There was no answer; the man opposite neither moved nor spoke. He sat with his lips half open, his eyes now lifeless as well as blind. Around hint the others were equally motionless, frozen in strained, unnatural attitudes. With a gasp of pure horror, Stormgren rose to his feet and backed away towards the door. As he did so the silence was suddenly broken.
“That was a nice speech, Rikki; thank you. Now I think we can go.”
Stormgren spun on his heels and stared into the shadowed corridor. Floating there at eye-level was a small, featureless sphere — the source, no doubt, of whatever mysterious force the Overlords had brought into action. It was hard to be sure, but Stormgren imagined that be could hear a faint humming, as of a hive of bees on a drowsy summer day.
“Karellen! Thank God! But what have you done?”
“Don’t worry they’re quite all right. You can call it a paralysis, but it’s much subtler than that. They’re simply living a few thousand years more slowly than normal. When we’ve gone they’ll never know what happened.”
“You’ll leave them here until the police come?”
“No. I’ve a much better plan. I’m letting them go.”
Stormgren felt a surprising sense of relief. He gave a last valedictory glance at the little room and its frozen occupants. Joe was standing on one foot, staring very stupidly at nothing. Suddenly Stormgren laughed and fumbled in his pockets.
“Thanks for the hospitality, Joe,” he said. “I think I’ll leave a souvenir.”
He ruffled through the scraps of paper until he had found the figures he wanted. Then, on a reasonably clean sheet, he wrote carefully: