All I felt of an energy change-over was a protective tightening of my skin, and that quickened, momentary throbbing inside me. There was no sense of cold or suffocation, no pangs of blood boiling under the release of pressure. Perhaps our outer flesh now served as a sealing shell.
A sense of personal power came over me—android power. The thrill contradicted my darker dreads.
Somehow I wondered how much I had had to be redesigned inside. In any tiny body the relative viscosity of liquids imposes a definite strain on the heart. Were my blood vessels now made especially wide to reduce circulatory drag? I had heard that the littlest insects have to be somewhat special in their inner construction for this same reason.
More confidently, my mind reached out to all distance, and all unknowns. The demigod mood was on me.
It was then that a crowd of Xians emerged from the airlock. Horny digits clutched us.
We were drawn back into the interior of the asteroid, where the hoarded warmth of the sun was augmented by the decay of radioactive minerals. The crowd buzzed around Jan and me. Through tunnel and shaft we were guided back to the cavern and house of our first arrival, mistily illuminated, now that night had fallen.
Dr. Lanvin and Kobolah met us. Doc looked excited.
"Well, Charlie and Jan," he said, "I've met the real ruling force of this world, and have made my appeal. Come along for the answer!"
Kobolah led the way down a shaft that must have reached the center of the asteroid, the most protected place. Here there was a cylindrical chamber, the native nickel-steel of its walls gleaming silvery in the bluish fluorescence. Aerially, and on the floor, the chamber was crowded.