It considered. Then, without budging, it gave the effect of a shrug. "Why not? You'll be dead soon."
"You're so sure," said Pink.
"Look at your scanner."
There was something in the words that sent Pink racing. He was only just in time to see the finish of all his new-born hopes.
The Cottabus and Diogenes were approaching at a slowing pace; the Elephant's Child had deactivated her drive to wait for them. Whether the captains of the sister ships saw them or not, Pink could not tell; but a number of the space giants, so reduced in size as to be mere blots on the screen, hovered in the area.
As the ships gradually lost speed, a giant appeared atop each, growing rapidly from eight feet to a thousand, till they straddled the great ships like riders on Shetland ponies.
The thing on the floor chuckled. "We are much more comfortable at that size, you see, Captain. We don't like to cramp our molecular structure into these puny dimensions. We can get into bottles—but we prefer to expand as you see." Then it laughed. "Yes, there is one of us on your own flagship at this instant, where he has been waiting, compressed, till the others caught their seats. Your ships are captured as surely as in a net. You cannot dislodge them, as you know. You must carry them to Earth so, or capitulate and let them inside."
There was no scrap of fear that he would carry these devils to Earth, naturally. But for the moment, Pink could see no sure way to escape the doom that now lay over him and all his men. They would have to remain in this asteroid belt ... perhaps forever.