“Wait! Is our speaker on?” The words were whispered.
“Yes.” Feth pulled a microphone down to chest level and retreated a step. He wanted no part in what Ken seemed about to do. Sallman himself, however, had once more become completely absorbed in the mystery of the World of Ice, to the exclusion of all other matters; he saw no reason for leaving the site where his activities had been discovered. It did not even occur to him not to answer the native who appeared to have made the discovery. With his speaking diaphragm close to the microphone, he emulated the “boss” of so many years before, and tried to imitate the sounds coming from the speaker.
The result was utter silence.
At first neither listener worried; the native would naturally be surprised. Gradually, however, an expression of mild anxiety began to appear on Ken’s features, while an “I-told-you-so” air became manifest about Feth.
“You’ve scared him away,” the latter finally said. “If his tribe stampedes with him, Drai won’t be very happy about it.”
A faint crackling which had preceded the alien’s call, and which his concentration of chemical problems had prevented reaching Ken’s conscious mind, suddenly ballooned into recollection, and he snatched at the straw.
“But we heard him coming — the same sort of noise the torpedo made landing — and we haven’t heard him leave. He must still be waiting.”
“Heard him coming? Oh — that? How do you know that’s what it was? Neither of us was paying any attention.”
“What else could it have been?” This was a decidedly unfair question, to which Feth attempted no direct answer. He simply countered with another.
“What’s he waiting for, then?” Fate was unkind to him; Ken was spared the necessity of answering. The human voice came again, less shrill this time; history seemed to be repeating itself. Ken listened intently; Feth seemed to have forgotten his intention of dissociating himself from the proceedings and was crowded as close as the detective to the speaker. The voice went on, in short bursts which required little imagination to interpret as questions. Not a word was understandable, though both thought they recognized the human “no” on several occasions. Certainly the creature did not utter any of the names that the Sarrians had come to associate with trade items — Feth, who knew them all, was writing them on a scrap of paper. Ken finally grew impatient, took the list from the mechanic, and began to pronounce them as well as he could, pausing after each.