For a while then they sat silently, thinking about their plight. Robin, somehow, was not too worried. He had become so used to the superiority of his muscles that he felt that he could eventually manage his escape when the time came. The question was, where could he escape to? This particular region was not actually a part of the honeycomb of Luna's interior—it was a cleft sealed in by a trick of volcanic fate on the very surface. Probably it had no other exit than the one which led into it.
Again, escape though he might, could he save Korree too? He thought about it in silence. Korree broke the meditations. "Have hunger. Is food here?"
"There must be some around," said Robin, glancing back at the things in the rear of their prison-cave. The figure back there stirred a bit. And then there was a mumbling sound and a voice said something. The voice was deep and strong, unlike the sound of a Glassie's tongue. But Robin could not understand it. Korree too looked and listened.
"Did you understand him?" Robin asked his companion.
Korree shook his head. Now at the sound of Robin's words occurred the most astonishing surprise that Robin had yet encountered. The unseen speaker spoke again:
"Who is that? Is there someone here who speaks English?"
It was a human voice! It spoke Robin's language, though the intonation and accent were not quite right. Robin and Korree hastened back to the rear of their cave to the reclining figure of the speaker. In the light of Korree's head-stalk, it was indeed a man, an Earth man!
He was lying, tied hand and foot, on a pile of scraps, but he was raising his head, staring at them eagerly. He was a young man, evidently not much older than Robin. His blue eyes looked at them with relief and he smiled widely.
"You are a human! I thought I was dreaming when I heard a voice I could understand. You must be an American ... then the Americans must have beaten us here after all!"
Robin knelt down by the man, worked at his bonds. They were tight, real cord of nylon or some Earth-made substance. It took the combined strength of the two of them to finally open the knots and free the man.