It seemed also to have damaged its lenses in some way, for liquid from them was running down towards its slot. Its mind was so confused and disturbed that such thought processes as we could discern were by no means rational.
This was still going on when the approach of another disked artifact similar to the first was reported. It held to the mark in the same way but when it reached a point close behind the other it stopped. A part of it opened and a creature similar to our first specimen (i.e. the bifurcated, not the webbed type) emerged. It looked at the first artifact with obvious curiosity and peered within it.
Meanwhile, our specimen within the redoubt had also noticed the creature's approach. It tried to move towards it but was, of course, held back by the redoubt wall. It stood there, obviously trying to bring its weapon into use against one of its own kind, which puzzled us very much.
Presently the creature outside looked up and saw the one inside. For a moment we expected an attack. Its lenses widened quite remarkably, its slot dropped wide open — but oddly enough nothing came from it immediately. When it did it was surprisingly weak and harmless.
“We should catch it before it attacks,” Eptus advised.
“It may not attack — unless we give it reason,” Podas replied.
“Reason — bah!” said Eptus, irritably.
A sudden confusion came over our specimen. It picked up a piece of the tegument which Podas had removed and held it against itself.
The creature outside cleared its mind somewhat and began to project thoughts at the other. We found that when it made this direct form of address we could follow it concisely.
It said, “What a shame you're not real, honey. If mirages are like this, I've wasted my time on bathing beaches.”
Why it said this we do not understand. But we observed the very curious fact that though its mind was by no means hostile it was making low-power aggression with its slot. We also observed that our specimen did not receive the message. It was, in fact, simultaneously putting out a confused plea for help which the other was not receiving — or was only faintly aware of.
“This is curious indeed,” said Podas. “There seems to be no comprehension between the two — and ours is struggling hard to use its weapon, yet with no aggressive intent in its mind. Is it possible that these weapons have the secondary purpose of communication?”
“In this place anything is possible and everything is unlikely,” said Eptus. “I have reached the state where I am prepared to believe that they normally communicate by battering one another to death if you claim that it is so.”
The creature outside approached and encountered the wall of the redoubt. It rubbed the part of itself that had made contact, and exploded the wall with both upper projections. Its mind was full of astonishment.
Meanwhile the creature inside appeared to be trying to push itself through the wall. Finding that futile, it started to make signs with its projections. It indicated itself, the artifact and the first specimen.
When the outside creature saw the first specimen, which, as I have said Podas had left in a very untidy state, its mind hardened remarkably. It stepped back, and took something out of a slit in its tegument. It extended this object towards the redoubt. There was a crack — not dissimilar to the sound of a person disintegrating and therefore on a harmless range.
Something hit the wall and fell. The creature moved forward and picked up a round flat splash of metal. One could sense that it was extremely puzzled. Then it put its projections against the wall and felt carefully all the way along the rock on one side to that on the other.
It was dismayed. It shifted the tegument on its blunt projection and tried to aid its thoughts by stimulating the surface exposed. It went back to its artifact and returned holding a squat cylinder. This proved to contain a black viscous substance which it daubed on our wall. The marks are still there. From our side they appear so:
WAIT! I'LL BE BACK.
Our creature comprehended this and made a sign.
The other re-entered its artifact and went away.
And so the situation rests.
Eptus now agrees that the disked affair is an artifact but contends that so squashy and semi-liquid a creature as our specimens cannot have made anything so hard. Therefore, he argues, there must be another and doubtless higher type of intelligence here, housed in a harder form capable of dealing with such materials.
Podas is still trying to communicate with our specimen. It has folded itself up against an angle of the wall and floor where it again tries quite desperately at intervals to remove the boltik frame which prevents it from using its weapon.
He is convinced that the slot is somehow linked with its transmission of thought. Eptus says this is nonsense — it has become quite clear to him that our wall interrupts these creatures' thought-waves, so that they fall back on a secondary form of communication by marks.
Podas objects that we were able to distinguish the outside creature's thought waves — some of them very clearly. To which Eptus objects that it stands to reason that we are a great deal more sensitive than this soggy and revolting form of life.
Argument on such lines, it seems to me, not only can go on for some time but doubtless will.
Interim Report.
Dear Zenn, I have become worried by recent developments. The plain fact is that we do not know enough about these strange creatures here to keep the situation firmly in hand. There is now a crowd of them with their artifacts outside our east wall.
Several of our party have disintegrated and I fear that more may go at any moment. The creatures fling the most dangerous frequencies around, not only without effort but regardless of consequences.
Podas suggests that they may not know the danger in the frequencies since their pudgy bodies are unlikely to respond, that they are, in fact naturally sound-absorbent. Fantastic as this may seem Eptus is for once inclined to support him. It is also apparently endorsed by our attempts to beam them.
We directed a most powerful beam upon them and ran it through a range of highly destructive frequencies. One cannot say it was entirely without effect. For a moment they did check and we were gratified — we thought we were near a critical length.
They turned to look at one another with obvious puzzlement in their minds. Then they started to communicate — it does look as if Podas were right, for they invariably accompany thought projection with movement of their slots.
As far as we could interpret they were ‘saying’ such things as, “Do you hear it too? ... It's not just my ears, is it? ... Like a funny kind of music — only it isn't music ... Not, not exactly music ... It's very queer...”
That last seemed to be the most general reaction. So far from disintegrating them it did not seem, even at full power, to do more than disturb them slightly, and puzzle them. In other words this powerful weapon is useless against them. And we are left somewhat at a loss.
Not caring for the situation, I decided to anticipate my usual report time and give you this immediate current account.
The creature which had visited us previously returned accompanied by a number of similar artifacts. More followed later and indeed I can see still more approaching as I make this report.
Before that the creature we hold here had become listless. Podas was of the opinion that it required nourishment of some kind. Eptus put some silicates before it, but it was clearly uninterested. Podas, recalling its chemical basis, reduced some of the local growths to carbon, and offered it that — also without success.