"I can't stop them." Russ was resigned. "They're taking me to the empty glass case. I guess I'm elected to be the next exhibit. They're shoving me in!"
Outside Burl's enclosure the stick-men sensed something unusual in his strained attitude. They stared in at him, while he remained tense, listening.
Now Russ's voice came again. "They're going to take off my helmet and throw in the suspended animation gas, Burl. Good-by. I can see them still. Oh ... oh, I feel strange, I feel stiff, faint ... here ... I ... go...."
His voice faded out, thin and weak. Then there was only silence.
Burl threw himself against the restraining transparent wall of his dome prison and hammered on it with his fists. The dome would not give way.
He looked around desperately, determined to escape, wondering what surprise the Plutonians were holding him for—suspecting he would be the next victim. They would be coming for him soon, he knew.
He searched the enclosure for some way of leaving. He looked at the stick-men and wondered if they knew. One of them, the one who seemed to be the leader, gestured to him. His arm pointed to a spot in the floor.
Sure enough, there was a crack there, an outline like a small trap cover. He worked at it with his fingers and, finding a dent, he pushed. A lid came off. Below was a cleared space, a few inches deep, in which were set the levers of a typical Plutonian control board.
Burl wondered if he were still carrying the charge that attuned him to such controls. The shock he had received on Pluto could have blanked it out.
He pushed at the levers with his gloved hands. They did not obey him. Desperately, he removed the glove from one of his hands. It was bitter cold in the little enclosure, but there was some atmosphere. The lever almost froze to his fingers, but he turned it again.