The machine of the elephant-men was a prosaic affair, shaped like a crude box of some rubber material, but its inner machinery, which we found to be entirely alien to any earthly conceptions, was intricate.
From the first the walking-stick-man disregarded us except when we forced our attentions on him.
The elephant-men were friendly, however.
We had hardly been introduced into the workshop before the two of them attempted to strike up an acquaintaince with us.
We spoke to them as they stood before us, but they merely blinked their dull expressionless eyes. They touched us with their trunks, and we felt faint electric shocks which varied in intensity, like the impulses traveling along a wire, like some secret code tapped out by a telegrapher.
'They have no auditory sense,' said Scott. 'They talk by the transmission of electrical impulses through their trunks. There's no use talking to them.'
'And in a thousand years we might figure out their electrical language,' I replied.
After a few more futile attempts to establish communication Scott turned to the task of constructing the time-power machine, while the elephant-men padded back to their own work.
I walked over to the walking-stick-man and attempted to establish communication with him, but with no better results. The creature, seeming to resent my interruption of his work, waved his hands in fantastic gestures, working his mouth rapidly. In despair, I realized that he was talking to me, but that his jabbering was pitched too high for my ear to catch Here were representatives of three difference races, all three of a high degree of intelligence else they never would have reached this superplane, and not a single thought, not one idea could they interchange. Even had a communication of ideas been possible, I wondered if we could have found any common ground of understanding.
I stared at the machines. They were utterly different from each other and neither bore any resemblance to ours. Undoubtedly they all operated on dissimilar principles.