“Michael Strauss, the guard who is with us, must also come.”
“Just as you say.”
“In with you, Billy.”
Billy and Michael entered the room while Epworth guarded Toplinsky with his gun. Just as Michael disappeared Toplinsky came around. He had been knocked a little silly but was not totally out—just enough to permit Billy and Michael to get into Joan’s room without being discovered.
“Not a move! Not a whimper!” Epworth thundered when he discovered that Toplinsky was coming back to the world. “There is not going to be a loud noise.”
“Ah, ha, so you would threaten again,” Toplinsky shouted. “Ho, comrades, this way.”
The scientist was demonstrating that he was a man without fear.
Epworth did not wait for the guards to appear, and from natural kind heartedness did not strike the giant with the gun. Instead he slipped into Joan’s room, and slammed and locked the door.
“So far so good,” he murmured. “Now if they do not shut off the supply of air.”
“If he does that,” Michael explained, “we can knock a hole in the door, and get air from the outside. The ship is constructed so that the air is always inside of the companionway.”