Lockley shook his head. The three looked at each other and nodded.
Lockley saw that they hadn't been imprisoned long. The sand floor was
marked but not wholly formed into footprints, as it would have been
had they moved restlessly about. Mostly, it appeared, they'd simply
sat on the sand floor.

"We didn't see 'em either," said the chunky man. "There was a hell of
a explosion over at the lake this mornin'. We piled in a car--my
car--and came over to see what'd happened. Then something hit us. All
of us. Lights. Noise. A godawful stink. A feeling all over like an
electric shock that paralyzed us. We came to blindfolded and tied.
They brought us here. That's our story so far. What's happened to
you--and what really happened to us?"

"I'm not sure," said Lockley.

He hesitated. Then he told them about Vale, and what he'd reported.
They'd had no explanation at all of what had happened to them. They
seemed relieved to be informed, though the information was hardly
heartening.

"Critters from Mars, eh?" said the moustached man. "I guess we'd act
the same way if we was to get to Mars. They got to figure out some way
to talk to who lives here. I guess that makes us it--unless we can
figure out something better."

Lockley, by temperament, tended to anticipate worse things in the
future than had come in the past. The suggestion that the occupants of
the spaceship had captured men to learn how to communicate with them
seemed highly optimistic. He realized that he didn't believe it. It