They shook hands, and in a space of minutes the speedster was again tearing through space. Kinnison now knew exactly what he wanted to get, and he utilized every waking hour of that long trip in physical and mental exercise to prepare himself to take it. Thus the time did not seem long. He crept up to the barrier at a snail's pace, stopping instantly as he touched it, and through that barrier he sent a thought.
"Is it permitted that I approach your planet?" he asked, neither brazenly nor obsequiously. He was matter-of-factly asking a simple question and expecting a simple reply. He knew that to these beings, whatever they really were, salutations and identifications were alike superfluous. Nor was he met as Helmuth had been met.
"Ah, 'tis Kimball Kinnison, of Earth," a slow, deep, measured voice resounded in his brain. "Neutralize your controls. You will be landed."
He did so, and the inert speedster shot forward, to come to ground in a perfect landing at a regulation space port. He strode into the office, to confront the same grotesque, dragonlike entity who had measured him for his Lens not so long ago. Now, however, he stared straight into that entity's unblinking eyes, in silence.
"Ah, you have progressed. You realize now that vision is not always reliable. At our previous interview you took it for granted that what you saw must really exist, and did not wonder as to what our true shapes might be."
"I am wondering now, seriously," Kinnison replied. "And if it is permitted, I intend to stay here until I can see your true shapes."
"This?" And the figure changed instantly into that of an old, white-bearded, scholarly gentleman.
"No. There is a vast difference between seeing something myself and having you show it to me. I realize only too well that you can make me see you as anything you choose. You could appear to me as a perfect copy of myself, or as any other thing, person or object conceivable to my mind."
"Ah, you have indeed progressed. While you were expected to return, you are ahead of time by several of your years. When you approached the barrier it was supposed that you came to ask for some particular information, but now that I search your mind I perceive that what you seek is not mere information, but is indeed knowledge."
"You say that you expected me. How could you know that I was coming? I didn't decide definitely myself until only a couple of weeks ago."