Woodin's dazed brain numbed further with wonder. Who had said those words to him? He had heard nothing, yet he had thought he heard.
"We will let you move but you must not attempt to escape or harm us."
He did hear those words in his mind, even though his ears heard no sound. And now his brain heard more.
"We are speaking to you by transference of thought impulses. Have you sufficient mentality to understand us?"
Minds? Minds in these things? Woodin was shaken by the thought as he stared at the glistening monsters.
His thought apparently had reached them. "Of course we have minds," came the thought answer into his brain. "We are going to let you move now, but do not try to flee."
"I–I won't try," Woodin told himself mentally.
At once the paralysis that held him abruptly lifted. He stood there in the circle of the glistening monsters, his hands and body trembling violently.
There were ten of them, he saw now. Ten monstrous, humped masses of shining, translucent jelly, gathered around him like cowled and faceless genii come from some haunt of the unknown. One stood closer to him than the others, apparently spokesman and leader.
Woodin looked slowly around their circle, then down at his two dead companions. In the midst of the unfamiliar terrors that froze his soul, he felt a sudden aching pity as he looked down at them.