He was really a little proud of himself as the telecast ended. He even felt light-headed again, and ascribed it to pride. McEldownie clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, boy, if this mess pans out okay, you and I can take our pick of soft government posts, or retire on the bounty of a grateful world. Let's see what the gang thought of it." He unlocked the door and opened it. Brave stood on the threshold, his dark face bewildered; the others crowded behind him, worried, tense. "Alan," said his friend, "what went wrong?" Alan's belly shrank back and sweat broke out on his palms. "What do you mean, Brave? Didn't it go on the air?" "It must have," Jim said. "I was watching a monitor." "It went on, all right." Brave sighed. He looked as beaten as an Indian can ever look. "I should have guessed they wouldn't let you do it. They'd get to you some way, both of you." "For the love of God, Brave, what are you talking about?" cried Alan. The other rested his hands on the scientist's shoulders. "Son," he said quietly, "you talked about fuel. The two of you talked for fifteen minutes about the newest developments in rocket fuel. You never said a damned word about the enemy race!" CHAPTER VIII "So now we're all but helpless," said Bill Thihling, wiping his mouth. They had just finished three enormous platters of curried chicken at an exotic Bengali restaurant on 49th Street. "Where there's life, et cetera, but so long as the aliens control our very tongues, what can we do? Echo answers, Nothing." "I blame myself for it," growled Brave. "I should have gone on the telecast; or Rob, maybe. We can withstand hypnotism, know how to fight it, while Alan had already had one bad dose of it. It must have been easy to recapture his mind." "What about me?" objected Jim. "I've never been mesmerized before. I didn't feel a thing, either, or hear voices, nor nothin'." "Are you sure you haven't been hypnotized? Alan didn't know it till I found out under mechanical-visual trance." "Gad, maybe I have been, then," murmured Jim uncertainly. "_They_ got to Alan and Mac," said Rob. "Had you or I tried it, Brave, they'd have done something more violent; blasted the station off the air, killed us. They undoubtedly have their eyes on us, and we can't get in touch with humanity again. We're on an island surrounded by a sea of cynical, sneering demons; they won't let us do anything but make despairing futile signals to the mainland." "Brother," said Win, "are we getting poetical in our sorrow! Listen, I have a feeling we oughtn't to go back to Project Star. They must be grouping to wipe us out by now. They know us, they're not dumb; they'll be after us." She bent over the table and all the others did likewise. "Suppose we go up to Central Park? Sit out there all night, loll on the sward and talk. We won't be hunted there. And perhaps by morning some solution will have occurred to us."