I'm going to wait another half hour for Dad. Then, if he isn't back, I'll go to the hutch with a flashlight and see what's under it. Maybe everybody is right about Rex. Maybe he's got Jean down there.
But if he has I'll bet she isn't trying very hard to get away....
The half hour's up. Here I go....
"So that's the story," Rex said. "Now you know who I am and how I happened to come to New Iowa."
Jean twisted her arms against the thongs that bound her wrists and said, "I think you were stupid not to tell us and let us try to help you."
"But I was moving in the dark entirely unsure of myself. I had to look around and find out—"
"Oh, I see. You suspected us. You thought we were capable of murdering a man and putting his body in a box and shipping it back to Terra with our potatoes!"
"I thought no such thing!"
They spoke openly, convinced that the five Martians who were their captors could not understand Terran. They had been at the hutch when Rex and Jean got there—four of them—crouched behind the wall. When Barzoo arrived, just as Rex tilted the section of wall, they had seized the two Terrans and tied their hands. There had been nothing Rex could do, hampered as he was by Jean lying in his arms.