"Faintly," the answer came welling into his mind. "Our minds are not enough alike to catch all thoughts."
"So you are one of the Masters!" Trent sighed contemptuously, glancing at the monster robot that all Earth had thought to be a creature that lived.
"I am one," the Gharrian thought.
Lura came to Trent's side. "Put a cover on the jar," she said, shuddering, "and we shall take him along with us."
Mental laughter shook their minds, a dry ironical humor all the more terrible because there was no sound. They stared in horror at the brain-beast, while its thoughts raced through their consciousness.
"You cannot escape; all doors are guarded."
"Maybe!" Trent said aloud, lifting a sharp tool from the table, balancing it idly in one hand. Then he reached over, probed delicately at the scrambling pink beast in the jar, watched critically as green ichor oozed from a tiny cut the tool had inflicted.
"See us safely out, or you die," he said unemotionally.
The thought came hurtling back, utterly savage and unafraid. "Destroy me, and you surely die." There was an interval in which no message came. Then: "I shall bargain with you. Tell me where those ancient weapons were found, make yourself my prisoner, and the girl, as you call her, shall go free."
Trent carefully dropped the razor-sharp tool, heard the soundless shriek of agony that welled high as a tentacular leg was sheared completely away.