Kingsley gestured impatiently.
"Neither do these signals sound reasonable," he rumbled. "But there they are. I've thought about the things you mention. I am damned with an imagination, something no scientist should have. A scientist should just plug along, applying this bit of knowledge to that bit of knowledge to arrive at something new. He should leave the imagination to the philosophers. But I'm not that way. I try to imagine what might have happened or what is going to happen. I've imagined a mother planet groping out across all space, trying to get in touch with some long-lost colony here on Pluto. I've imagined someone trying to re-establish communication with the people who lived here millions of years ago. But it doesn't get me anywhere.”
Gary filled and lit his pipe, frowning down at the glowing tobacco. Voices in space again. Voices talking across the void. Saying things to rack the human soul.
"Doctor," he said, "you aren't the only one who has heard thought from outer space.”
Kingsley swung on him, almost belligerently. "Who else?" he demanded.
"Miss Martin," said Gary quietly, puffing at his pipe. "You haven't heard Miss Martin's story yet. I have a hunch that she can help you out.”
"How's that?" rumbled the scientist.
"Well, you see," said Gary, softly, "she's just passed through a thousand years of mind training. She's thought without ceasing for almost ten centuries.”
Kingsley's face drooped in amazement.
"That's impossible," he said.