"That's the Atlas building," she said unbelievingly. "Us!"
"Yes."
Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ... forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted. Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gone through the solid wall, or simply melted away.
The man and woman clung together, waiting.
There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings and other faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a man screamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throaty gurgle and died, leaving silence again.
Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and arms were jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl away from him and started toward the inner room.
"Wait here," he mouthed.
She was after him, clinging to his arms. "No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter!" But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward.
There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had been cleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked down the narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animal cages, and paused just short of it.
The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, the distorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside his range of vision.