Just like a political speaker back on Earth, thought Gary. He tried to make out which one of the Engineers was talking, but there was no facial expression, no movement of any sort which would determine which one of them the speaker might be. He tried to pick out Engineer 1824, but all the Engineers looked exactly alike.
The talk rumbled on, a smooth roll of thought explaining the situation that they faced, the many problems it presented, the need of acting at once.
Gary studied the other things about them, the loathsome, unnatural things that had been brought here from the unguessed depths of the universe. He shuddered and felt cold beads of sweat break out upon his body as he looked at them.
Several of them were immersed in tanks filled with liquids. One tank boiled and steamed as if with violent chemical action; another was cloudy and dirty-looking; another was clear as water and in it lurked a thing that struck stark terror into Gary's soul. Another was confined in a huge glass sphere through which shifted and swirled a poisonous-appearing atmosphere.
Gary felt cold fingers touch his spine as he watched the sphere and suddenly was thankful for the shifting mists within it, for through them he had caught sight of something that he was certain would have shattered one's mind to look upon without the shielding swirl of fog within the glass.
In a small glass cage set upon a pedestal of stone were several writhing, grub-like things that palpitated disgustingly. Squatting on its haunches directly across from Gary was a monstrosity with mottled skin and drooling mouth, with narrow, slitted eyes and slimy features. He fastened his pinpoint gaze upon the Earthman and Gary quickly looked away.
Nothing resembled mankind, nothing except the Engineers. Here were things that were terrible caricatures of the loathsome forms of Earth life, other beings that bore not even the most remote resemblance to anything that mankind had ever seen or imagined.
Was this a fair sample of the intelligence the universe contained? Did he and Kingsley and Caroline appear as disgusting, as fearsome in the eyes as these other denizens of the universe as they appeared to his?
He shot a quick glance at Caroline. She was listening intently, her chin cupped in one hand, her eyes upon the Engineers. Just as well that way, he thought. She didn't see these other things.
The Engineer had stopped talking and silence fell upon the room. Then a new impulse of thought beat against Gary's brain, thought that seemed cold and cruel, thought that was entirely mechanistic and consciousless. He glanced swiftly around, trying to find who was speaking. It must, he decided, be the thing in the glass sphere. He could not understand the thought, grasped just vague impressions of atomic structures and mathematics that seemed to represent enormous pressure used to control surging energy.