Little had spoken lightly of "working in" with Magill on whatever plan of escape that worthy might have evolved; at breakfast he discovered that no less than four lines of attack were being developed simultaneously. The quartermaster was hoping that one of them would go undiscovered long enough to reach a climax. He had not divided the men into separate groups for each job; the idea was to confuse the guards by having everybody work on all the plans at once. Confusion had certainly resulted, though none of the pentapods showed the symptoms. Little, first making sure that his own private plan would not be affected by any of the others, plunged joyfully into the conflicting tasks of (1) finding and using one or more of the aircraft which Magill was positive were stored beneath the roof; (2) getting an armed party of human beings into the interstellar flier of the pentapods; (3) carrying out the original Vegan plan of flooding the building with ultraviolet light without at the same time forcing out the men; and (4) locating an arsenal of the pentapods and simply clearing a section of the building by brute force. Magill intended to use whichever of these plans first attained practicability.
Four days were spent in this fashion. Work at least prevented them from being as boring as the preceding three, though little or no progress was made. On the morning of the fifth day, however, just after the morning meal, an event occurred which opened a fifth line of procedure, and almost caused Magill to abandon the others.
One of the men had gone out onto the roof; and the others were attracted by his cry. Little, following the others to the edge of the roof, looked over; and was rewarded with a clear view of nothing at all. The line of pentapods which had been loading supplies into the vast cruiser was not to be seen, and the vessel's ports were closed. The men watched silently and expectantly, reasonably sure of what was to happen.
Perhaps ten minutes passed without a word being spoken; then, without sound or ceremony, the tremendous cylinder of metal drifted lightly upward. The men followed it for a short distance with their eyes; they might have watched longer, if their attention had not been distracted by an object revealed by the cruiser's departure.
Just beyond the depression in the soil left by the great ship there appeared a second, much smaller, silvery metal torpedo; and a howl of surprise burst from almost every human throat on the rooftop. It was the Gomeisa, her ports open, apparently unharmed, and—apparently deserted.
For several seconds after that involuntary expression of astonishment there was dead silence; then Magill spoke.