It might be. Adam took an experimental step toward the Plutonian, and saw the latter's face clear. They reached the door together, and Adam noticed it did not open on hinges, but slid. The Plutonian touched some kind of lever or contact in the frame, uttered something in his deep voice, and stood waiting. Beyond the door, Adam noticed, was another room, perfectly dark, but as the Plutonian stopped speaking, there was a rustle of feet within and a file of half a dozen dwarfs emerged, each an exact duplicate of the first as nearly as Adam could judge. They formed a circle, staring at Adam and at the torn wall with Jake gazing through. Each in turn stepped forward, examined Adam from head to foot and having emitted a few expressive grunts took his place in the circle again. All seemed friendly, but after the last one had looked over Adam, one of the Plutonians produced some kind of weapon with a hammer-like head and a handle set cross-wise, and waved the earth-man back toward the tear in the wall. Adam looked around at Jake, saw that he had one of the digging machines in his hand, and decided that retreat toward this protection was the best policy. But it was not the Plutonian's intention to dismiss him, evidently. One of them, whose metallic armbands were more numerous than the rest, stepped forward, reached for Adam's print-pencil, and when Adam added to it his piece of paper, was busy for a moment. * * * * * On the paper, when he handed it to the earth-man, were seven groups of dots, one in the first, two in the second, three in the third, regularly up to seven dots in the seventh group. The dwarf pointed to himself, then to the single dot; and followed by indicating each of the other six Plutonians, in turn with one of the lines of dots. When this effort at communication had been executed, he pointed to the single dot again, then to Adam, and finally to the wall. "What does he want?" asked Jake. "What's he trying to get at?" "I think I know," replied Adam. "See these numbers of dots? He's trying to tell me he's the number one man here, and he wants to talk to our number one man." He turned to the Plutonian, saluting, and laughed to see the dwarf returning him a carbon copy of the movement. "I'll stay here," he said to Jake. "As soon as they get that emergency ladder in position report to Captain McCausland and ask him whether he can come down. You might take along those metal samples you routed out. Ask Dr. Perkins to test them for beryllium. They're light and strong enough to be the stuff." * * * * * "General staff assembly in the mess room! Time one-two-four-five. General staff assembly in the mess room! Time, one-two-four-five. General--"