Why he hadn't simply told me that it was no use, and sent me back to Earth, I couldn't figure out. He could have made all sorts of reasonable excuses for my not continuing in my search for the missing boys, and I'd have swallowed any one of them. Instead, he locks me up, throws away the key, and turns off the air supply.
What did I know that I could communicate to people back on Earth? What knowledge did I have that was a menace of some sort to Security? Or, to be more near the truth, to Baxter?
The only interesting fact I'd stumbled on was—
But maybe that was it: the fact that the sugarfeet were something other than what Earth had claimed. That one I'd met was certainly no dumb animal. He had a language; I'd heard that bartender talking to him. That put him a few steps ahead of cats and dogs. Maybe a lot further.
But what difference did it make if the sugarfeet were or weren't dumb animals? I didn't care one way or the other. And I was pretty representative of an Earthman, wasn't I? Who'd care, anyhow, if it turned out the sugarfeet were nearer human than had been supposed?
Well, I knew the who, if not the why.
Baxter obviously cared tremendously. Which deduction left me approximately nowhere.
The air seemed to be getting staler by the minute. I found I could breathe better lying flat on my back, not even using enough energy to remain in a sitting position.
My skin was clammy with sweat from head to foot, my windpipe felt like someone had just given it a brisk toweling with a hot doormat.
I thought desperately of pounding on that impervious stone door, in the chance that my suffocation was an over-sight on their part. But I knew in my heart it wasn't.