The Thing at the machine was a giant insect. Ten feet high, at least. It was brown-green and had lots of claw-like appendages. The most terrible thing about it was its familiarity. I had surveyed it critically on half a dozen of our cover originals.
I had quibbled with our artists about it. Not horrible enough, I had said. Well, it was. It was horrible....
It was busy with that machine, making noises into a cone and twisting dials and knobs with its many appendages. The noises it made were carefully inflected. Speech, in fact. It was talking into the cone, which absorbed the sounds, and transmitted them—where?
My shoes were glued to the floor.
The Thing finished talking, snapped off the machine, turned. It saw me.
It yelled and tried to duck out. It moved in a blur. Seven pairs of claws flexed out and grabbed for me. Some of the weaving cilea touched me. I screamed at the sting, like a dozen raking barbs, tearing my clothes and me.
I made the hall, yelling.