the ocean.  The ship could submerge, and it could move about in the lake.  Vale had said so.  Such a ship would almost inevitably choose deep water in the ocean for a landing place.  To land in a crater lake—­one of possibly two or three on an entire continent suitable for their use—­indicated that they had information in advance.  Detailed information.  It practically shouted of a knowledge of at least one human language, by which information about Crater Lake could have been obtained.  Whoever or whatever made use of the lake was no stranger to earth!

Yes....  They’d needed a deep-water landing and they knew that Boulder Lake would do.  They probably knew very much more.  But if they didn’t know that Jill waited for him where the trail toward his ditched car began, then there was no reason to let them overhear the information.

“I was part of a team making some base line measurements,” said Lockley, “when this business started.  I began to check my instruments with a man named Vale.”

He told exactly, for the second time, what Vale said about the thing from the sky and the creatures who came out of it.  Then he told what he’d done.  But he omitted all reference to Jill.  His coming to the lake he ascribed to incredulity.  Also, he did not mention meeting the fleeing population of the construction camp.  When his story was finished he sounded like a man who’d done a very foolhardy thing, but he didn’t sound like a man with a girl on his mind.

The broad man with the moustache asked a question or two.  The tall man asked others.  Lockley asked many.

The answers were frustrating.  They hadn’t seen their captors at all.  They’d heard squeaks when they were being brought to this place, and the squeaks were obviously language, but no human one.  They’d been bound as well as blindfolded.  They hadn’t been offered food since their capture, nor water.  It seemed as if they’d been seized and put into this metal compartment to wait for some use of them by their captors.

“Maybe they want to teach us to talk,” said the moustached man, “or maybe they’re goin’ to carve us up to see what makes us tick.  Or maybe,” he grimaced, “maybe they want to know if we’re good to eat.”

The chunky man said, “Why’d they blindfold us?”

Lockley had begun to have a very grim suspicion about this.  It came out of the realization of how remarkable it was that a ship designed to be navigable in deep water should have landed in a deep crater lake.  He said, “Vale said at first that they weren’t human, though they were only specks in his binoculars.  Later, when he saw them close, he didn’t say what they look like.”

“Must be pretty weird,” said the tall man.

“Maybe,” said the man with the moustache, attempting humor, “maybe they didn’t want us to see them because we’d be scared.  Or maybe they didn’t mean to blindfold us, but just to cover us up.  Maybe they wouldn’t mind us seeing them, but it hurts for them to look at us!”