Blekeke had spent a half-hour after my arrival trying to find out how much I knew. But after my initial shocker—letting him know that I recognized him—I had kept my mind closed tightly; and I was keeping it closed now. Blekeke was still listening in—I had no doubt of that. Maxwell knew it too, for he made no attempt at conversation.
He sat with his back to the walls in one corner, and I crouched in another corner, and we sat there, staring at the walls and at each other, not daring to speak or to think.
After about ten or fifteen minutes the door opened, and Blekeke stepped in. He was wearing earphones, and a wire trailed behind him. In one hand he carried a blaster.
He smiled broadly and nodded, once at each of us. "Something show you," he said. "Watching."
He pushed a button on the wall beside the door and the lights died. For an instant everything was black, and I braved myself. Then the wall beside Blekeke glowed, flickered—and a scene in black and white came into focus.
"This observer room," Blekeke said. "Show what camera top meeting hall see."
The scene was dim; a half-moon bobbed and splashed in ocean waves in the background. In the right foreground, close and large, dark and dull, was the spaceship.
It was Martian, but not military. An old cargo carrier. Its rear jets were extinguished, but the ship was vibrating.
Leaving? I wondered—and Blekeke caught my thought over the telenizer earphones.
No—just arriving, was his answer in my mind. But it leave again very soon. You with. Soon no matter what you know. What did. Soon gone.