From More Than Human (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon:
It was quiet in the glass room.
For a long time the only sound was Gerry’s difficult breathing. Suddenly even this stopped, as something happened, something – spoke.
It came again.
Welcome.
The voice was a silent one. And here, another, silent too, but another for all that. It’s the new one. Welcome child!
Still another: Well, well, well! We thought you’d never make it.
He had to. There hasn’t been a new one for so long…
Gerry clapped his hands to his mouth. His eyes bulged. Through his mind came a hush of welcoming music. There was warmth and laughter and wisdom. There were introductions; for each voice there was a discrete personality, a comprehensible sense of something like stature or rank, and an accurate locus, a sense of physical position. Yet, in terms of amplitude, there was no difference in the voices. They were all here, or, at least, all equally near.
There was happy and fearless communication, fearlessly shared with Gerry – cross-currents of humor, of pleasure, of reciprocal thought and mutual achievement. And through and through, welcome, welcome.
They were young, they were new, all of them, though not as new and as young as Gerry. Their youth was in the drive and resilience of their thinking. Although some gave memories old in human terms, each entity had lived briefly in terms of immortality and they were all immortal.