“I had thought of them as being somewhat human, perhaps with different features or coloring, but still essentially human. But these things! They were reptilian, saurian! In height they were a little under the human standard, and their figures were even roughly human in shape, with the head carried erect, a squat, powerful body, two thick, bowed lower limbs, and two short arms, ending in cruel, curved talons. But with that rough travesty on the human shape, all resemblance ceased. To begin with, the things were completely covered with thick, hard scales, like those of a crocodile. Their heads were peaked, instead of round, with gaping, fanged mouths and small, black, glittering eyes, browless and lashless, like the eyes of a snake. They were noseless and earless, and their only sign of clothing was a queer sort of metallic armor that seemed more designed to carry their weapons than as clothing.

“Lying there motionless, regarding them with sickened horror, I saw the three advance to Powell, who greeted them with a queer gesture. One brought forth a tablet like a small slate, on which he wrote, then passed it to Powell, who studied it, then wrote in turn and handed it back. Evidently such writing was Powell’s only means of communication with the things. For a few minutes they conferred in that fashion with Powell, then returned to the disk, which immediately ascended from its hovering position on the hilltop.

“As it rose it grew, spreading out swiftly in ever-expanding size, growing until it had shut off the light of all the stars for a few seconds, then seemingly breaking up into small masses, cloudily disappearing. It had become so large that it was invisible, had passed from this universe into that greater one. For a moment I wondered if its momentary eclipse of the stars would cause any stargazer to guess at what was happening, then realized that to any chance watcher of the sky it would seem only like a drifting cloud, if noticed at all.

“Again, rose the humming from the pit, many times louder, growing to an ear-splitting thunder as another force of the atomic people floated up from the pit, a great mass of tiny black circles, miniatures of the first disk that drifted up and rose at once into the air, not stopping to confer with Powell as had the first. And as that mass of disks rose above the hilltop, the familiar droning was again waxing louder as another mass of them came up.