“Nix!” said the chunky man.  “We wanna tell everybody about these characters.  We scatter.  If they catch one they don’t catch any more.  We couldn’t fight any better for bein’ together.  We better scatter.  I call that settled.  I’m scatterin’!”

He crawled to Lockley in the darkness.

“Where you diggin’?  OK.  I got it.  Move aside an’ give me room.”

“Everybody agrees on that?” asked Lockley.

They did.  Lockley was relieved.  The chunky man dug busily.  There was only the sound of breathing, and the occasional fall of thrown-out earth against the metal of the thing that confined them.  The chunky man said briskly, “This dirt digs all right.  We just got to make the hole bigger.”

In a little while the chunky man stopped, panting.  The tall man said,
“I’ll take a shot at it.”

There was a breakthrough to the air outside.  The atmosphere in the tank improved.  The smell of fresh-dug dirt and cool night air was refreshing.  The moustached man took his turn at digging.  Lockley went at it again.  Soon he whispered, “I think it’s OK.  I’ll go ahead.  No talking outside!”

He shook hands all around, whispered “Good luck!” and squirmed through the opening to the night.  Innumerable stars glittered in the sky.  They were reflected on the water of the lake, here very close.  Lockley moved silently.  In the blackness just behind him, his eyes had become adjusted to almost complete darkness.  He headed away from the shining water.  He got brushwood between himself and his former companions.  He stood very, very still.

He heard them murmuring together.  They were outside.  But they had proposed entirely separate efforts at escape.  He went on, relieved.  It happened that the next time he’d see them, circumstances would be entirely different.  But he believed they were competent men.

Guided by the Big Dipper, he moved directly toward the place where Jill should be waiting for him.  By the angle of the Dipper’s handle he knew that it was almost midnight.  Jill would surely have known that nearly the worst had happened.  He’d have to find her....

It was two o’clock when he reached the place where Jill had intended to wait.  He showed himself openly.  He called quietly.  There was no answer.  He called again, and again.

He saw something white.  It was a scrap of paper speared on a brushwood branch which had been stripped of leaves to make the paper show clearly.  Lockley retrieved it and saw markings on it which the starlight could not help him to read.  He went deep into the woods, found a hollow, and bent low, risking the light of his cigarette lighter for a swift look at the message.

     "I saw creatures moving around in the camp.  They weren’t
     men.  I was afraid they might be hunting me.  I’ve gone to
     wait by the car if I can find it."

She’d written in English, in full confidence that creatures from space would not be able to read it.  Lockley was not so sure, but the message hadn’t been removed.  If it had been read, there’d have been an ambush waiting for him when he found it.  So it appeared.