Of course this is no place to describe the laborious process of interpreting these documents, records of a past which was gone before earth’s mankind had even begun.  The work involved the study of countless photos, covering everything from inscriptions to parts of machinery, and other details which furnished clue after clue to that superancient language.  It was not deciphered, in fact, until several years after the explorers had submitted their finds to the world’s foremost lexicographers, antiquarians and paleontologists.  Even today some of it is disputed.

But right here is, most emphatically, the place to insert the tale told by that unparalleled voice.  And incredible though it may seem, as judged by the standards of the peoples of this earth, the account is fairly proved by the facts uncovered by the expedition.  It would be but begging the question to doubt the genuineness of the thing; and if, understanding the language, one were to hear the original as it fell, word for word from the iron mouth of Strokor [Footnote:  Translator’s note—­In the Mercurian language, stroke means iron, or heart.] the Great-hearing, one would believe; none could doubt, nor would.

And so it does not do him justice to set it down in ordinary print.  One must imagine the story being related by Stentor himself; must conceive of each word falling like the blow of a mammoth sledge.  The tale was not told—­it was bellowed; and this is how it ran: 

PART II

THE STORY

I

THE MAN

I am Strokor, son of Strok, the armorer.  I am Strokor, a maker of tools of war; Strokor, the mightiest man in the world; Strokor, whose wisdom outwitted the hordes of Klow; Strokor, who has never feared, and never failed.  Let him who dares, dispute it.  I—­I am Strokor!

In my youth I was, as now, the marvel of all who saw.  I was ever robust and daring, and naught but much older, bigger lads could outdo me.  I balked at nothing, be it a game or a battle; it was, and forever shall be, my chief delight to best all others.

’Twas from my mother that I gained my huge frame and sound heart.  In truth, I am very like her, now that I think upon it.  She, too, was indomitable in battle, and famed for her liking for strife.  No doubt ’twas her stalwart figure that caught my father’s fancy.

Aye, my mother was a very likely woman, but she boasted no brains.  “I need no cunning,” I remember she said; and he who was so unlucky in battle as to fall into her hands could vouch for the truth of it—­as long as he lived, which would not be long.  She was a grand woman, slow to anger and a match for many a good pair of men.  Often, as a lad, have I carried the marks of her punishment for the most of a year.

And thus it seems that I owe my head to my father.  He was a marvelously clever man, dexterous with hand and brain alike.  Moreover, he was no weakling; perchance I should credit him with some of my agility, for he was famed as a gymnast, though not a powerful one.  ’Twas he who taught me how to disable my enemy with a mere clutch of the neck at a certain spot.