Tension mounted in me. As we drifted in the air, I looked at our human
selves, seated giants in armor, cowled, brooding, and of legendary
height. Here was a chance for a meeting with entities of another shape,
flesh, and history. For the Martians and Xians seemed as extinct as the
dinosaurs. Their artifacts and mummies were known; but their voices,
movements, and real selves, were elusively beyond imagining.
In most of the old imaginative stories of the future, beings from
another region spoke and thought like men. But a recent University
course had pointed out how deeply different must be races sprung from
wholly separate chains of evolution, not only in form but psychology;
how there would be no helloes or similarity of custom on the other
side, and how one must wait with perfect self-control and mind utterly
open, until an equal horror of alienness lessened in the alien beings,
too....
Jan said, "Look." The word was a single, flat, undramatic note. But we
saw them. A mass of lint, gray to our colorblind vision, drifted toward
us like twisted branches. Out of it, as from shrubbery, a dozen pair
of eyes peered--lenses with a moist glint, fuzzed at the edges; here I
thought not so much of lashes as of strange, misplaced antennae. The
creatures were like rough-hewn dolls, with craggy, almost triangular
heads. Yet these were not metal robots. Their skin was rough, as from a
coarse binding of spherical cells, still small, yet almost large enough
to be seen individually.
These beings possessed two arms and two legs. Yet, in still another way
they were familiar. They took all their major details from the mummied
bodies of the Xians, though those original Xians had been of human
size. What strange retreat, or advance, was implied here?
I was trying to answer everything about tremendous mysteries at once.
But I heard Jan tinkle out words matching my own awe:
"Charlie.... Doc.... Other intelligent beings.... Real.... See their
clothing, and the metal devices at their belts and in their grasp.
Seeing something completely hidden previously, is getting closer to the
Ultimate Secret of the universe, isn't it?"
The little robot that represented Doc, holding onto the right hand
of Jan's proxy as I clutched its left, had things to say, too, as we
floated free, waiting for whatever would happen:
"Critters as little as these micro-robots of ours--and intelligent,
and of flesh. But there couldn't be an intelligent brain working on
the familiar human principle in so small a size. The molecules are
simply too coarse to achieve such compactness. For that and other
reasons, these strangers have to have flesh of some advanced form of
protoplast with its possible flow of many types of energy, submolecular
or electronic. This might well apply to brain function, making its
countless patterns not inconceivable in an almost infinitely smaller
package."
Just for a second, Doc paused, before he brought his topic to an avid
point: "Androids," he said. "Micro-androids, or the equivalent,
in relation to beings not human! Is that what they are? Then it is
another demonstration of the advantages of this improved, lab-developed
basis for life--venturing into space unprotected, being almost
indestructible--even going down into The Small!... Or could it have
evolved naturally?"
The chill in my mind sharpened and turned more eager. But now Dr.
Lanvin's groping words faded out.
For, warily at first, our opposite numbers in this strangest of
historic meetings, at last went into action. As a group, each with a
purpose, they leapt from that floating mass of floss, their graceful,
swimming motions in the air aided by the reaction of hot flickers from
little jet-tubes they carried.
Swiftly, as if taking a citadel, they surrounded us, and held us in
their explorative, yet strong clutch. Now was the moment of blundering,
of attempted communication, across the great, mysterious gulf of
difference.
Doc addressed them: "Now what do I do or say? Who learns whose way of
conversing? Or would it be trite to think that you might be telepathic?"
Could these beings even recognize Doc's friendliness? Well, we were in
for a surprise. They had a spokesman. Out of his thorax came a slurred
buzzing, struggling to mimic human speech:
"Telepathy? No, Mister. Not so good for us with you people. Funny?
Maybe.... Learn conversing? One can always learn more.... But we have
been visiting Earth, mostly unnoticed--since--before--there were--men."
Here was English, idiomatic to the point of slang. Yet, to add an
eeriness, there were pauses, as if the effort to think in a human
manner was more difficult for this trained but outworldly psychology
than the speech itself!
So, the simplicity of communication was like in some of the old,
imaginative stories. Well, why not, if these little people had
been haunting human stamping grounds for ages? Besides, could
extra-terrestrial thought, dealing with common physical facts, be so
totally different? That University course had exaggerated.