As time passed in long breaths, and he was not so invaded, he began to
think that while he had been aware of contact, the other had not. And,
emboldened, he sent out a tracer. Unconsciously, as the tracer groped,
he pivoted his body. It lay--there!
At the second touch he withdrew in the same second, afraid of
revelation. But as he returned to probe delicately, ready to flee at
the first hint that the other suspected, his belief in temporary
safety grew. To his disappointment he could not pierce beyond the
outer wall of identity. There was a living creature of a high rate of
intelligence, a creature alien to his own thought processes, not too
far away. And though his attempts to enter into closer communication
grew bolder, he could not crack the barrier which kept them apart. He
had long known that contact with the merpeople was on a lower, a far
lower, band than they used when among themselves, and that they were
only able to "talk" with the colonists because for generations they
had exchanged thought symbols with the hoppers and other unlike
species. They had been frank in admitting that while Those Others
could be aware of their presence through telepathic means, they could
not exchange thoughts.
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