Martin found his voice first. "A human being," he said slowly, "as big as the Woolworth Building!"
Chamberlin, apparently still involved in his last abortive try at reason said, "But it's impossible. The laws of mechanics—why the biggest dinosaurs were only eighty feet long, and they had to be supported by water. It's a mechanical device, I tell you."
"It could have been an illusion," I ventured. "Perhaps an image projected on a fog bank, or something similar—" Neither Walt nor I were very convincing—not with the memory of that face fresh in our minds. We all fell silent again.
Several minutes passed, when abruptly we became conscious of a movement of the floor, slight but repeated with regularity. A shake, a pause of six or eight seconds, then another shake. Baker stood on the bench and put his ear to the ventilator. He heard nothing. The movement came again. Shake, pause, shake, pause, like some distant and monstrous machine. I was reminded of the small earthquakes felt in the vicinity of a heavy drop hammer. Shake, pause, shake, pause, and then a heavier jolt accompanied by a distinct thud. After that, quiet.
"Obviously," Baker said, "they knew all about us." He was evidently thinking out loud. "Probably picked us up on the beach, and then just let us go on, clearing out the guards ahead, and keeping near enough to see that we didn't use the radio. Why? Maybe to find out how much we knew about the place already. I daresay they know one thing now: we never expected to find—what we did. Which brings us to our Buddha. The big question is, is it mechanical or—alive?" He paused. "I don't know—none of us can know yet—but, I'm inclined to believe the latter. Cady, what's your opinion?"
I had forgotten for the moment that I was a zoologist. To tell the truth, the whole thing had been a little outside of the type of specimen I was familiar with.
"Its movements were lifelike," I replied. "They suggest muscular action rather than mechanical drive. But, as Walt says, it's just not possible. Nature has placed a limit on the size of living creatures. The strength of bones, the energy requirements, the osmotic pressures needed to move fluids through tissue. Besides, where could it come from? There have been giants—eight, ten, maybe up to twelve feet—but this thing is of a different order of magnitude. It must weigh millions of pounds. As a zoologist, I can't believe that it's alive."
Martin and Chamberlin had a few more remarks of the same nature, and then the conversation died away. We waited. Eventually they would come—the yellow-robed ones. When they did, we might learn more. I had little doubt as to our ultimate fate, but in the dulled condition of my senses, I didn't seem particularly to care.
My watch had been smashed in the struggle, so that I had no idea of how long they kept us in the cell. It could not have been too many hours, for the elementary needs of nature had only begun to assert themselves when the sound of a key came from the door. We all stood up. It was our conductor of last night, the one who spoke pidgin English.
"Good morning, gentlemens," he said with a bow. "You spend nice night, yes? Get plenty sleep?"