"He has never been formally introduced to a green cloud before," the captain apologized. "Come to life, Doc! Meet the headman here!"
Mental laughter swept the room. Even the turquoise cloud joined.
Dr. Duerkes started. "Oh! Excuse me! I am happy to meet you, sir!"
"I must apologize for our appearance," said the turquoise cloud. "We appear as clouds, because we are a race of philosophers and we have too much work to do to waste our energies on the creation of beautiful figures. We might appear in any form we choose, but cloud-like forms are simple and easy to manage in the stratosphere. I must correct your impression, Mr. Hawes and Mr. Duerkes, that I am a man. I am not...."
As the cloud's thoughts impressed themselves on Captain Hawes' mind, it underwent a slow transformation. It dwindled in size and changed from turquoise to a beautiful olive shade. Its form swiftly became that of a human being. Then, before Hawes and Duerkes, stood a woman of dazzling beauty. She was dark complexioned. Her hair and eyes were dark. She was dressed in a cirrus mist of rainbow color.
Captain Hawes' thoughts were akin to a gape.
Dr. Duerkes looked with his mind stunned into a blank.
"Poor men," she said. "I pity you. You thought you were the highest form of life on the face of the earth, yet you are no further advanced in comparison to the Green Clouds than fish are in comparison to you."
She did not open her mouth but she spoke in waves of thought. Without her saying so, Captain Hawes knew her name was Loetta and somehow, as she spoke, Hawes perceived that in spite of this creature's claims to superiority, she needed man. Hawes and Duerkes had been brought here for a purpose. There was a problem to be solved and only man could solve it.
"Our lives lie one step in evolution beyond yours," Loetta went on, as though she were trying to erase the thoughts that crept into Hawes' mind. "First life on earth was plant life. It lived on the inanimate elements in the sea and rocks. Then came animal life, living in the sea and devouring the plants. Larger animals came to eat the small ones and life emerged from the sea onto the land. Man developed to eat the animals. We, the Green Clouds, are the next stage. Our food is thought—the mental imagery of lowly man."