Tellurian n.

Man in the Moon. What monster have we here?—Away, Tellurian!

If any distant world…are so far ahead of us Tellurians in optical resources.

There is a mystery in Tellus which has not been solved. I cannot reconcile the disappearance of all its water and its race of men as well, with the legend preserved in our family that, not so very long ago, Tellurians visited us, staying beneath this very roof as guests. Why did the Earth-race die out so quickly?

The Tellurians had learned of such difficulties, to their cost, when they attempted to trap Warrington’s army in the crater of Hipparchus by landing the fleet and disembarking soldiers in a circle about him.

The Tellurians soon found themselves locked up in a great metal tower many miles from their space flier. In a moment of carelessness, one of Sudiven’s companions had let drop the remark that this flier was the only one yet built upon the earth, and the shelks decided to take advantage of this fact, to begin at once the conquest of earth.

Mr. Bridges is more interested in correct usage of planetary names, rather than in mere derivations (a more useful and less frivolous involvement than mine, you see) and, for instance, advocates what he maintains to be correctly derived words such as Venustian and Hesperian for hypothetical inhabitants of Venus in place of the incorrect Venusian or Cytherean; and Tellus and Tellurian in place of Terra and Terran. He lists astronomers and classical scholars who support his views.

As with most Tellurian ghettos, the enclave on Lhonz 4 kept an academy, a building with two floors, in contrast to the habitations surrounding it. It was solid and impressive, built of native red stone and furnished with the usual heavy tapestries and large fireplaces found in the ghetto. Lhonz 4 was a small, cold world, hereditarily inhabited by humanoids more notable for their hirsuteness than for their doubtful attractiveness. Relations between the locals and the sons of Tellus, the death merchants, were strictly on a cash basis. But the Tellurians had to make do with Lhonz. Few worlds relish the establishment of a race with a reputation for viciousness and undoubted possession of weapons in advance of anything in the galaxy.

DuQuesne, of course—I'll bet a hat no other Tellurian is this far from home.

It happens…that tellurians of learning and advanced years, such as myself, grow disenchanted with all things martian.