The doctor had got over the horror of what he had seen. "We want to be fair, Van. Look at this matter from the bees' view-point for awhile. What were they to do? They had to make sure, as far as possible, that their supremacy would never be threatened again. Didn't they?"
"Oh, but—damn it all!" cried Van Emmon. "There's a limit somewhere!
Such cruelty as that—no one could conceive of it!"
"As for the bees," flared Billie, "I don't blame 'em! And unless I'm very much mistaken, the ruling class ANYWHERE, here on the earth or wherever you investigate, will go the limit to hold the reins, once they get them!"
The expression on Van Emmon's face was curious to see. There was no fear there, only a puzzled astonishment. Strange as it may seem, Billie had told him something that had never occurred to him before. And he recognized it as truth, as soon as she had said it.
"Just a minute," remarked Smith in his ordinary voice; "just a minute. You're forgetting that we don't really know whether Rolla and Cunora are safe. Everything depends upon them now, you know."
In silence the four went back into telepathic connection. Now, of course, Smith and Van Emmon were practically without agents. The prisoners could tell them nothing whatever except the tale of increasing agony as their torture went on. All that Van Emmon and Smith could do was lend the aid of their mentality to the efforts of the other two, and for a while had to be content with what Billie, through Supreme, and the doctor, through Rolla, were able to learn. However, Kinney did suggest that one of the other two men get in touch with Cunora.
"Good idea," said Smith. "Go to it, Van Emmon."
The geologist stirred uneasily, and avoided his wife's eyes. "I—I'm afraid not, Smith. Rather think I'd prefer to rest a while. You do it!"
Smith laughed and reddened. "Nothing doing for an old bach like me. Cunora might—well, you know—go in bathing, for instance. It's all right for the doctor, of course; but—let me out!"
Meanwhile the two women on Sanus, taking the utmost care, managed to retreat from the river bank without being discovered. Keeping their eyes very wide open and their ears strained for the slightest buzz, the two contrived to pass through the village, out into the fields, and thence, from cover to cover, into the foothills on that side of the valley where their lovers had found the pyrites.