"I do not believe so." He thought for a moment. "Definitely, no."
"Neither do I. It wasn't broadcast, either, but was directed at any member of a special race or tribe—very special. Classification, straight Z's to ten or twelve places, she ... or it ... seemed to be trying to specify."
"A frigid race of extreme type, adapted to an environment having a temperature of only a few degrees absolute."
"Yes. Like you, only more so." Kay paused, trying to put into intelligible thought a picture inherently incapable of reception or recognition by her as yet strictly three-dimensional intelligence. "Something like the Eich, too, but not much. Their visible aspect was obscure, fluid ... amorphous ... indefinite? ... skip it—I couldn't really perceive it, let alone describe it. I wish you had caught that thought."
"I wish so, too—it is extremely interesting. But tell me—if the thought was directed, not broadcast, how could you have received it?"
"That's the funniest part of the whole thing." Nadreck could feel the girl frown in concentration. "It came at me from all sides at once—never felt anything like it. Naturally I started feeling around for the source—particularly since it was a distress signal—but before I could get even a general direction of the origin it ... it ... well, it didn't really disappear or really weaken, but something happened to it. I couldn't read it any more—and that really did throw me for a loss." She paused, then went on. "It didn't so much go away as go down, some way or other. Then it vanished completely, without really going anywhere. I know that I'm not making myself clear—I simply can't—but have I given you enough leads so that you can make any sense at all out of any part of it?"
"I'm very sorry to say that I can not."
Nor could he, ever, for excellent reasons. That girl had a mind whose power, scope, depth, and range she herself did not, could not even dimly understand; a mind to be fully comprehended only by an adult of her own third level. That mind had in fact received in toto a purely fourth-dimensional thought. If Nadreck had received it, he would have understood it and recognized it for what it was only because of his advanced Arisian training—no other Palainian could have done so—and it would have been sheerly unthinkable to him that any warm-blooded and, therefore, strictly three-dimensional entity could by any possibility receive such a thought; or, having received it, could understand any figment of it. Nevertheless, if he had really concentrated the full powers of his mind upon the girl's attempted description, he might very well have recognized in it the clearest possible three-dimensional delineation of such a thought; and from that point he could have gone on to a full understanding of the Children of the Lens.
However, he did not so concentrate. It was constitutionally impossible for him to devote real mental effort to any matter not immediately pertaining to the particular task in hand. Therefore neither he nor Karen Kinnison were to know until much later that she had been en rapport with one of Civilization's bitterest, most implacable foes; that she had seen with clairvoyant and telepathic accuracy the intrinsically three-dimensionally-indescribable form assumed in their winter by the horrid, the monstrous inhabitants of that viciously hostile world, the unspeakable planet Ploor!