Arctarians who colonized this world? Our mighty colonists and their descendants surely could never have been overcome and destroyed by the pitifully weak mentalities that now inhabit this globe. Yet where, when, are they?
"That is why we sought to seize you and your companions. Low as we knew your mentalities must be, it seemed that surely even such as you would know what had become of our colonists who once inhabited this world."
The thought-stream paused a moment, then raced into Woodin's mind with a clear question.
"Have you not some knowledge of what became of our colonists? Some clue as to their strange disappearance?"
The numbed biologist found himself shaking his head slowly. "I never—I never heard before of such creatures as you, such minds. They never existed on earth that we know of, and we now know almost all of the history of earth."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the thought of the Arctarian leader. "Surely you must have some knowledge of our mighty people if you know all the history of this planet."
From another Arctarian's mind came a thought, directed at the leader but impinging indirectly on Woodin's brain.
"Why not examine the past of the planet through this creature's brain and see what we can for ourselves?"
"An excellent idea!" exclaimed the leader. "His mentality will be easy enough to probe."
"What are you going to do?" cried Woodin shrilly, panic edging his voice.
The answering thoughts were calming, reassuring. "Nothing that will harm you in the least. We are simply going to probe into your racial past by unlocking the inherited memories of your brain.
"In the unused cells of your brain lie impressed inherited racial memories that go back to your remotest ancestors. By our mental power of command we shall make those buried memories temporarily dominant and vivid in your mind.
"You will experience the same sensations, see the same scenes, that your remote ancestors of millions of years ago saw. And we, here around you, can read your mind as we now do, and so see what you are seeing, looking into the past of this planet.
"There is no danger. Physically you will remain standing here but mentally you will leap back across the ages. We shall first push your mind back to a time approximating that when our colonists came to this world, to see what happened to them."
NO sooner had this thought impinged on Woodin's mind than the starlit scene around him, the humped masses of the Arctarians, suddenly vanished and his consciousness seemed whirling through gray mist.
He knew that physically he was not moving yet mentally he had a sense of terrific velocity of motion. It was as though his mind was whirling across unthinkable gulfs, his brain expanding.
Then abruptly the gray mists cleared. A strange new scene took hazy form inside Woodin's mind.
It was a scene that he sensed, not saw. By other senses than sight did it present itself to his mind, yet it was none the less real and vivid.
He looked with those strange senses upon a strange earth, a world of gray
