"Turn your back to us, Toory," she called suddenly.
He turned around. His knees clanked with their trembling, but he steadied himself.
"Now lie down, Toory. Flat—all the way down."
He lay staring up the wavering eye-beams. He could see the clouds high up, flushed with the dawnlight. An aircar was drifting past, up there, but an aircar was not a danger to Miss Babs.
"We're sending a man up to take the fuse out, Toory. Turn over, face down. That's it. Do this for me, Toory."
He lay with his face pressing into the rocky ground. The rock was dark and blurred, so close to his eye-lenses. He could remember how proud he'd felt down there in the warm sunlit valley standing under wait-command beside Miss Babs. She had said that the little brook as it babbled over the stones was laughing. It was always happy, because it laughed all the time. How he wished that he could hear the brook now.
"The Erg man is coming," the girl called. "Don't move, Toory."
It was very strange that Miss Babs would order this. He tried desperately to reason why, but he could not.
Now he heard her voice again. "Will you lie quiet, Toory, while he takes out the fuse? Answer me."
"Yes, Miss Babs. I will lie quiet."