"In a locked cell in prison?" Birrel had said, incredulously. "How can they?"
"I've an idea," Connor had said, "that they can do quite a lot of things we can't. But we'll be ready for them. The prison guards aren't in on our set-up, of course. But we'll be in the building, watching."
He had added, "You may not fool them long. But try. Remember, the important thing is to get them to lead you to the others, to the center of this thing, to their base, wherever it is. We'll follow."
That had been twenty hours ago. And now Birrel sat in the cold, stone-walled little cell, and stared at the blank steel door, and told himself that he was a fool, and that Connor was mad.
No one could reach him here, even if anybody tried.
Birrel suddenly looked up. Something had happened to the light, the single bulb that illuminated his cell.
A greenish tinge had come into the light. It deepened, and there was a buzzing in his ears, and—
Birrel pitched to the floor, unconscious.
He came out of blackness, later, with a vague consciousness of someone touching him and the sound of a voice in his ears.
It was a woman's voice, low and hurried and husky with strain. He didn't know what it was saying, the words didn't make sense—