When he awoke Shelby spent many minutes staring at his fellow prisoner.
There were indications that his consciousness was returning for he
stirred frequently. Presently he who had been the Earthman's and the
mysterious one's jailer in the hut the night before, came, bearing a
bowl filled with a purplish radio-active liquid which served the Space
Men as food. He also carried a hypodermic syringe and a small glass
container partially filled with a clear fluid.
These last two articles he placed upon the table, while he carried the
bowl over to his charge. He shook the lacerated and bejeweled Space Man
roughly and when he had aroused him to a sluggish half-consciousness,
held the bowl of liquid food to his lips. Mechanically the prisoner
drank.
Shelby looked at the tiny vial on the table and then at the back of the
jailer. Close beside the vial stood a glass partially filled with water.
The Earthman had drawn a drink from the tap shortly before going to
bed, and had left the tumbler standing there.
The idea that had now entered his head had no real purpose. He
recognized it as no more than a practical joke, plain and simple; but
the idea was clamoring for attention. He would pour out the drug, which
was almost certainly meant to keep the giant captive senseless, and
replace it with harmless water. The jailer would not see for he was very
busy. A little noise, the rattling of the chain or the tinkling of the
glass as it was set down, would not matter, for though the Space Men may
have possessed a very delicate touch sense capable of detecting faint
vibrations in solid objects about them, Shelby knew by now that they had
no real organs of hearing.
And so, quickly the deed was done, and quickly he returned to his bed
feigning sleep.
It was a long time after the jailer had departed before Shelby's trick
bore fruit. The huge prisoner rose to a sitting posture and looked
about, a trifle dazedly at first. He surveyed his wounds, felt over
himself tentatively, and then glanced at Shelby. The Earthman saw that
the fogginess was clearing from his big eyes. There was a questioning
expression in them.
Shelby thought that there was a slight chance that the colossus might be
able to read his lips even though he could not hear. "Who are you?" he
questioned in Pagari.
Apparently the creature understood, for immediately he turned, and with
his forefinger slowly traced out on the wall behind him in the planetary
symbols: "Friend of enemies of Black Emperor and of Man from Fourth
World."
Shelby was taken aback by the Space Man's startling knowledge of things
of which he should know nothing. "That makes me your friend," he wrote,
smiling.
The giant nodded, and for almost a minute stared fixedly at the
Earthman. There was a strange appeal in his eyes. Finally he turned, and
laboriously he traced a quaintly worded message on the wall: "Think hard
to know what I go say," he wrote.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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