His first thought was of Jan. It must be she who was calling him for there was no one else.
Quickly, with his heavy signet ring, he tapped out an answer: "It is I, Jan, A. S. shoot—"
With tensed muscles, and with fingers firmly clutching the power-pipe that he might not miss a single signal, Shelby crouched, receiving the message. Somehow there was an urgency, an insistence, an appeal about those hurried pulsations that no human voice could have conveyed. It was fantastically like communicating with one who is buried alive.
"We must escape not later than five hours from now," the tapping spelled. "You have been unconscious for a long time—drugged. In five hours we land on Mars. Then escape will be impossible.
"Hekki has told me much, and I have seen much. The horrors that are Selba's henchmen—three times some of them came to the ship, once in a band of over a hundred. Hekki is worried. He has not troubled me yet. Too busy I suppose. I have tried to make believe that I agree to his plans. I thought I could control him that way. But he has been taking the Elar drug.
"We must escape, Austin. We must! Can't you think of a way? I will help! If they get you to the concentration base in the Taraal they will torture you. And we must remember our homeland!"
The hurrying vibrations ceased, and then, almost before he knew what he was doing, Shelby was tapping out an answer promising the impossible.
"Never fear, dearest," he signaled. "Just let me think for a few minutes." A moment later this phrase almost made him laugh. The sap hero of a comedy which had recently been broadcast over the radio-view had said almost these exact words. Think? Of what? Escape within five hours? How? But Jan's appeal sent in such an odd way had an almost magical effect on him, and made his brain work harder almost than ever before. And then the ghost of an idea came. There was a chance that it would work. He signaled to Jan, and then for half an hour, they put their heads together—planning.
Somewhat nervous, Shelby walked to the door and hammered loudly upon it. A thin-faced slave whose hide was burned by desert suns to the color of mahogany, appeared almost immediately.
Shelby answered his inquiring look briefly: "I would speak to your master," he said in Pagari—"right away." The slave nodded and reclosed the door.