In a moment we had stripped our unconscious captives of their white woven garments. In the darkness we were hopelessly ruining the mechanism of wires and dials. But we did not know how to operate the mechanism in any event; and our plan was only to garb ourselves like the enemy. Thus disguised, with the helmets on our heads, we could get closer, creep among them and perhaps find Jane….
The woven garments which I had thought metal, stretched like rubber and were curiously light in weight. I got the impression now that the garments, these wires and disks, the helmet and the belt with its dial-face—all this strange mechanism and even the green-ray projector weapon—all of it was organic substance. And this afterward proved to be the fact.[1]
We were soon disrobed and garbed in the white suits of our enemies. The jacket and trunks stretched like rubber to fit us.
“Can’t hope to get the wires right,” Don whispered. “Got your helmet?”
“Yes. The belt fastens behind, Don.”
“I know. These accursed little disks, what are they?”
We did not know them for storage batteries as yet. They were thin flat circles of flexible material with a cut in them so that we could spring the edges apart and clasp them like bracelets at intervals on our arms and legs. The wires connected them, looped up to the helmet, and down to the broad belt where there was an indicator-dial in the middle of the front.[2]
WE worked swiftly and got the apparatus on somehow. The wires, broken and awry, would not be noticed in the darkness.
“Ready, Don?”
“Yes. I—I guess so.”