I took a cautious step. I could see a dim blank wall nearby with what
seemed a bowl-like article of furniture on the floor against the wall.
For all my caution, I sailed upward; but this time I held my balance.
And I found that with my negligible weight, I could almost swim in
this strange air! I hit the wall and slid slowly down it to the floor
again, like a man sinking to the bottom of a tank.

It suddenly occurred to me to put my ear against the wall. At once the
sounds all became incredibly louder. It was a confusion of sound: the
mechanisms of the vessel, some of which I thought I could identify,
and some not; the strange swish and thump of what might have been
people moving; and there were voices.

The voices seemed mingled babble coming from everywhere. The timber of
the sound was very strange. It held no suggestion of how far away from
me the voices might be. There were so many of them I could only think
they were scattered about the ship; and yet they all seemed together.
After a moment, the blend was less confusing. Again, very strangely my
hearing seemed able to separate one from the other.

I was to learn that the atmosphere handled sound vibrations
differently from that of Earth. Voices had a muffled tone, as though
they were smothered. There was undoubtedly a vibrational distortion;
and a sound-wave speed slower than Earth's normal-pressure rate of
1,050 feet a second, perhaps as slow as 700. Yet sounds remained
audible over longer distances than on Earth.

In this instance now, as I listened with my ear to the wall of the
ship, I was hearing all its sounds picked up and carried by the metal.

Now I heard a strange tongue: two types of voices, slow, measured,
carefully-intoned phrases, and voices of a curiously sepulchral,
hollow sound. My mind went back to the Red Spark restaurant room.

And suddenly I realized that amid the babble I was hearing English. A
man's voice, talking English. I caught, very clearly the phrase:

"Master, yes. She means well. Can you not see it?"

Molo's voice! Then the girls must be here also.

Another voice: "I am not sure. Perhaps. The Great Intelligence will
talk with her when we are arrived." It was the slow measured voice of
one of the brains.

"When will that be? Pretty soon now, won't it, Molo?"

Venza! A great wave of thankfulness swept me. And then I heard Anita.
"Your two captives, where are they? You're not going to kill them, are
you?"

"No," said Mo