ng we were in that sealed room. A week, perhaps. We
couldn't see the day-light. Our watches had vanished along with our
weapons. Sometimes there were sounds of much movement in the tunnels
around us; sometimes little. But the variation was too irregular to
indicate a change based on night and day.

Lots of things happened to us. The air we breathed had a chemical
smell. And the Martians kept changing its composition and density
constantly--experimenting, no doubt. Now it would be oppressively
heavy and humid; now it would be so dry and thin that we began to feel
faint. They also varied the temperature, from below freezing to
Earthly desert heat. And I suspected that at times there was a drug in
the air.

Food was lowered to us in metal containers from a circular airlock in
the ceiling. It was the same kind of gelatinous stuff that we had
found in the wreck of the ship that had brought the infant Etl to
Earth. We knew that it was nourishing. Its bland sweetishness was not
to our taste, but we had to eat.

Various apparatus was also lowered to us. There were odd mechanical
puzzles that made me think how grotesquely Earthly Martian scientific
attitudes were. And there was s little globe on a wire, the purpose of
which we never figured out, though Miller got an electric shock from
it.

* * * * *

I kept looking for Etl among the Martians at the spy-windows, hoping
that he'd turn up again. I had noticed that Martians showed variations
of appearance, like humans--longer or shorter eye-stalks, lighter or
darker tendrils.... I figured I'd recognize Etl. But I didn't see him.

We were none of us quite ourselves. Not even Miller, whose scientific
interest in the things around him sustained him even in captivity.
Mine had worn out. And Klein and Craig were no better off. I was
desperately homesick, and I felt a little ill, besides.

I managed to loosen the metal heel-plate from one of my boots, and
with this, when I thought that no Martian was watching, I started to
dig the gummy cement from around the circular glassy disc with which
the main exit of our quarters had been sealed. Craig, Klein and I
worked at it in brief and sporadic shifts. We didn't really hope that
we could escape. It was just something to do.

"We're going to try to get to the ship, Miller, if it's still there,"
I whispered once. "Probably it won't work. Want to join up with the
rest of us?"

I just didn't think of him