"Who's there?"
Immediately the noise ended. Larry waited breathlessly. Was this a trap of some kind? Or was it just some experiment of Harg's, designed to test him as laboratory students test the reaction of rats in a maze?
His footsteps deliberately loud, he stomped away from the wall. Then he stole back quietly. After a brief moment of waiting, the gentle, fumbling sound resumed. Larry pressed his ear to the metal wall. He could hear a faint noise as of someone breathing deeply. He leaned closer....
Then, suddenly, the wall before him slid away, and he was catapulted forward against a flesh-and-blood body that grunted under the impact of his weight!
Larry regained his balance; came up with doubled fists. But his fists, like his mouth, dropped open abruptly as he stared in astonishment at his antagonist. This was no puny dwarfling such as he had expected. This was a man—a man whose stature was greater even than his own! A mighty, bronzed, strong-thewed giant with a shock of silvery-white hair capped by the menaudo of the future folk!
The great one's face was etched with bitter lines of disappointment. But the look faded as his eyes swept up Larry's six foot frame, noted the breadth of shoulder and the lean, hard muscles of arm and thigh. The stranger rose, and his full lips parted in a smile of greeting.
And, "Peace, friend!" he said in a deep, resonant voice, "I, too, am a captive!"
III
Sandra Day, seated in an inner chamber of Harg's laboratories, watched curiously as the little scientist busied himself with cryptic recording devices. Two assistants silently performed the tasks allotted them. Save for these three, the room was innocent of humans. Harg turned to one of the assistants.