"No, I don't think I'll have time. If I get started talking to him now, I'd be here from now on, and I've got a lot of work to do. Steve can talk to him for me--see you later," and Brandon was gone.

He went directly to the Vorkulian fortress, bare now of hexan life and devoid of hexan snares and traps. There he and his fellows labored day after day learning every secret of every item of armament and equipment aboard the heptagon.

"Did you finish up today, Norm?" asked Stevens one evening. "Kromodeor's coming to life fast. He's able to wiggle around a little now, and is insisting that we take off the one chain we keep on him and let him use a plate, to call his people."

"All washed up. Guess I'll go in and talk to him--you all say he's such an egg. With this stuff off my mind I can hide it well enough. By the way, what does he eat?" And the two friends set out for the Venerian rooms.

"Anything that's sweet, apparently, with just enough milk to furnish a little protein. Won't eat meat or vegetables at all--von Steiffel says they haven't got much of a digestive tract, and I know that they haven't got any teeth. He's already eaten most all the syrup we had on board, all of the milk chocolate, and a lot of the sugar. But none of us can get any kind of a raise out of him at all--not even Nadia, when she fed him a whole box of chocolates."

"No, I mean what does he eat when he's home?"

"It seems to be a sort of syrup, made from the juices of jungle plants, which they drag in on automatic conveyors and process on automatic machinery. But he's a funny mutt--hard to get. Some of his thoughts are lucid enough, but others we can't make out at all--they are so foreign to all human nature that they simply do not register as thoughts at all.

One funny thing, he isn't the least bit curious about anything. He doesn't want to examine anything, doesn't ask us any questions, and won't tell us anything about anything, so that all we know about him we found out purely by accident. For instance, they like games and sports, and seem to have families. They also have love, liking, and respect for others of their own race--but they seem to have no emotions whatever for outsiders. They're utterly inhuman--I can't describe it--you'll have to get it for yourself."

"Did you find out about the Callistonians who went to see them?"

"Negatively, yes. They never arrived. They probably couldn't see in the fog and must have missed the city. If they tried to land in that jungle, it was just too bad!"

"That would account for everything. So they're strictly neutral, eh?

Well, I'll tell him 'hi,' anyway." Now in the sickroom, Brandon picked up the headset and sent out a wave of cheery greeting.

To his amazement, the mind of the Vorkul was utterly unresponsive to his thoughts. Not disdainful, not inimical; not appreciative, nor friendly--simply indifferent to a degree unknown and incomprehensible to any human mind. He sent Brandon only one message, which came clear and coldly emotionless.

"I do not want to talk to you. Tell the hairy doctor that I am now strong enough to be allowed to go to the communicator screen. That is all." The Vorkul's mind again became an oblivious maze of unintelligible thoughts. Not deliberately were Kromodeor's thoughts hidden; he was const.i.tutionally unable to interest himself in the thoughts or things of any alien intelligence.

"Well, that for that." A puzzled, thoughtful look came over Brandon's face as he called von Steiffel. "A queer duck, if there ever was one.

However, their ship will never bother us, that's one good thing; and I think we've got about everything of theirs that we want, anyway."

The surgeon, after a careful examination of his patient, unlocked the heavy collar with which he had been restraining the over-anxious Vorkul, and supported him lightly at the communicator panel. As surely as though he had used those controls for years Kromodeor shot the visiray beam out into s.p.a.ce. One hand upon each of the several dials and one eye upon each meter, it was a matter only of seconds for him to get in touch with Vorkulia. To the Terrestrials the screen was a gray and foggy blank; but the manifest excitement shrieking and whistling from the speaker in response to Kromodeor's signals made it plain that his message was being received with enthusiasm.

"They are coming," the Vorkul thought, and lay back, exhausted.

"Just as well that they're comin' out here, at that," Brandon commented.

"We couldn't begin to handle that structure anywhere near Jupiter--in fact, we wouldn't want to get very close ourselves, with pa.s.sengers aboard."

Such was the power of the Vorkulian vessels that in less than twenty hours another heptagon slowed to a halt beside the _Sirius_ and two of its crew were wafted aboard.

They were ushered into the Venerian room, where they talked briefly with their wounded fellow before they dressed him in a s.p.a.ce-suit, which they filled with air to their own pressure. Then all three were lifted lightly into the air, and without a word or a sign were borne through the air-locks of the vessel, and into an opening in the wall of the rescuing heptagon. A green tractor beam reached out, seizing the derelict, and both structures darted away at such a pace that in a few minutes they had disappeared in the black depths of s.p.a.ce.

"Well--that, as I may have remarked before, is indisputably and conclusively that." Brandon broke the surprised, almost stunned, silence that followed the unceremonious departure of the visitors. "I don't know whether to feel relieved at the knowledge that they won't bother us, or whether to get mad because they won't have anything to do with us."

He sent the "All x" signal to the pilot and the _Sirius_, once more at the acceleration of Terrestrial gravity, again bored on through s.p.a.ce.

CHAPTER XIII

s.p.a.cehounds Triumphant

Now that the hexan threat that had so long oppressed the humanity of the _Sirius_ was lifted, that dull gray football of armor steel was filled with relief and rejoicing as the pilot laid his course for Europa.

Lounges and saloons resounded with noise as police, pa.s.sengers, and such of the crew as were at liberty made merry. The control room, in which were grouped the leaders of the expedition and the scientists, was orderly enough, but a noticeable undertone of gladness had replaced the tense air it had known so long.

"Hi, men!" Nadia Stevens and Verna Pickering, arms around each other's waists, entered the room and saluted the group gaily before they became a part of it.

"'Smatter, girls--tired of dancing already?" asked Brandon.

"Oh, no--we could dance from now on," Verna a.s.sured him. "But you see, Nadia hadn't seen that husband of hers for fifteen minutes, and was getting lonesome. Being afraid of all you men, she wanted me to come along for moral support. The real reason I came, though," and she narrowed her expressive eyes and lowered her voice mysteriously, "is that you two physicists are here. I want to study my chosen victims a little longer before I decide over which of you to cast the spell of my fatal charm."

"But you can't do that," he objected, vigorously. "Quince and I are going to settle that ourselves some day--by shooting dice, or maybe each other, or...." he broke off, listening to an animated conversation going on behind them.

"... just simply outrageous!" Nadia was exclaiming. "Here we saved his life, and I fed him a lot of my candy, and we went to all the trouble of bringing their ship back here almost to Jupiter for them, and then they simply dashed off without a word of thanks or anything! And he always acted as though he never wanted to see or hear of any of us again, ever!

Why, they don't _think_ straight--as Norman would say it, they're _full_ of little red _ants_! Why, they aren't even _human_!"

"Sure not." Brandon turned to the flushed speaker. "They couldn't be, hardly, with their make-up. But is it absolutely necessary that all intelligent beings should possess such an emotion as grat.i.tude? Such a being without it does seem funny to us, but I can't see that its lack necessarily implies anything particularly important. Keep still a minute," he went on, as Nadia tried to interrupt him, "and listen to some real wisdom. Quince, _you_ tell 'em."

"They are, of course, very highly developed and extremely intelligent; but it should not be surprising that intelligence should manifest itself in ways quite baffling to us human beings, whose minds work so differently. They are, however ... well, peculiar."

"I _won't_ keep still!" Nadia burst out, at the first opportunity.

"I don't want to talk about those hideous things any more, anyway.

Come on, Steve, let's go up and dance!"

Crowninshield turned to Verna, with the obvious intention of leading her away, but Brandon interposed.

"Sorry, Crown, but this lady is conducting a highly important psychological research, so your purely social claims will have to wait until after the scientific work is done."

"Why narrow the field of investigation?" laughed the girl. "I'd rather widen it, myself--I might prefer a general, even to a physicist!"

They went up to the main saloon and joined the melee there, and after one dance with Verna--all he could claim in that crowd of men--Crowninshield turned to Brandon.

"You two seem to know Miss Pickering extraordinarily well. Would I be stepping on your toes if I give her a play?"

"Clear ether as far as we're concerned." Brandon shrugged his shoulders.

"She's been kicking around under foot ever since she was knee high to a duck--we gave her her first lessons on a slide rule."

"Don't be dumb, Norman. That woman's a knock-out--a riot--a regular tri-planet call-out!"

"Oh, she's all x, as far as that goes. She's a good little scout, too--not half as dumb as she acts--and she's one of the squarest little aces that ever waved a plume; but as for _playing_ her--too much like our kid sister."

"Good--me for her!" and they made their way back down to the control room.

Stevens, after his one dance with Nadia, had already returned. Brandon and Crowninshield found him seated at the calculating machine, continuing a problem which already filled several pages of his notebook.

"'Smatter, Steve? So glad to see a calculator and some paper that you can't let them alone?"

"Not exactly--just had a thought a day or so ago. Been computing the orbit of the wreckage of the _Arcturus_ around Jupiter. Think we should salvage it--the upper half, at least. It was left intact, you know."

"H ... m ... m. That would be nice, all right. Dope enough?"