They all sat down, Pink said, "Remember Wolf 864?"
"Sure," said Daley, who had been on that expedition with Pinkham when they were young cubs out of jetschool. "Friendly natives, kind of vegetable-animal life, and we murdered half of them unintentionally. We had to get out and never go back."
"How?" asked Circe. "How did you kill them?"
"Germs. The common ordinary non-toxic germs we carry in our systems all the time. It was a massacre—and of a queer, sweet kind of beast. They had no tolerance for our microbes."
"I volunteer to find the alien and breathe in his face," said Jerry. "Somebody hand me an onion," he added.
The conversation went on. It grew aimless to Pink, a bunch of boys whistling by a graveyard, eight prisoners speculating on their escape when they had no real knowledge of their jailer. He fiddled with the intercom, saw that the crew had gathered by the mutiny gates and were waiting tensely, puny weapons in their hands. He spoke a few words of encouragement to them. 57 men—whom he hated to see die. Somehow he had to save them.
It was about half an hour afterwards that he first discovered he was breathing too shallowly.
CHAPTER XI
"What is it?" asked Circe. Her lovely face was a trifle pallid. "I feel odd—and you all look pale."