"You're not making it very easy for yourself, Rex."
"Oh! You're going to start moralizing again!"
"I wouldn't call it moralizing. I'm getting fed up with the way you act, if you want it straight. The Wortans are swell people and I get along with them fine. But it's just as if I was marooned alone. What I mean is, I don't have anybody to talk to."
Rex's lips curled in a half-smile. "Maybe you haven't treated me half-decent, either, if you want to know it."
"I haven't!"
"Nope. You want to stick here the rest of your life in these crummy, cold, underground rat-holes. No soap. I'm going to get back to Earth somehow."
"The auxiliaries," Carl said sarcastically.
Rex came to his knees with a violent motion, eyes burning. "Don't talk to me like that, Carl! I've got a way to get out of here."
"Yeah?" Carl refused to be intimidated. "How's the master-mind going to work it?"
Rex paused and then said slowly, "I'm going to create a distress signal."