Thus, for the next couple of hours, the room became once more a place of strenuous labor—but this time there was gladness and will in the way the Underling rebels went to work. With ruthless disregard for assigned uses, they tore apart a brace of mighty machines. Bellows sighed, lathes screamed, as rods, bars, balanced shafts became blunt-edged swords, lances and maces.
Meanwhile, in one corner, Larry Wilson cudgeled his brain to remember almost forgotten college physics. Finally his task was done. Before him lay a box some two feet square; within it were two tubes, a slide condenser, and an armature turning on a "howler" disc, pierced with circles of varying diameter. Larry lugged the contraption to Sert's side and crossed his fingers.
"Here it is," he said. "Salvation or the bum's rush in one small package. It'll work as a radio, I know that, but I'm not sure it will pull the trick against the force-field. I've rigged a rheostat control which gives a certain choice of wave-lengths. But if the field blocks 'em all out—"
He shook his head ruefully. But Sert laid a hand on his shoulder. "It will work, my friend," he said. "It will work because—it must! And, now—" He turned to the others gathered about him. "And, now we will strike! For freedom!"
Larry turned to Sandra Day. "This," he said, "is going to be no place for you, darling. Not in a few minutes. So grab yourself a box-seat in the background somewhere and after the fireworks are over I'll—"
The girl said, "L-Larry—what did you say?"
"Beat it. Over in one of the other chambers—"
"No. I mean before that. You called me—" She flushed. That was one thing, Larry discovered, about these clothes of the future. A flush was a real flush, no halfway thing. It started from—
He said, suddenly gentle, "I called you 'darling.' Do you mind—darling?"