Crane tried to rise and found that the wrists of his spacesuit were tied together. Beside him lay Lalla Dee, unconscious and similarly clad in a spacesuit, also bound. They were in one of the Vulcan's space-locks, both inner and outer doors closed.
Then Crane saw Kark Al. The Martian was getting into another spacesuit. The great robot stood motionless beside its master.
Kark Al bent over Crane finally, said coolly in his muffled voice, "Thoh got you from my cabin to this space-lock without anyone in the ship seeing us. Now we are leaving the ship!"
The Martian, once inside his suit, quickly secured a chain to his belt and tied it to the waists of the others so that he and the two prisoners and the robot formed a human chain.
* * *
Then Kark Al quickly took down from the rack beside the row of spacesuits, a hand-rocket — a small affair whose reactive push was enough to move several people in the void.
Kark Al touched a button and the outer door of the lock slid open. The air in it puffed out with a sharp sound, and they looked out into the star-gemmed blackness of space.
Rab Crane saw now that the Martian had slung from his shoulders a square, insulated case which he knew contained the brain of Doctor Alph. And as he realized that the Martian was achieving final success, he tried desperately to attack him.
But Kark Al at that moment stepped calmly out from the lock into empty space! The chain at his belt yanked Lalla Dee and Rab and the robot after him. They all floated there in space, a human chain, scraping the hull of the huge liner as it forged onward.
Kark Al's hand-rocket flashed flame, its impulse dragging them all forward. They moved outward from the liner, pulling away from its gravitational drag. The stem of the liner dwindled swiftly until only its lights were visible, and then those too vanished. The Vulcan was gone! They floated alone here in space, the Martian and his two bound, helpless prisoners and the great impassive robot, who needed no spacesuit because he did not breathe. Kark Al no longer used his hand-rocket, now that they were free of the liner. Crane knew that he was waiting for the Martian cruiser to reach them.