"Don't touch anything," warned Teucrete. "Exact alignment is important."
She stopped before a keyboard like the console of a gigantic organ. Behind it rose massed ranks of vacuum tubes, all glowing, humming, flickering. The girl's fingers skipped nimbly on the keys, and notes of sound rose in tinkling, chiming sprays from the shafts. Colors stormed and raged in the crystalline forest, running up and down the visible octaves of light. One sensed other scales beyond, in both upper and lower wavelengths. Glass panels and crystal shafts vibrated to sound and light, like tuning forks. They stirred, quivered, vanished, then reappeared. A tall man appeared among the shafts and strode toward the travellers.
"Khaljean!" said Pao Chung nervously.
It was sufficient introduction. There was uncanny resemblance between father and daughter, like two matched paintings in different keys. The animal man listened quietly, while Teucrete explained the situation. He looked at Pao Chung and laughed. He shrugged.
"A bargain is a bargain," said Khaljean. "Perhaps I should go back to Venus and fabricate some gnawed bones to convince the police searching parties that the animals devoured you. All of you had better remain here and wait till I send for you."
"You are good at faked evidence," Pao Chung jibed bitterly.
"In a good cause, yes," agreed Khaljean good-naturedly. "Even in a bad cause, this time. Stay here. You will be safer."
"Wait!" ordered Ferris.
Khaljean measured him mockingly. "Who are you to say?"
"I am a gamma-man," Ferris told him.