The Engineer strode to a control panel and worked with dials and studs.
Intense blue power surged through long tubes and flashed in dizzy whirls through coils of glass.
Tubes boomed into sudden brilliance and the deep hum of power surged into the room.
They could hear the probing fingers of the Engineer's thoughts, thrusting out, calling to those other people in another universe. The power of thought being hurled through the very warp and weave of twisted time and space.
Then came another probing thought, a string of thoughts that were impossible to understand, hazed and blurred and all distorted. But apparently perfectly clear to the Engineer, who stood motionless under the inverted cone of glass that shimmered with blue fire of power.
Two entities talking to one another and the queer, challenging unknown of five-dimensional inter-space separating them!
The power ebbed and the blue fire sank to a glimmer in the tubes.
The Engineer turned around and faced the Earthlings.
"They will come," he said, "but only on one condition.”
Suddenly a shiver went through Gary. Condition! That was something he hadn't thought about — that these other things might exact terms, might want concessions, might seek to wring front another universe some measure of profit for a service done.