The two earthmen tried to level their guns, but the Mercurians attacked too quickly. The leathery fists struck home and the guns slipped from the earthmen's grasps.
A transformation occurred in front of the row of caves in the basalt cliff. Windbreaks appeared in the openings in the wall. Rude machines were set up to build houses of stone and covered passages from cave to cave. From the fibrous ferns Terry constructed rude looms for weaving cloth. Stone mills for grinding the pulpy fruit of the Mercurian trees into flour were designed.
How long the two earthmen had been prisoners on Mercury they had no way of telling, for there was neither night nor day, nor seasons in the twilight zone. But the Earth had disappeared over the south horizon and reappeared in the north and Cappy estimated that two-thirds of the Mercurian year of 88 days had passed.
"We won't be here another year," Terry said.
Cappy snorted. "I wouldn't bet."
"They're getting careless," Terry pointed out. "They used to have a dozen men guarding us day and night. If we even got a little too far away from the village, we'd be shoved back. Now only one Zombie is guarding us. We're allowed to go almost anywhere, except near the spaceship."
"They read our minds, so they're always two jumps ahead of us, Terry. No. The principle of brains over brawn can't be beaten. We're licked."
"I'm not," Terry announced. "Once you called me a coward—you said I was yellow. But a coward isn't the man who is afraid, it's the man that lets fear get the upperhand. You're being a coward now, Cappy. You're admitting that Chomby and his pals have the Injun sign on us. I'm not admitting it. It isn't brains that makes men the rulers of nine planets, and it isn't fear. Man has something else that gives him a physiological edge. I'm going to find out what that is. When we find it, we'll be free men again."