But before she could follow up her point the door opened and the doctor
returned with her husband. Kinney did not allow any tension to develop;
instead, he said briskly:

"There's only a couple of hours remaining between now and dinner time; I
move we get busy." He glanced about the room, to see if all was in
place. The four chairs, each with its legs tipped with glass; the four
footstools, similarly insulated from the floor; the electrical circuit
running from the odd group of machinery in the corner, and connecting
four pair of brass bracelets--all were ready for use. He motioned the
others to the chairs in which they had already accomplished marvels in
the way of mental traveling.

"Now," he remarked, as he began to fit the bracelets to his wrists, an
example which the rest straightway followed; "now, we want to make sure
that we all have the same purpose in mind. Last time, we were simply
looking for four people, such as had view-points similar to our own. To-
day, our object is to locate, somewhere among the planets attached to
one of the innumerable sun-stars of the universe, one on which the
conditions are decidedly different from anything we have known before."

Billie and Van Emmon, their affair temporarily forgotten, listened
eagerly.

"As I recall it," Smith calmly observed, "we agreed that this attempt
would be to locate a new kind of--well, near-human. Isn't that right?"

The doctor nodded. "Nothing more or less"--speaking very distinctly--
"than a creature as superior as we are, but NOT IN HUMAN FORM."