They looked, and beheld a man standing in space. He was hardly a man anymore, as men are called, but one like themselves. A golden glow seemed to blend with him. He smiled.
"Welcome!"
"We have been expecting you," said Moore, smiling in return. "Your voice, your thoughts reached us. We know you are one of those who came out in a rocket before us. But your name is not clear."
The being seemed mildly surprised. Then he laughed; a thing that was as the tinkle of small bells, as the dew of a cool meadow before the rising sun or the joyous song of a nightingale.
"I am one of them," he said, "and all of them. We who have overcome the chains of gravity, who have become one in thought and find it impossible to do otherwise, have no need for individuality."
"But you have a body," said Jones. "Surely that gives you some sort of individuality."
"Yes, if one's mind is bound, controlled by matter. But the mind working without resistance is a perfect machine. It is able to control matter in every respect. We take this form or that form as a matter of expedience."
"We have reasoned that all this is due to release from gravity," Moore reflected. "But we do not understand completely. Will you tell us?"
"Even those on Earth know that gravity hampers the mind," the being said. "This they have learned through observation of mental factors in relation to the gravitational pull of the sun and moon. But look into my mind and you will see more clearly."
They looked, and saw a copper disk turn before a powerful magnet. And they saw resistance caused by electric currents induced in the copper, so that a great deal of power was required to turn the disk, even slowly. This, the thoughts indicated, was a principal well known to those yet on Earth.