"I am going to select my men for battle."
"When do you go?"
"In a few hours, Earth-time."
"And you"re taking us on the ship, Molo? Where is your _Star-Streak_?"
"That I must find out." He, gazed at us with a slow, faint smile. "Not far. Nothing is far on Wandl. I do not know if I will take you on my ship. You might be of help, or you might be troublesome. The Great Master wants prisoners, or I would have killed you long ago."
He took his sister and left us. There was a brief moment when Wyk, standing aside incuriously, gave us opportunity for swift whispers.
Again Anita clutched me. "Gregg, we"ll be separated now. But with Molo gone, Venza and I can get away from Meka."
Venza whirled on us. "Gregg, listen! Snap, be quiet! If we"re ever going to escape, now is the time. You get away from Wyk. We"ll handle Meka."
"And do what?" Snap demanded.
"The control station! We"ll find it!"
Anita whispered, "We"ve got to wreck it, Gregg. Stop those contacts.
It"ll mean the end of Earth if we don"t."
I protested. "Better try for Molo"s vessel. We might be able to navigate it, escape from this world."
"The control station first," Anita insisted. "Gregg, we know something about it. You and Snap, with your strength, can demolish it. And then, if we can locate the _Star-Streak_...."
It was a desperate, mad plan, but there seemed nothing better. The girls insisted now that though they did not know where the control station was located, they knew the details of its interior; its physical layout; its human operators.
"In an hour," whispered Snap. "Have you got a timer? Is it going?"
The little timers we still had with us were undoubtedly operating differently from on Earth; but they were in agreement.
"An hour by our timers," I whispered. "We"ll make the break then, try to find you inside. Anita, if you get free of Meka, don"t come out."
"All right."
We had only a moment to try and plan it. "Anita, in an hour, with Molo gone...."
He came suddenly with a driving leap from the doorway and dropped among us. "All is ready. Come."
We ignored the girls. Snap again protested that he was hungry, which indeed, for me at least, was certainly the truth. And I was parched with thirst. I felt that this vaunted strength of my Earth body would not last long without food and drink.
We entered the globular interior. There were narrow corridors; triangular rooms; a slatted, ladder-like incline leading upward to a higher level.
The girls followed Meka up the incline. Molo and Wyk herded us into a nearby room. "You will have your food and drink here. Cause Wyk no trouble and you will be quite safe."
He turned, but Snap plucked at him. "When are you coming back?"
"Not too long."
I said, "We will cause you no trouble. Take us on the ship."
"I will see."
He murmured to Wyk in Martian, then left us.
The small triangular room had no windows and only the single door. Wyk touched a mechanism and it slid closed. The place was a queer apartment indeed. The floor was convex, curving upward to the walls.
The light radiance dimly glowed, as though inherent to the metal ceiling. There was strange metal furniture: a table and chairs, high and large; bunks of a size evidently for the ten-foot workers.
The door opened, and a worker brought us food and drink. Wyk sat apart and watched us while we consumed the meal. I noticed that he seldom let himself get close to us. He sat stiffly upright, with his jointed legs bent double under him, his many arms and pincers hanging inert, save the one short shoulder-arm with flexible fingers gripping his weapon. At his waist, and upon several hook-like protuberances of his chest, other weapons and devices were hanging.
Snap gazed up from where, on the floor, we were ravenously eating and drinking. "Aren"t you hungry?" he asked Wyk.
"No."
"You eat often?"
"No."
An incurious, taciturn creature, this insect-like being. Snap whispered, "Got to talk to him; make him let us get close. That weapon...."
How the weapon operated, we did not know; but that a flash from it would bring instant death we well imagined.
Half of that hour of waiting was past.
I said to Wyk, "You would call this night on your world; the sun obviously is on the other hemisphere. When will it be day?"
His gaze swung on me. His hollow voice, deep from the capacious sh.e.l.l of chest, echoed and blurred in the room.
"I think Wandl has no rotation now. Or almost none."
He was not as taciturn, as he had seemed, and presently we had him talking. We learned several things regarding the gravity-controls of Wandl, by which at will the planet could be rotated on its axis; and by which also it could navigate s.p.a.ce. We learned that the great control station contained these gravitational mechanisms, as well as the mechanism by which the Earth had been attacked. But we could not discover where on Wandl that station was located.
Then, with our meal finished, Snap rose to his feet. "Those arms of yours, seem very strange to us. But they must be mighty useful."
Snap had taken a cautious, shoving step. It wafted him directly toward the guard.
The weird, brown-scaled face of Wyk, with its popping eyes upon stems and its upended mouth, contorted with surprise.
"Back! Don"t come near me!"
He flung himself back, but struck the wall of the room. All his arms were writhing. Alarm was in his voice. It was the first time either Snap or I had made an unexpected move, and it startled Wyk.
"Wait! Let me go!" Snap cried.
Wyk"s longest arms were around Snap, like the tentacles of an octopus, and Snap was struggling, fighting. We had not intended this at this time, but the opportunity was here.