Oddest of all, the elephant wore clothes! Or at least an outer garment, a kind of long cloak which appeared to be attached underneath its body and which covered every portion except the ankles. The feet also were covered. A kind of hood hung back from the head on that portion of the cloak which rested on the creature's back. But what chiefly aroused Sherman's sense of strangeness and loathing was that the naked skin, wherever exposed, was of that same poisonous, dead-fish blue.
For a moment the thing stood in the doorway, regarding them, swinging its long trunk around restlessly, as though it could tell something about them by its sense of smell. Then it advanced a step or two into the room, and placing its trunk close to Sherman's body, began to run over it, sniffing, a few inches away. He felt that he wanted to shriek, to turn and strike the thing, or to run, but a warning glance from the dancer kept him motionless.
Apparently satisfied with the result of its examination the elephant turned to go, stopping as it did so to unhook some projection on the ape-man's helmet and apply it to its ear. After listening for a moment, it put the end of the trunk to this projection, snorted into it, and went away with soundless steps.
For several minutes the two worked on in silence after this. Then:
"Well, now you seen him," said the dancer, in the same word-by-word fashion as before. "That was our boss."
"That—thing?" asked Sherman, incredulously.
"I'll tell the cockeyed world. Say, those babies know more than Einstein ever heard of. Try to get fresh with one of them and see."
"What do they do?"
"Shoot you with one of the light-guns. They carry little ones around with them. They melt you down wherever they hit you and you have to go to the operating room to have things put back and it hurts like hell."
"Oh, I must have been there after they brought me down in my plane. They did something to my back."