“What- what did you see?” he moistened his lips and asked dully. He had to know. Maybe it was only his own reaction. But-but it couldn’t be! The very thought that only he had seen that led to panic-to a terror beyond bearing.
“I don’t know…” Kimber’s answer dragged out of him word by painful word. “It wasn’t meant-ever meant for man—our kind of man—to see—”
Dard raised his head, made himself stare at that innocuous screen, to assure himself that there was nothing there now.
“It did something to me—inside,” he half whispered.
“It was meant to, I think. But-Great Lord-what sort of minds-feelings-did they have! Not human-totally alien. We have no common meeting point-we never shall have-with that!”
“And it was all just color, twisting, turning color,” Dard began.
Kimber’s hand dosed about his wrist with crushing intensity.
“I was right,” Dard did not feel the pain of that grip, “they used color as a means of communication. But— but—”
“What they had to say with it! Yes, not for us-never for us. Keep your mind off it, Dard. Five minutes more of that and you might not have been human—ever again!”
“We couldn’t establish contact with them— with— ”