Following her suggestion, Anderson and Verger stepped to the door and looked into the main cabin. Just beyond the entrance they were astonished to see one of the slug-men. Armed with the padded drum-stick, it was pounding lustily on the bass drum.
Nine or ten more of the Callisto natives were crowding the musicians. With their weird, telescopic eyes, the slug-men were intently watching all the movements which the girls were making.
"I believe I get the idea," Verger remarked. "Apparently they think that if they watch the musicians closely enough, they will learn how to play all the instruments themselves. Then they will organize a band of their own. As soon as they are able to get along without the human musicians, they will—"
Anderson kicked him in the shin just in time to stop him from finishing the sentence. If Helen noticed this by-play, she did not mention it. Instead she said, "Why don't you toss those kibitzers out, Captain?"
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Verger couldn't help smiling. "We can't very well toss them out, Mrs. Green, any more than a hired orchestra could evict the sponsor of a television program who took a notion to play with the instruments during a broadcast for which he was footing the bill."
By that time the enormous, fantastically glowing globe of Jupiter, upon which the daughter-moon of Callisto depended for light and warmth, had rolled down the sky until only a small portion of it was visible above the horizon. Evidently the slug-men abhorred being away from home after nightfall. At any rate, they departed as soon as the light began to wane, leaving behind them twenty tired, frightened girls and three worried men.
CHAPTER V
The Dying Tentacle
Half an hour later, Verger, Anderson, and LeDoux stole forth from the rocket-ship. Each of the men had a box-shaped object strapped on his back. All three of them carried coils of insulated wire, which they unwound as they advanced.