"One thing at a time, son. Let's have breakfast." There was a double ration of food and water on the "floor" near them. Graves picked up a sphere, nicked it expertly, and drank it without losing a drop. Eisenberg watched him knowingly.
"You've been here for some time."
"That's right."
"Did the fireballs get you the same time they got me?"
"No." He reached for the food. "I came up the Kanaka Pillar."
"What!"
"That's right. Matter of fact, I was looking for you."
"The hell you say!"
"But I do say. It looks as if my wild hypothesis was right; the Pillars and the fireballs are different manifestations of the same cause-X!"
It seemed almost possible to hear the wheels whir in Eisenberg's head. "But, Doc.... look here, Doc, that means your whole hypothesis was correct. Somebody did the whole thing. Somebody has us locked up here now."
"That's right." He munched slowly. He seemed tired, older and thinner than the way Eisenberg remembered him. "Evidence of intelligent control Always was. No other explanation."
"But who?"
"Ah!"
"Some foreign power? Are we up against something utterly new in the way of an attack?" -
"Hummph! Do you think the Russians, for instance, would bother to serve us water like this?" He held up one of the dainty little spheres.
"Who, then?"
"I wouldn't know. Call 'em Martians-that's a convenient way to think of them."
"Why Martians?"
"No reason. I said that was a convenient way to think of them."
"Convenient how?"
"Convenient because it keeps you from thinking of them as human beings-which they obviously aren't. Nor animals. Something very intelligent, but not animals, because they are smarter than we are. Martians."
"But... but- Wait a minute. Why do you assume that your X people aren't human? Why not humans who have a lot of stuff on the ball that we don't have? New scientific advances?"
"That's a fair question," Graves answered, picking his teeth with a forefinger. "I'll give you a fair answer. Because in the-present state of the world we know pretty near where alt the best minds are and what they are doing. Advances, like these couldn't be hidden and would be a long time in developing. X indicates evidence of a half a dozen different lines of development that are clear beyond our ken and which would require years of work by hundreds of researchers, to say the very least. Ipso facto, nonhuman science.
"Of course," he continued, "if you want to postulate a mad scientist and a secret laboratory, I can't argue with you. But I'm not writing Sunday supplements."
Bill Eisenberg kept very quiet for some time, while he considered what Graves said in the light of his own experience.
"You're right, Doc," he finally admitted. "Shucks-you're usually right when we have an argument. It has to be Martians. Oh, I don't mean inhabitants of Mars; I mean some form of intelligent life from outside this planet."
"Maybe."
"But you just said so!"
"No, I said it was a convenient way to look at it."
"But it has to be by elimination."
"Elimination is a tricky line of reasoning."
"What else could it be?"
"Mm-m-m. I'm not prepared to say just what I do think- yet. But there are stronger reasons than we have mentioned for concluding that we are up against nonhumans. Psychological reasons."
"What sort?"
"X doesn't treat prisoners in any fashion that arises out of human behavior patterns. Think it over."
They had a lot to talk about; much more than X, even though X was a subject they were bound to return to. Graves gave Bill a simple bald account of how he happened to go up the Pillar-an account which Bill found very moving for what was left out, rather than told. He felt suddenly very humble and unworthy as he looked at his elderly, frail friend.
"Doc, you don't look well."
"I'll do."
"That trip up the Pillar was hard on you. You shouldn't have tried it."
Graves shrugged. "I made out all right." But he had not, and Bill could see that he had not. The old man was "poorly."
They slept and they ate and they talked and they slept again. The routine that Eisenberg had grown used to alone continued, save with company. But Graves grew no stronger.
"Doc, it's up to us to do something about it."
"About what?"
"The whole situation. This thing that has happened to us is an intolerable menace to the whole human race. We don't know what may have happened down below-"
"Why do you say 'down below'?"
'Why, you came up the Pillar."
"Yes, true-but I don't know when or how I was taken out of -the bathysphere, nor where they may have taken me. But go ahead. Let's have your idea."
"Well, but-OK-we don't know what may have happened to the rest of the human race. The fireballs may be picking them off one at a time, with no chance to fight back and no way of guessing what has been going on. We have some idea of the answer. It's up to us to escape and warn them. There may be some way of fighting back. It's our duty; the whole future of the human race may depend on it."
Graves was silent so long after Bill had finished his tocsin that Bill began to feel embarrassed, a bit foolish. But when he finally spoke it was to agree. "I think you are right, Bill. I think it quite possible that you are right. Not necessarily, but distinctly possible. And that possibility does place an obligation on us to all mankind. I've known it. I knew it before we got into this mess, but I did not have enough data to justify shouting. 'Wolf!'
"The question is," he went on, "how can we give such a warning-now?"
"We've got to escape!"
"Ah."
"There must be some way."
"Can you suggest one?"
"Maybe. We haven't been able to find any way in or out of this place, but there must be a way-has to be; we were brought in. Furthermore, our rations are put inside every day-somehow. I tried once to stay awake long enough to see how it was done, but I fell asleep-"
"So did I."
"Uh-huh. I'm not surprised. But there are two of us now; we could take turns, watch on and watch off, until something happened."
Graves nodded. "It's worth trying."
Since they had no way of measuring the watches, each kept the vigil until sleepiness became intolerable, then awakened the other. But nothing happened. Their food ran out, was not replaced. They conserved their water balls with care, were finally reduced to one, which was not drunk because each insisted on being noble about it-the other must drink it! But still no manifestation of any sort from their unseen Captors.
After an unmeasured and unestimated length of time-but certainly long, almost intolerably long-at a time when Eisenberg was in a light, troubled sleep, he was suddenly awakened by a touch and the sound of his name. He sat up, blinking, disoriented. "Who? What? Wha'sa matter?"
"I must have dozed off," Graves said miserably. "I'm sorry, Bill." Eisenberg looked where -Graves pointed. Their food and water had been renewed.
Eisenberg did not suggest a renewal of the experiment. In the first place, it seemed evident that their keepers did not intend for them to learn the combination to their cell and were quite intelligent enough to outmaneuver their necessarily feeble attempts. In the second place, Graves was an obviously sick man; Eisenberg did not have the heart to suggest another long, grueling, half-starved vigil.
But, lacking knowledge of the combination, it appeared impossible to break jail. A naked man is a particularly helpless creature; lacking materials wherewith to fashion tools, he can do little. Eisenberg would have swapped his chances for eternal bliss for a diamond drill, an acetylene torch, or even a rusty, secondhand chisel. Without tools of some sort it was impressed on him that he stood about as much chance of breaking out of his cage as his goldfish, Cleo and Patra, had of chewing their way out of a glass bowl.