"Could you stand that," said the grinning Neptunian, "for a lifetime?"
"No!"
"Then I warn you, the next time we apply it, you'll be alone in a dark room ... with a time clock on the door set for a one-week period. No one will enter. No one can stop the treatment. Will you cooperate?"
"Within limits."
"That's for me to judge. Give me the figures on how you managed to create that ship of yours."
"That's agreeable. You could take them anyhow." Timmy reached into a pocket of his space suit. He pulled out a bundle of papers and handed them to the Leader. "I warn you," he added, "they won't work." Then he swore at himself for saying that. If, by ingenuity, he could manage to convince the Neptunians that his ship would work, he might waste a lot of their time in research and give the Inner Worlds time to find out what was happening. "I might manage to make one work at that," he added swiftly.
The Neptunian scanned the papers. "No," he said, "this report of your scientific laboratories is definitely conclusive. I can see that you've done everything possible. The ship you have, or had, is a freak. But you're an expert in mechanics and photography. We'll put you in the research labs. Your friend can go with you until we need him."
The Neptunian cast one final look at the two captives, smiled, and walked away. Thurner jerked his head at an inner door. "Come on," he ordered. "Your quarters will be near the labs." He led them down a succession of corridors to a room where temperature and gravity stood at Earth-norm, and Callisto constant. "You can do without those suits," he said, and shut the door.
Timmy and Damokles looked around. The room was lighted quite brightly. A window gave onto the plain. Above them, Triton whirled its endless mad dance, speeding across the sky in the opposite direction of the planet's rotation. Timmy watched it. Here and there in the dark sky, synthetic power-moons hovered to steal energy from the cosmos.
"They gonna feed us, anyhows," said Johnny Damokles, and turned on the faucet of a food conveyor. Hot, spicy-scented edibles poured forth, but Timmy wasn't interested. Not far from them, half-lost in the gray light, two giant semi-globes towered heavenwards. Tim stared at them. Apparently the Neptunians were building another power-moon to add to that whirling band above. He watched as squat figures moved up and down its side, then walked from the window in a fog. Damokles tried to engage him in conversation, but Timmy was too defeated. He fell asleep.