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It opened vistas of a civilization, and a progress, and an unparalleled mastery of all knowledge which was almost beyond conception. Already the news had raced across the world. On Phobar's television screen flashed scenes of nightmare; the radio spewed a gibberish of terror. In one day panic had swept the Earth; on the remaining members of the Five World Federation the same story was repeated.
Cold, deadly, dispassionate scrutiny came from something that might have been eyes, or a seeing intelligence locked in a metal body. There was no sound, but inwardly to Phobar's consciousness from the peak of the titan far above him came a command: "What are you called?" Phobar opened his lips but even before he spoke, he knew that the thing had understood his thought: "Phobar."
Then, for three quarters of an hour, in the manner of one lecturing an ignorant pupil, the giant crowded its thought-pictures into Phobar's mind so that finally he understood a little of the raiders and of the sudden terror that had flamed from the abysses into the solar system.
Now the lost Greek words burst into Phobar's mind, and, hoping against hope, he thought in Greek word-pictures which his captor could not understand. He weighed chances, long shots. Into his brain flashed an idea.... But they were upon the laboratory; a stupendous door dissolved weirdly into shimmering haze; they sped through. Phobar's hand clutched a bulge in his pocket. Would it work?
Somewhat like the orange-ray, it disintegrates the object and reassembles it here." So that was what Phobar's captor had been trying to do with him back there in the laboratory! "Why was I not brought here by that means?" burst out Phobar. "Because you belong to a different universe," answered Garboreggg.
As a clumsy arrow would, his oversize bunch of keys twisted to their mark, clanked, and spread against the fifth control, which was the size regulator. As rapidly as Phobar's captor had spun around, it reversed again, having guessed the trick. A tentacle of pliant metal snaked toward Phobar like a streak of flame. But in those few seconds a terrific holocaust had taken place.
How could it? They were beyond the door now and racing across the great expanse of the floor, past the central tower, past the control-panel which he had first seen.... And as if by magic there leaped into Phobar's mind a clear-cut, vivid picture of violet oceans of energy crackling and streaking from the heavens to crash through the laboratory roof and barely miss striking his captor behind.
That was really the greatest obstacle, this ability of theirs to read thought-pictures. And already he had given them enough word-pictures of English so that they could understand.... In the back of Phobar's mind the ghost of a desperate thought suddenly came. What was it he had learned years ago in college?
As Phobar's keys spattered against the fifth lever, there came an immediate, growing, strange, high whine, and a sickening collapse of the very surface beneath them. Everywhere outlines of objects wavered, changed melted, shrank with a steady and nauseatingly swift motion. The roof of the laboratory high overhead plunged downward; the far-distant walls swept inward, contracted.
Phobar's mind did not function but his legs moved regularly. In the grasp of this mental, metal monster he was a mere automaton. Phobar noticed idly that he had to step down from a flat disk a dozen yards across. By some power, some tremendous discovery that he could not understand, he had been transported across millions of miles of space undoubtedly to the dark star itself!
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