After a few weeks Harkas Yen took me out of the cage and put me up in his own home. He obtained for me a brown sequin suit and a pair of brown boots; and I had the run of his house; but I was not permitted to leave it, either while it was sunk below ground or while it was raised to the surface.

That house went up and down at least once a day, and sometimes oftener. I could tell when it was going down by the screaming of sirens, and I could tell why it was down by the detonation of bursting bombs that shook everything in the place.

I asked Harkas Yen what it was all about, although I could pretty well guess by what I had left in the making on Earth; but all he said was: "The Kapars."

After I had learned the language so that I could speak and understand it, Harkas Yen announced that I was to be tried.

"For what?" I asked.

"Well, Tangor," he replied, "I guess it is to discover whether you are a spy, a lunatic, or a dangerous character who should be destroyed for the good of Unis."

Tangor was the name he had given me. It means from nothing, and he said that it quite satisfactorily described my origin; because from my own testimony I came from a planet which did not exist. Unis is the name of the country to which I had been so miraculously transported. It was not heaven and it was certainly not hell, except when the Kapars came over with their bombs.

At my trial there were three judges and an audience; the only witnesses were the girl who had discovered me, the five policemen who had arrested me, Harkas Yen, his son Harkas Don, his daughter Harkas Yamoda, and his wife. At least I thought that those were all the witnesses, but I was mistaken. There were seven more, old gentlemen with sparse grey hairs on their chins-you've got to be an old man on Poloda before you can raise a beard, and even then it is nothing to brag about.