"Shut up or I'll gag you again—this time permanently!"
Both Brink and Sullivan received this message clearly. Apparently Miss Valentine did also for she murmured in a terrified voice, "All right. Just leave me alone and I'll keep still."
The next thought impression which came into their consciousness was: "Why did you come here?"
Concluding that a truthful answer was as good as any, Brink replied, "Our mission is a peaceful and a friendly one. We were sent to bring back the two earth-women, who wish to return to their home. Neither they nor we have any intention of injuring your wonderful world or any of its inhabitants. Won't you please let us go back where we came from?"
"What you ask is impossible. Whether or not your intentions are friendly, I cannot risk permitting you to return. Who knows but that you may come back with large forces to rob and murder my people?"
"I'll swear to be personally responsible for preventing anything like that from happening."
Brink imagined he almost heard a peal of scornful laughted as into his consciousness came this: "What good is the oath of an inferior animal like you? And, besides, I have another reason for wanting to detain you. I am a scientist and I am very much interested in the structure of your bodies. In the interests of science I consider it my duty to investigate you thoroughly."
"You mean you intend to cut up our bodies while we are still alive?"
"Certainly. Why not?"
"If you do anything like that, you will regret it," Brink threatened. "Our earth-people are very numerous and powerful. We belong to an organization which always protects its members, wherever they may be. It is absolutely relentless in punishing its enemies."
"Now you are showing your true colors. A moment ago, you said you were friendly. Now you threaten us and call us your enemies."
Brink realized that he could not hope to bluff this super-intelligent being. He decided to keep quiet.
But the flow of thought impulses from the Titanian leader continued to pour into his mind.
"You are right in concluding that there is no use in trying to dissuade me from my purpose. And now I must go and make preparations for my experiments."
He glided oozingly into the central part of the room and began to busy himself with some of the apparatus there.
"Do you suppose he is going to start operating on us right away?" Sullivan asked Brink in a husky whisper.
Before Frank could reply, he received the mental assurance all four of the earth-people would be safe until the following morning.
Outwitting The Amoeba-Men
AFTER a few hours, which seemed intolerably long to the two men as they sat on a heap of straw-like refuse in their narrow cell, the Titanian scientist forsook his levers and coils and flowed silently out of the building. As if this were a signal, the rest of the occupants of the place slipped through the door and were not replaced by others. Finally, only one of them was left. Extending two pseudo-podia, he pushed the door shut and fastened it by knotting together three pairs of rope-like fibers. With the slinking, flowing motion that was characteristic of the amoeba-people, it propelled itself around the ring of open space between the cells and the laboratory equipment.
"That blurb seems to be the night watchman," Brink remarked, as he looked at his watch and made note of the time.
Having made one circuit of the building, the Titanian guard plopped through a trap-door in the floor, which slammed shut behind him. Later on, he emerged again, circled the room and retired.
Brink took another look at his watch.
"Twenty-seven minutes," he announced. "That ought to give us plenty of time."
"Plenty of time for what?" Sullivan wanted to know.
"To escape, of course."
Already Brink had decided there was no use trying to force the heavily reinforced door at the rear of the cell. The side walls appeared even more formidable, being formed of a stone-like material as thick as a man's body.
Thrusting two fingers through one of the oval openings in the display window, he gave the large pane an experimental shake. It yielded slightly like a wooden board.
Responding to this suggestion, Sullivan opened his jack-knife and tried to cut into the transparent material. The edge of the blade turned without making the slightest impression on the window pane.
"It's as hard as glass," he muttered. "Perhaps I can kick a hole in it with my heel."
"'Fraid it wouldn't work," Brink disagreed. "That stuff seems to be flexible. And even if you could kick a hole in it, you would make so much noise that you'd bring the whole population of Titan about our ears. I think I have a better plan."
Brink's plan was simple enough. On his finger he wore a diamond ring. It didn't take him long to ascertain that with this jewel he could easily make a deep scratch on the glass-like substance. In a few minutes he had produced a neat, circular crack in the window and had gently removed a portion of it large enough to permit the passage of a man's body.
"You stay here," he whispered, "so you can fool the watchman if he makes the rounds again before I get back."
Crawling through the opening, he stole softly to the place where he knew the Valentine sisters were located.
When they saw him at their window, they were so startled that they both shrieked. Brink heard the hinges of the trap-door creak. There wasn't time enough to return to his cell, so he leaped the railing and hid behind one of the pieces of laboratory equipment.
Fortunately the watchman did not see him, nor did he notice his absence from his cage. With a sharp thought-command to be quiet, the Titanian crept back into its retreat.
For thirty breathless seconds, Brink waited. Then he said in a stage whisper, "For the love of gravitation, Vera and Velma, control yourselves until I can get over there and release you."
With his diamond, he quickly made a hole in the window of the girl's cell. One of them started to crawl out, but he gently pushed her back.
Replacing the disk in the hole, he said, "Here, Vera or Velma, whichever you are, hang onto this so it won't fall out. You'd better stay right where you are until I get the outside door open."
