Silver.

"I say, sit tight and wait," he said. "Something will happen. There's no
use committing suicide."

"If he wants us alive, and we can't fight him, I think we're better off
dead," said Jerry through his teeth.

"Hell. Where there's life there's hope."

"I suppose you're right," said Pink slowly. His muscles ached, his hands
grasped ceaselessly at the air; he was a man of action, his desire for
combat throttled by incapability. "Twenty-some hours before the other
ships get here. If our deductions are on the beam, he won't do anything
till then. He wants the whole armada."

Then, with a snarl of static, the intercom came to life.

At first they heard a jumble of voices. "What's wrong?" "Nothing
works...." "Are all the officers dead?" It was the crew, beyond the
barriers of the mutiny gates, evidently trying to get into
communication. Over and over one voice said, "Hello, Captain Pinkham.
Come in, Captain Pinkham."

Pink took two strides and flipped the switch of the visiograph. Tuning
it first to one crew station and then another, he told them succinctly
what bad happened. "Don't panic, for God's sake. The mutiny gates are
for your protection. If they work, you may be able to do something
later, regardless of what happens to us."

* * * * *

Their somber faces looked out of the screen at him. "Let us in,
Captain," pleaded one big repairman. "We'll mob the critter."

"No use, Jackson. Stand by." He turned the dial of the visiograph into
the officers' section, scanned one room after another. No alien being
appeared. "I wonder if he's in here with us?" said Pink half-aloud.

Jerry came to him. "I have an idea," he said quietly. Then he whispered
at length into Pinkham's ear.

"It won't work. He knows what he's doing."

"How do we know that? If he needs us, he's ignorant of spaceships. Look
at the intercom--he turned it off, by some means, then turned it on when
he found out what it was. The space drive must have been easy to guess
at; likewise the life-scanner. But the intercom's a lot of complex
machinery that only adds up to a television-telephone communication
system. However he snarls the stuff, it's instantaneous and simple for
him to do. I think he just took a crack at everything that looked
important. Now he's experimenting, learning the ship, finding out what
he threw out of joint. Obviously he doesn't give a damn if we talk to
the crew!"

"You could be right."