Suddenly he was silent, his face a page on which, visibly, dread gathered slowly and ever deeper.
And as I looked at Ruth, white-faced, and at him, I knew that my own was as pallid, as terror-stricken as theirs.
“They were such LITTLE THINGS,” muttered Drake. “Such little things—bits of metal—little globes and pyramids and cubes—just little THINGS.”
“Babes! Only babes!” It was Ruth—“BABES!”
“Bits of metal”—Dick's gaze sought mine, held it—“and they looked for each other, they worked with each other—THINKINGLY, CONSCIOUSLY—they were deliberate, purposeful—little things—and with the force of a score of dynamos—living, THINKING—”
“Don't!” Ruth laid white hands over his eyes. “Don't—don't YOU be frightened!”
“Frightened?” he echoed. “I'M not afraid—yes, I AM afraid—”
He arose, stiffly—and stumbled toward me.
Afraid? Drake afraid. Well—so was I. Bitterly, TERRIBLY afraid.
For what we had beheld in the dusk of that dragoned, ruined chamber was outside all experience, beyond all knowledge or dream of science. Not their shapes—that was nothing. Not even that, being metal, they had moved.