As if materializing out of the air, the Martian was before me. I stared
at him, stupified.
"What's the matter, Jery? What is it?" Snow said. Then she looked where
I was looking, giving a little scream.
"It's all right, honey," I said, with hollow courage. "He's a little
impressionistic, but--"
"He?" she cried, clinging to me. "That--that thing?"
I looked at her, mystified, then back at the sort-of man I was standing
before. He made my head spin a bit, what with apparently seeing him
from front view and both profiles simultaneously, but he was mannish
looking.
"This guy, the Martian, honey," I said. "Maybe you didn't take enough
steps forward."
"She cannot see me as you see me, Jery Delvin," said the Martian. "Her
eyes only convey to her a fantastic whirl of hideous light and dark
shapes. She, along with most others of your race, cannot apprehend my
form as you can. This is why you were chosen, Jery Delvin."
"That's crazy," I protested. "You're there, aren't you? You reflect
light into the eyes, right? Why can't she see you?"
"The human eye is not the animal eye," said the Martian. "An animal eye
sees only meaningless shapes; animals use all their senses to identify
objects. But the human eye sees concepts, Jery Delvin. Where an animal
merely discerns eyes, feeding apparatus and breathing vents, the human
eye sees a face. Actually, there is no such thing as a face."
It was true enough, in a way, that the human eye tended to group
otherwise unrelated objects into concepts of non-actual reality.
"So how come I can see you, and she can't?" I reiterated.
"You are gifted to see true," said the Martian. "Your mind apprehends
concepts where it has previously expected to find none. You relate
what you see, and correctly. As in the case of your deriving so much
information from your conversation with Clatclit. Another man would not
have succeeded in that."