Simply, suddenly, a light jar.
And Cragin wondered sardonically if his small rectangular bit of enamelite would be at all impressive on the planet the Owners called home.
Neither Cragin nor the girl ever saw the planet as such. And it was a planet, Cragin learned, a planet little larger than Earth, honeycombed with subterranean tubes and chambers as had been the control point; a labyrinth which contained a civilization of little more than twenty million members; a headquarters for those who ran and owned the universe.
They were escorted to the testing place by two creatures of the fourth grade; bipeds, shorter than men, with hunched backs and splayed tentacles for arms and hands. Cragin noted that they carried armament of a sort; simple tube-like objects which were aimed at him while he was relieved of his Krells.
Then he and Lin Griffin were placed in a bullet-shaped vehicle, one of the guards operating its controls and the other stationing himself behind them.
Cragin was not prepared for the girl's sudden outburst and jerked his hands vainly at the empty holsters at his hips.
"Of course we can escape from these simpletons!" she cried. "We can easily overpower these dimwitted brutes—"
There was no reaction from their guards; Cragin's hands relaxed slowly.
"What—"