"Steve—what happened? Where are we? And what are we doing here?"
Steve said, "Flex your fingers, chum. That's right; work 'em. Yeah, I know it hurts, but it unfreezes 'em. Now, try moving those knees and elbows."
Chuck performed, obediently, the exercises Steve had found loosened his own rigid body. Soon he, too, was able to lift his head and stare about him. He turned to his superior officer, but Steve's shake of the head answered his questions before they were given voice.
"I don't know, Chuck. It's all—fantastic! What's the last thing you remember? Before you woke up, I mean."
"Woke up?" repeated Lafferty wonderingly. "I wasn't even asleep. What do you mean, woke—?"
"That," commented Steve queerly, "is what you think! You weren't asleep, eh? Well, take a look at the hunk of statuary behind you."
Chuck turned and gulped. "The—the Jerry!"
"Right! That's what you looked like, chum, a moment ago. And me, too, I suppose. But I wouldn't know about that, and I wasn't on deck to watch myself unfreeze—as he's doing right now. Catch him, Chuck!"
"The hell with him!" said Chuck. "Let him break his dirty Nazi neck!" But he obeyed. The German woke blubbering with pain and fright, howled for mercy when he discovered his hands no longer held a weapon of destruction. But no thought of vengeance motivated Steve at the moment; his sole interest was in learning what weird fate had befallen them. There was time and enough to handle their enemy as he deserved; now the problem was to find out what had happened. Therefore he gave the German the benefit of his advice, and in a short time the three erstwhile "statuettes" sat staring at each other in dim perplexity.