The guards, as upon a signal, closed in on us. For a second I thought insanely of flight, or a plunge through the great windows to certain death on the crags below. But there was no chance. Before any thought could be translated into action we were back in the corridor, escorted by an augmented guard of priests, on our way back to our cell, and death. A death that would be—as "humane as possible".
IV
IT WAS NOT until some minutes after the steel door had clicked shut that the full realization of our predicament came to us. Rau's story had been so fascinating, and his manner so rational and civilized that we all had forgotten that he was of a race and ideology opposed to all that we stood for, and that we were spies caught red-handed in the innermost shrine of Neo-Buddhism. Even after twenty years of cold war, all of our civilized instincts rose against the idea that a suave brilliant intellectual like Phobat Rau could so cold bloodedly order our deaths.
But the awakening was at hand. If we doubted Rau's intentions, one look at the cold Mongol faces of the guards was enough to dispel any hope. Baker tried to sum it up.
"No use trying to argue with him. Fact is, we won't even see Rau again. We could, of course, simply call it quits and wait for them, but I'd rather fight it out. Anyone have an idea?"
Martin hopped up on the bench and studied the ventilator. He reached one arm in as far as possible, and reported that there was a bend about a foot in. While he was doing this, Chamberlin made a minute investigation of the door, but found that neither hinges nor lock were accessible. There were no other openings into the chamber save the electric conduit which presumably entered above the electric fixture in the ceiling. Finally Baker spoke.
"Nothing we can do until they come for us. We'd better plan towards that, unless they're going to gas us through the ventilator."
This unpleasant thought had not occurred to the rest of us before. Martin returned to the opening and sniffed, and then with happy inspiration, he rolled up his jacket and stuffed it in. Baker nodded approval.
So the time passed. We listened at the door for footsteps but none came. Presently we became aware of a now familiar sensation. The floor commenced to shake gently and regularly. We counted the steps. There were twelve, and then they stopped. Chamberlin calculated mentally.