"Here's some kind of a control button, with symbols carved over it. Their language perhaps. I wonder what it's for."
"Better leave it alone—I'd sort of like to catch up with myself—"
But, at that moment, the button clicked in of its own accord—and one side of the wall glowed with rose colored light. A large screen showed an old man half reclining on a purple couch, dressed in a white, silver trimmed robe. He was smiling at them as he turned away from some recording device into which he spoke. His face was incredibly old, and wrinkled in a fine network of lines. His skin, strangely, seemed of some soft, young texture. The bones of his cheeks were prominent, and his hands were delicately pink white. He moved gracefully, and in leisurely fashion, from the couch to a small black box at the side of the room, and pressed a button. On a small screen in the old man's room, visible on their own wall, began to flash words in red script.
"Say! That's in German," cried John. "I don't read German, but I know the script."
"And that looks like Chinese—"
"Ah—that's better—"
In red square blocked letters on the little screen were the words in English, "WE MEAN YOU NO HARM."
The old man observed their excitement, and stopped the flow of the screen so that the message steadied. Then, under that sentence, appeared another "BE PATIENT WE MUST FINISH TRANSCRIBING YOUR LANGUAGE. IT WILL TAKE A FEW MORE TIME. EAT—SLEEP—REST."
The screen on their room faded out. The old man's face was gone. And through a slit near the floor of their room slid a tray of food, moved by some invisible force on small rollers, over toward the mattress where Hilda was still sitting.
"Oh Boy—food! And could I use some—"