pyramids, about halfway up from the base. Inside there was light from dozens of lemon-green globes which hung at varying heights from the ceiling. If anything, the light was brighter than the dusk outside. We were taken down a curving corridor to a long room with a pointed ceiling. Along one side there was a row of open-fronted cubicles, their sides made of the hard glass-like substance. Each of us, we were told, was to go into one of these. After that, we were to wait. The Masters would come in due course.
We waited a long time. For the others, I imagine, it was easier. Being filled with the desire, above all things, to serve the Masters, would give them patience. Fritz and I had no such comfort. He was in a cubicle some ten away from mine, and I could not see him. I could see those on either side of me and, dimly, the two or three after that. I was filled increasingly with tension and apprehension, but knew I must not show it. There was discomfort also. Most of us were sitting or lying on the floor to help relieve the drag on our limbs. Lying was best, except for the sweat which had pooled inside the mask and, uncomfortable anyway, was intolerable if head and shoulders were not upright. By now, also, I was dreadfully thirsty, but there was nothing to drink and no means of drinking in any case. I wondered if they could have forgotten us—if we were to be left here until we died of thirst and exhaustion. Presumably we were of some value to them, but it would not be much. We could very easily be replaced.
I sensed rather than heard it at first, but it grew intoa ripple of sound, spreading along the cubicles to my right—a sound of awe and wonder. I knew then that the moment had come, and craned my neck to see. They had entered the room from the far end, and were approaching the cubicles. The Masters.
• • •
For all the discomfort and fatigue, and fears as to what might happen, the first impulse I had was to laugh. They were so grotesque! They stood much taller than a man, nearly twice as tall, and were broad in proportion. Their bodies were wider at the bottom than the top, four or five feet around I thought, but tapered upward to something like a foot in circumference at the head. If it was the head, for there was no break in the continuity, no sign of a neck. The next thing I noticed was that their bodies were supported not on two legs but three, these being thick but short. They had, matching them, three arms, or rather tentacles, issuing from a point about halfway up their bodies. And their eyes—I saw that there were three of those, too, set in a flattened triangle, one above and between the other two, a foot or so below the crown. In color the creatures were green, though I saw that the shades differed, some being dark, the green tinged with brown, and others quite pallid. That, and the fact that their heights varied to some extent, appeared to be the only means of telling one from another. I felt it was a poor one.
Later I was to discover that, as one grew accustomed to them, identification was easier than I had expected. The orifices which were their mouths, andnose, and ears, varied too—in size, in shape a little, and in their relationship with each other. They were connected by a pattern of wrinkles and creases which one learned to know and recognize. At first impact, though, they were faceless, almost completely uniform. It sent a shiver of quite a different fear down my spine when one of them, stopping before me, spoke.
“Boy,” he said, “stand up.”
I thought the words issued from the mouth—which I judged the lower of the two central orifices to be—until I saw that it was the upper one which was quivering and open while the other remained closed and still. With the Masters, I was to discover, the organs of breathing and eating were not connected, as men’s are: they spoke as well as breathed through one, ate and drank only through the lower, larger opening.
I stood up, as I was bid. A
We waited a long time. For the others, I imagine, it was easier. Being filled with the desire, above all things, to serve the Masters, would give them patience. Fritz and I had no such comfort. He was in a cubicle some ten away from mine, and I could not see him. I could see those on either side of me and, dimly, the two or three after that. I was filled increasingly with tension and apprehension, but knew I must not show it. There was discomfort also. Most of us were sitting or lying on the floor to help relieve the drag on our limbs. Lying was best, except for the sweat which had pooled inside the mask and, uncomfortable anyway, was intolerable if head and shoulders were not upright. By now, also, I was dreadfully thirsty, but there was nothing to drink and no means of drinking in any case. I wondered if they could have forgotten us—if we were to be left here until we died of thirst and exhaustion. Presumably we were of some value to them, but it would not be much. We could very easily be replaced.
I sensed rather than heard it at first, but it grew intoa ripple of sound, spreading along the cubicles to my right—a sound of awe and wonder. I knew then that the moment had come, and craned my neck to see. They had entered the room from the far end, and were approaching the cubicles. The Masters.
• • •
For all the discomfort and fatigue, and fears as to what might happen, the first impulse I had was to laugh. They were so grotesque! They stood much taller than a man, nearly twice as tall, and were broad in proportion. Their bodies were wider at the bottom than the top, four or five feet around I thought, but tapered upward to something like a foot in circumference at the head. If it was the head, for there was no break in the continuity, no sign of a neck. The next thing I noticed was that their bodies were supported not on two legs but three, these being thick but short. They had, matching them, three arms, or rather tentacles, issuing from a point about halfway up their bodies. And their eyes—I saw that there were three of those, too, set in a flattened triangle, one above and between the other two, a foot or so below the crown. In color the creatures were green, though I saw that the shades differed, some being dark, the green tinged with brown, and others quite pallid. That, and the fact that their heights varied to some extent, appeared to be the only means of telling one from another. I felt it was a poor one.
Later I was to discover that, as one grew accustomed to them, identification was easier than I had expected. The orifices which were their mouths, andnose, and ears, varied too—in size, in shape a little, and in their relationship with each other. They were connected by a pattern of wrinkles and creases which one learned to know and recognize. At first impact, though, they were faceless, almost completely uniform. It sent a shiver of quite a different fear down my spine when one of them, stopping before me, spoke.
“Boy,” he said, “stand up.”
I thought the words issued from the mouth—which I judged the lower of the two central orifices to be—until I saw that it was the upper one which was quivering and open while the other remained closed and still. With the Masters, I was to discover, the organs of breathing and eating were not connected, as men’s are: they spoke as well as breathed through one, ate and drank only through the lower, larger opening.
I stood up, as I was bid. A
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