Swiftly as before that great change was accomplished, and then, as there began again the dull clamor of activity upon the sunward side, Marlin and I turned from our listening attention. But at that moment we heard a staccato rattle of speech outside our door, and an instant later the great black slab of that door slid sharply upward and three Neptunians moved inside the cell. The foremost one of these bore on the metal armor of his great green disk-body a crimson circle that marked him as one of the Neptunian officials. The other two were apparently guards brought in as a precautionary measure, their force-ray tubes unsheathed and leveled unhesitatingly upon us. The Neptunian official carried in his grasp a small octagonal object or mechanism with a simple button-control, which we gazed at curiously. He touched the button-control of it, and there sounded from it a series of swift, sharp snaps of sound exactly like those of the Neptunians' staccato speech. Then, speaking aloud himself, he motioned from himself to us, and then to the mechanism.
It was Marlin who first understood his purpose. "The Neptunian language!" he exclaimed. "This one has come to teach it to us, to make it possible for them to communicate with us."
"But the mechanism?" I said. "What is its purpose?"
Marlin stared at it a moment, then reached forth and touched its round button-control, bringing from the mechanism an irregular succession of snaps of sound. "It's for us!" he said suddenly. "They know that with our different bodies we can't make the sharp, snapping sounds that are their speech, so have brought this mechanism to us to serve us as an artificial voice!"
The Neptunian official, as though he had understood us, motioned again to the mechanism and then from himself to us, at the same time uttering a few speech-sounds as though in explanation. It was plain, indeed, that his object was to teach us the strange Neptunian speech. Pointing to himself, and to the two guards, he uttered a succession of five sound-snaps, irregularly spaced, over and over again, until it was evident that they represented the name of the Neptunian races. Then Marlin and I attempted with the little speaking mechanism to reproduce those five snaps of sound, and after experimenting for a time with the mechanism's button-control we succeeded. That done, the Neptunian pointed to us and uttered another short succession of sounds, another word, which we then learned to utter on the mechanism also.
Thus, for hour upon hour, the Neptunian continued with us, teaching us word after word, in their strange staccato language. That language, we found, seemed very much like a communication code of dots and dashes, all its sounds or sound-snaps being of the same pitch, there being no raising or lowering of the voice, while for each word there was a certain combination of the sharp sounds. Quickly, too, after a time, we began to understand and learn that strange language, and though never could our own vocal apparatus have produced the clacking bursts of sharp sound which were their speech-sounds, we learned to manipulate easily the little mechanism that spoke to them for us. Hour followed hour and day followed day, until we became so proficient in the knowledge and expression of their words as to be able to communicate effectively, though haltingly, with the great disk-bodied Neptunian who was teaching us.
Yet we found that that ability served us nothing. For though we plied the Neptunian with innumerable questions concerning the great mysteries that we had come through and that lay about us, he would answer nothing. What great chain of events had it been that had made of mighty Neptune's colossal compartment-city a silent desert of death, and that had sent all the Neptunians crowding upon Triton? What was their purpose in directing their mighty force-ray toward the sun, turning the sun ever faster to accomplish its division into a double star? Why, too, had they sent a second great force-ray out in an opposite direction from the first, passing out into the vast void of interstellar space? These questions we put many times to the great Neptunian who taught us, but the big, green-bodied disk-monster simply contemplated us as though unhearingly with his bulging, glassy eyes, and went on with the teaching of their strange speech.
So days followed days while we slowly progressed in our learning of the Neptunian speech, days in which the despair that had gathered in our hearts grew darker and darker. For at last, when more than a score of Earth-days had passed, we realized that all was hopeless indeed, that even had we chanced to escape, even had we still our space-flier that had been destroyed with Whitely and Randall, we would hardly have time enough to return from Neptune to Earth and bring back the fleet of space-fliers that were being prepared on Earth. Not much more than a half-hundred days, indeed, remained before that last day that would see the sun splitting at last to engulf almost all its planets, for with each day, we knew, the giant force-ray of the Neptunians emanating from Triton was turning the sun faster and faster.
Twice, indeed, I almost made a wild attempt to overcome our Neptunian teacher and guards, but was held back by Marlin, who knew as well as I that instant death only could result from such an attempt. And as those days passed, as with each ten hours the great band of light went around Triton and the millions of Neptunians on dark and sunward sides interchanged, I came to look on death as a release from the agony of suspense and torture in which we were. I think that not much longer could either Marlin or I have endured the terrible torture of that imprisonment, when there came at last a break to it, on the twenty-second day of our captivity.