"It's almost time for the signals to begin," he said. "In another few minutes we will be swinging around to face the Great Nebula. If you looked out you would see it over the horizon now.”
Caroline Martin sat in the chair before the thought machine, the domed helmet settled on her head. All eyes in the room were glued on the tiny light atop the mechanism. When the signals started coming that light would blink its bright-red eye.
"Lord, it's uncanny," whispered Tommy Evans. He brushed at his face with his hand.
Gary watched the girl. Sitting there so straight, like a queen with a crown upon her head. Sitting there, waiting, waiting to hear something that spoke across a gulf that took light many years to span.
Brain sharpened by a thousand years of thought, a woman who was schooled in hard and simple logic. She had thought of many things out in the shell, she said, had set up problems and had worked them out. What were those problems she had thought about? What were the mysteries she had solved? She was a young, rather sweet-faced kid, who ought to like a good game of tennis, or a dance and she'd thought a thousand years.
Then the light began to blink and Gary saw Caroline lean forward, heard the breath catch sharply in her throat. The pencil she had poised above the pad dropped from her fingers and fell onto the floor.
Heavy silence engulfed the room, broken only by the whistling of the breath in Kingsley's nostrils. He whispered to Gary: "She understands! She understands…”
Gary gestured him to silence.
The red light blinked out and Caroline swung around slowly in the chair.
Her eyes were wide and for a moment she seemed unable to give voice to the words she sought.