Your fleet has enjoyed the distinction of having been the very first to serve as the object of a most important experiment.

Likewise, your own person has had the honor of serving as material for another experiment, equally important--an experiment whose effect on your body is similar to that of the first one on the air-fleet.
"You can hear me, perfectly.

You can see me.

I ask you to watch me closely.

Then consider, if you please, the matter of placing me under arrest." His hand touched a small disk near the button he had first pressed; a disk of some strange metal, iridescent, gleaming with a peculiar greenish patina that, even as one watched it, seemed to blend into other shades, as an oil-scum transmutes its hues on water.
Now a faint, almost inaudible hum began to make itself heard.