"Do you believe there are any inhabitants on Venus?" I asked at length.

"Certainly. I know there are."

"For sure," put in Jack, stretching out his legs and pulling at his pipe.
"Who'd go twenty-seven million miles to pay a visit if he didn't know
there was somebody at home?"

"Then that's what you put the arms aboard for," I remarked.

"Yes, but I hope we shall not have to use them."

"Strikes me that this is a sort of pirate ship," said Jack. "But what
kind of arms have you got, Edmund?"

For answer Edmund threw open a locker and showed us a gleaming array of
automatic guns and pistols and even some cutlasses.

"Decidedly piratical!" exclaimed the incorrigible Jack. "You'd better
hoist the black flag. But, see here, Edmund, with all this inter-atomic
energy that you talk about, why in the world didn't you invent something
new--something that would just knock the Venustians silly, and blow their
old planet up if necessary? Automatic arms are pretty good at home, on
that unprogressive earth that you have spurned with your heels, but
they'll likely be rather small pumpkins on Venus."

"I didn't prepare anything else," Edmund replied, "because, in the first
place, I was too busy with more important things, and in the second place
because I don't really anticipate that we shall have any use for arms. I