They crouched together in the dark shadows of the tunnel that opened a dozen feet above the floor of the large cavern. Down there, in the gray half-light that filtered in through the outer entrance, they saw three small heaps of vegetation steaming silently and the two old females who tended them.
From time to time one of the old females filled a hollow husk from the nik-nik fruit with water and sprinkled it over the three mounds. The eggs they had seen the ancient ones bury so carefully were soaking up the moist warmth.
Masson jogged Dolan's elbow, and they crawled carefully back along the low-roofed passage toward the vine-festooned entrance five hundred feet above. Water and gray ooze sloshed underfoot as they walked along level reaches of the way, and always the wet rock was slippery.
"We know how the eggs are hatched now," he said, "and with experience we can learn to gauge the proper temperature. But until we have perfected the procedure our families will not increase very rapidly."
Dolan gulped. "I dunno if I want one of them ugly looking things we saw in that side pen," he said.
"They're no uglier than you are, Joe," chuckled Masson. "Hunt up a pool of clear water and look at yourself sometime." He gripped Dolan's arm.
"But that's what I was thinking about," he went on. "About that side pen in the cave where the newly hatched Butrads are kept. We kidnaped the Frogs' women, so...."
"Why not their kids?" Dolan laughed. "We seem to be going in for crime in a big way."
"The young ones will have a better chance for living to adulthood," argued Masson. "We're doing them a favor. And the Frogs can't know whose children are gone and whose are left."
"Sounds all right the way you put it," agreed Dolan. "Maybe because I want to believe it. But will the little brats have brains enough to soak up education?"