"You may be right. We were heading toward the Cloud when we were taken," answered Little. "How freely have you been permitted to move about this fort?"
"We may go almost anywhere above ground level," was the answer. "Some of these watchers"--a supple antenna gestured toward the ever-present guards--"are always with us, and they prevent us from taking the elevators any lower. Then there are a few rooms on the upper levels which are always sealed, and two or three which are open but whose thresholds we are not permitted to cross."
"They simply get in front of us, and push us back if we persist. They have never used violence on us. They never need to; we are in no position to dispute their wishes. There is no comparison between them and us physically, and we are very much out of our natural environment."
"Have you been able to deduce the nature or purpose of the rooms from which you are barred?"
"We assume that they are control rooms, communication offices, or chart rooms. One of them contains several devices which look like ordinary television screens. Whether they are for long-range use or are merely part of a local system, of course we cannot tell." Little pondered for several moments before speaking again.
"You mentioned constructing several devices to aid in escape, only to have them taken away from you just before they were completed. Could you give me more details on just what happened? What were you doing, and at what stage were you interrupted? How did you expect to get away from the planet?"
"We did not expect to get away. We just wanted to make them go, so we could take over the fort. When we disconnected their tube lights to put in our own, he"--indicating the creature beside him--"managed to retain a sample of the tube. On its walls were absorbed layers of several gases, but neon was the chief component. We had smuggled in the neutrino converters and stabilizers from our ship"--and Keys said these fellows were helpless, thought Little--"and it occurred to us that we might set up a neon-oxygen reaction which would flood the place with ultraviolet. We had already noticed that they could not stand it any better than you. The half life of the process would have been of the order of twelve hours, which should have driven them out for a period of time ample for our purpose. A neutrino jet of very moderate power, correctly tuned, could easily have catalyzed such a reaction in every light tube in the place. We had built the projector, disguising it as another ultraviolet lamp, and were connecting the converter when about fifty of the guards dived in, took the whole thing away, and ran out before the lamps we already had going could hurt them."