Kingsley glanced around the room, like a busy man ready to depart, looking to see if he had forgotten anything.
"Well," he rumbled, "what are we waiting for? Let us get to work.”
"Now, wait a second," interrupted Gary. "Do we want to do this? Are we sure we aren't rushing into something we'll be sorry for? After all, all we have to go on are the Voices. We're taking them on face value alone… and Voices don't have faces.”
"Sure," piped up Herb, "how do we know they aren't kidding us? How do we know this isn't some sort of a cosmic joke? Maybe there's a fellow out there somewhere laughing fit to kill at how he's got us all stirred up.”
Kingsley's face flushed with anger, but Caroline laughed.
"You look so serious, Gary," she declared.
"It's something to be serious about," Gary protested. "We are monkeying around with something that's entirely out of our line. Like a bunch of kids playing with an atom bomb. We might set loose something we wouldn't be able to stop. Something might be using us to help it set up an easy way to get at the solar system. We might be just pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire.”
"Gary," said Caroline softly, "if you had heard that Voice you wouldn't doubt. I know it's on the level. You see, it isn't a voice, really… it's a thought. I know there's danger and that we must help, do everything we can. There are other volunteers, you know, other people, or other things, from other parts of the universe.”
"How do you know?" asked Gary fiercely.
"I don't know how," she defended herself. "I just know. That's all.