Caroline leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands.
"The problem," she said, "is to find out how to control that new energy if it does enter the universe.”
"That is the problem," agreed the Engineer.
"Mister," said Gary, "if anyone can do it, this little lady can. She knows more about a lot of things than you do. I'll lay you a bet on that.”
Chapter Eight
The suits were marvelous things, flexible and with scarcely any weight at all, not uncomfortable and awkward like an ordinary spacesuit.
Herb admired his before he fastened down the helmet. "You say these things will let us walk around on your planet just as if we were at home?" he asked the Engineer.
"We've tried to make it comfortable for you here," the Engineer replied.
"We hope you find them satisfactory. You came so far to help and we are so glad to see you. We hope that you will like us. We have tried so hard.”
Caroline looked toward the Engineer curiously. There was a queer, vague undertone to all his thought-messages, an inexplicable sense of pleading, of desire for praise from her or from Kingsley. She shook her head with a little impatient gesture, but still that deep, less-than-half-conscious feeling was there. It made no sense, she told herself. It was just imagination. The thought-messages were pure thought, there was nothing to interpret them, nothing to give them subtle shades of meaning… no facial expression, no change of tone.