It was like a nightmare. And yet his conscious mind wasn't in the least affected.
He entered the pavilion stooping slightly and stopped—like a machine subject to its operator's whim.
The Anolyns made no sound. They regarded him in utter silence, their tentacles waving in the air like the feelers of a cricket.
"What do you want?" Jupiter tried to ask and found that his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He'd been struck dumb!
The sweat popped out on his face, but his expression remained as unchanged as a wooden mask.
III
Altogether it was the most uncanny interview that Jupiter Jones had ever experienced. He stood paralyzed while the Anolyns scrutinized him.
Not a sound passed between the creatures, not an expression marred their soft white visages. It was impossible to even guess at their thoughts.
Jupiter had more than a smattering of biology, and he'd been confronted with weird forms of life before. But nothing so outlandish. He wished he could get one of the Anolyns on the dissecting table in the Mizar's laboratory.