It struck him that it would do little good to escape unless he did learn something about these elephant-people, their mysterious light-guns, their vast city that they seemed to have hollowed out of the heart of the solid Catskill rock, their chemistry and metallurgy and methods of attack and defense. Otherwise escape would be a jumping from the frying-pan into the fire. There would be nothing for it but a desperate, harried existence, the existence of one of the lower animals faced by the insupportable competition of man. Information! That was the first need. He must bend all his energies to the task of obtaining it. "By the way, what do these eggs call themselves?" he asked. "Lassans," said the dancer. A light flickered along the corridor. The ape-man at the door came forward, touched him on the arm and led him to the passage where he caught the car back to his cage. CHAPTER XIV In the Passages The first thing to be done, Sherman decided, was to short-circuit the mind-reading helmet of the guard at the door, if it were possible. He was not certain that the thing was electrical, and ignorant of how the current was conveyed if it were. He realized that he was dealing with the products of an utterly alien form of mentality, one that might not produce its results in the same way as an earth-man would at all. But something had to be dared, and this seemed to offer the best opportunity. If the thing were electrical, the current must come through the tube to the top of the head. On his second work-period he observed this tube with care. It ran through an aperture in the stone roof and was apparently provided with some spring device, for a considerable length of it reeled out when the ape-man wished to walk across the room, and was absorbed as he returned. The tube seemed to be made of the rubber-like material that composed the floor of his cage. The simplest plan, of course, would be to bring his chopping-knife with him and when the ape-man paused before the wall, swing it up in a sweep, severing the tube. But this, he felt, was not to be recommended. It would not necessarily short-circuit the current and the damage would be too readily laid at his door. The desideratum was some damage that apparently accidental, would yet produce a good deal of uproar. He talked it over with Marta Lami. "I think you're bugs," she said frankly, "but anything for excitement. What do you want me to do about it?" "Well, here's what I figured out," Sherman explained. "We both arrive about the same time. I'll bring my knife. When we come in you hang back a bit, and while you're doing it, I'll take a poke at that cable with the knife, not enough to cut it, but enough to damage it. Then about half-way through the work period, I'll turn around and say something to you. If I do it quick enough, I think the monk will start for me, and if the cable doesn't go then, I'll miss my guess."