'The glob came upon them and swallowed them in its fetid breath. It was sharp with teeth in it, and these were quickly identified as belonging to aerial snakes. The glob brought with it a saturating mental and emotional depression, a stark consternation, an unbearable fearfulness and unpleasantness. It brought dread. It brought hallucination and contradiction and fear of falling, and fear of ultimate fire. It brought flying foxes that fastened onto throats with hollow and life-draining teeth. It brought violent small creatures who sometimes seemed to be human children and sometimes tearing monsters.
'But a voice came from one of the small and possibly human monsters. It was a boy's voice speaking in Demotic or Low Galactic:
'"Hang in there, Gaea guys! Some of us are on your side. Don't let this whip you. It's only a little psychic storm."
'What sort of stuff was that?'
-R. A. Lafferty, 'Quiz Ship Loose' (1978)
