with interest and excitement that the last one or two
shrillest notes seemed to attract their attention. Their silly-looking
little triangular ears perked up and began twitching. They turned about,
as though seeking the source of that sound, while every mouth began
working with signs of utmost excitement, and his mind caught concepts of
surprise and wonder.

That convinced him and so, in his next several off-hours, he
surreptitiously collected various articles and pieces of material, and
in his room started the construction of a little machine. His course in
the Corps school had included considerable mechanics and electronics,
and the tearing down and rebuilding of many of the machines and
instruments the Corps used.

What he was trying to make now was a "frequency-transformer." If it
would do what he was sure it would, and if he was right about the
Algonians having vocal ability, they should be able to hear each other,
and some day he might learn their language well enough to converse with
them.

He finished it and smuggled the little box-like machine into his place
in the mine. When he had his crew down there and working at their tasks,
he got out the little box. He turned on the current from the small
battery installed in it, then began talking at the same time he was
turning a rheostat higher and higher. Finally he noticed those mobile
ears began to twitch, and as he turned the tones higher and still
higher, more and more of the natives stopped work and turned toward him.
Finally he noticed an intenser excitement among them, and they dropped
their tools and came crowding closer to him and his machine, their
little eyes almost emitting sparks of excitement.

He thrilled with the realization that it worked. Now he turned another
knob more and more, and gradually from the speaker came a jumble of
sounds much like "mob-mutter," but very low. He kept on turning the
rheostat until the incoming voices seemed about the same pitch as his
own voice.

The excitement of the natives had grown to tremendous proportions, and
his own equalled theirs. Their little mouths were working faster, and an
expression almost like laughter came onto their peculiar little faces,
as they heard his voice and knew he could now hear theirs.

Hanlon's own smile almost cracked his face. He realized he had learned
something none of the greedy, power-mad Simonideans knew, and felt that
here was the possible beginning for his campaign to free th