For moments they looked at each other in silence. At last Terry grinned bleakly. "It looks as if we missed the boat this time, doesn't it? Even if we could find the way out of this rat trap, there are the battleships of the fleet on their way here."
Sound came dimly from other parts of the ship, but the men could identify none of them. They supposed that the other groups were being rounded up and imprisoned. The whole thing had been worked out as if with foreknowledge of their movements. Underwood wondered if Demarzule didn't almost possess such powers.
He crossed to a chair in the corner of the room and sat down to try to think. His thoughts only went around in circles that seemed to grow smaller and smaller until he could concentrate on only the one inescapable fact of their imprisonment.
He wondered what was passing through the minds of the others. Phyfe, slumped upon a bunk, seemed to have been abandoned by the fierce, bright spirit that had carried him along this far in the face of their obstacles. Terry was squirming restlessly. Dreyer sat heavily in the opposite corner from Underwood, a cloud from his cigar almost obscuring him from view.
But there were deep lines in Dreyer's forehead and his face bore a fierce desolation that Underwood had never seen there before—as though all Dreyer's own personal gods had fled at once.
Underwood knew that Dreyer's mind must be wrestling more with the problem of responsibility for their failure rather than with the problem of escape. To the semanticist it would be important to determine whether the men or their science had failed. He had probably eliminated the problem of their escape by evaluating it as impossible.
While his thoughts revolved in endless procession, Underwood's senses became more acutely aware of the scores of sounds carried by the metallic walls and framework of the ship. He found himself straining to identify and separate the sounds.
There was one that persisted above all the others, but it was not the scrape of feet against steel floors, nor the bumping of closing and opening ports. Rather, it was the sound of a voice, so distant as to be scarcely audible.