which they bred in prodigious numbers, were seemingly a source of both intellectual and aesthetic gratification. They had a written literature which was mainly concerned with problems of science and algebra; and also a pictorial art which was used for the representation of historical scenes and events, and the making of anatomical designs. They possessed musical instruments, many of which were played by invisible force-waves; but all their compositions were meant to express mathematical or even astronomical symbolisms, rather than any melody or harmony appreciable by human ears.

The machines they had builded were inexhaustibly diverse and ingenious. Their astronomical instruments, as well as others resembling microscopes, were based on a principle of television. Their air-vehicles were run and levitated by means of magnetic dynamos similar to those by which the vault of metallic atoms was maintained about the planet. By the use of the same principle, they could move their towers from place to place at will, or could transport entire mountains and huge masses of soil or stone. They had harnessed the few remaining volcanoes as a source of power, and also for aesthetic displays, like a sort of fire-works. All the elements were under their control; and the rare storms of rain or snow, and other meteoric phenomena, were induced only for spectacles.

It would seem, from the knowledge and supremacy they had attained, that their existence should have been free of anything in the way of trouble, danger, or disease. Such, however, was not altogether the case. Some of them, of later years, notably the eldest and most learned among their savants, had been seized by a strange form of madness—a madness which did not affect their general powers, but was marked by anti-social impulses and actions. In particular, the inventive experiments of these beings had assumed an absolute license from which the Tloongs had heretofore refrained. Certain rapidly multiplying forms of animal, plant, or even mineral life devised by the madmen, had been loosed upon the red world at various times; and had taxed the ingenuity of their confreres ere a means of retardation and destruction could be devised. None of these menaces, however, had defied eventual control; till one of the most revered and fertile-minded of the Tloongs had himself gone insane, and had created a new type of monster, half-vegetable, half-animal, which multiplied with more celerity than any other; and had turned some specimens of it loose in the inner caverns of the red planet, where it had increased to a countless horde ere it was discovered by the fellow-savants of the mad experimentalist. The monster, by reason of its odd physical organization, was supremely difficult to destroy; for, even if blasted into a million pieces, the fragments would reunite; and any single atom, if not resolved into its constituent electrons and protons, could become in time the center of a new organism. Also, it was omnivorous to a phenomenal degree, and would devour even stone and metal, eating its way through the surface of the world from the caverns that had been sealed by molecular walls as soon as its presence was known. It was continually escaping in some new spot, often in unpeopled areas, where it would muster by hundreds and thousands and invade the cultivated portions, devouring everything that fell in its way. The Tloongs who came to the laboratories with damaged bodies or members, had all sustained their injuries in conflict with this monster, which was called the Murm. It preferred their brains to any other food, and would attack the Tloongs with unparalleled ferocity. Several had been borne down and utterly destroyed by its onslaughts. The only thing that could combat the Murm was a rare element, extremely difficult and expensive to prepare, which acted like a fatal poison when eaten by the monster. It was impossible to make a sufficient amount of the element at any one time; and therefore the red world was suffering more and more from the outbreaks of the cavern-imprisoned creatures.