The sphere, too, seemed to change, growing softer and more mellow. It wasn't a tangible substance, but something ethereal, like the flicker of flame over an open hearth. Some tremendous force seemed to hold the sphere in globular shape.
Taylor could see the chimerical eyes peering through the surface of the sphere. He looked into the depths of those eyes and still could not be sure they were not an illusion. The intensity of the creatures' intelligence seemed to shine from within, giving the impression of staring, haunting eyes. They were not organs of sight, but they were the windows of the mind. They were the source of those tenuous flames that seemed to caress Norden.
As Taylor looked at the eyes he felt plunged into the pathless depths of a vast, powerful brain. He was in contact with an infinity of intelligence far beyond limits of human comprehension. It was a surging intelligence of energy, abysmal, vaporous and limitless, transcending the dimensions, out-reaching boundless time, overshadowing matter.
The eyes made Taylor forget he was a man. His own mind seemed merged in the intellectual energy floating among the monster machines of the forge room. Dimly, he was conscious that this power was not directed at him, but at Norden who stood, still whistling, in front of the globe.
The sphere was whistling, too, and the sound transformed itself into music of the stars.
A discordant note rose in the song from Norden's imitation of the voice. Norden was shrieking hatred for Taylor's nation, for all those who opposed the self-designated supermen of the world.
"My race must be preserved!"
The thought was Norden's, reflected to Taylor from the shoreless depths of the energy brain.
"All other peoples are evil, decadent, and are doomed to slavery under the man of the future. The future man will be a child of my race. My race is superior. From it the uberman will rise. You must help. Prey on these inferior peoples. They do not deserve to live."
The sphere's hues changed, reddish, then yellow, back to orange.