"A good job," he commented briefly.
"Good?" exclaimed Loring. "It's perfect! Why, that dummy would fool my own wife, if I had one—it almost fools me!"
"At least, they're good enough to pass a more critical test than any they are apt to get during this coming incident."
Satisfied, DuQuesne turned from his scrutiny of the dummies and went to the closet in which had been stored the space suit of the captive. To the inside of its front protector flap he attached a small and inconspicuous flat-sided case. He then measured carefully, with a filar micrometer, the apparent diameter of the planet now looming so large beneath them.
"All right, Doll; our time's getting short. Break out our suits and test them, will you, while I give the big boy his final instructions?"
Rapidly those commands flowed over the wires of the mechanical educator, from DuQuesne's hard, keen brain into the now-docile mind of the captive. The Earthly scientist explained to the Fenachrone, coldly, precisely, and in minute detail, exactly what he was to do and exactly what he was to say from the moment of encountering the detector screens of his native planet until after he had reported to his superior officers.
Then the two Terrestrials donned their own armor of space and made their way into an adjoining room, a small armory in which were hung several similar suits and which was a veritable arsenal of weapons.
"We'll hang ourselves up on a couple of these hooks, like the rest of the suits," DuQuesne explained. "This is the only part of the performance that may be even slightly risky, but there is no real danger that they will spot us. That fellow's message to the scout ship will tell them that there are only two of us, and we'll be out there with him, right in plain sight.
"If by any chance they should send a party aboard us they would probably not bother to search the Violet at all carefully, since they will already know that we haven't got a thing worthy of attention; and they would of course suppose us to be empty space suits. Therefore keep your lens shields down, except perhaps for the merest crack to see through, and, above all, don't move a millimeter, no matter what happens."
"But how can you manipulate your controls without moving your hands?"