Just then a shadow fell over them, and they were so startled as to look up from the door and step back. About fifty feet in the air hovered a small, almost spherical air boat, with no visible means of suspension or power. A port slid open on its under side and a square black muzzle pointed at them. Hilda seized John's arm in terror, as they felt themselves lifted by invisible force from the ground, above the great pack of startled coyotes. John noticed that the beasts were looking up and many of them yelping as they ran into the rubble of rocks beyond the cliff. There wasn't time to see how many fled, for he and Hilda were quickly sucked up into the open port by invisible tractor rays, the metal hull clanged shut, and they were thrown roughly on a hard floor. John had a blurred vision of a circle of white, long-bearded faces, on slender bodied old men, before a gleaming mirror-like reflector dazzled him and he felt his hold on reality slipping. He struggled to his feet and reached for one of the old men, managing to seize a tangled silky beard before he fell forward into darkness.
They came to consciousness lying on soft low mattresses in a room softly illuminated with blue light. The air was slightly overwarm and humid but comfortable. They were dressed in skin fitting, silvery garments, partly transparent with skirts of blue, velvety cloth. Their hair was wrapped in transparent turbans.
Hilda recovered enough to blush uncomfortably and curl back on the couch. "I feel as if—I were wrapped in cellophane," she faltered.
"You're swell," gulped John gallantly, "an improvement in fact. I suppose they had to fumigate our own clothes or something. This superheated air suggests that our captors are old and delicate."
"The cellophane idea makes me wonder if we're wrapped up like rolls, or something, from the baker for—dinner."
"Meaning cannibalism? This kind of a room was never made by primitives, Honey."
"That's right—It's like a dream place." She rose up on her elbow again to look around.
There were no windows. It was utterly bare of ornament. John walked slowly around the circle of their walls. The only door opened to a tiny bath cubicle. Blue light, reflected upward from the juncture of floor and wall, cast no shadow, indicating its perfect diffusion. He paused with an exclamation.
"What is it, John?"