"What's Joey?"
"He works for us," said Haendl, grinning.
Joey was neither human nor beast; it was not Pyramid; it was nothing
Citizen Germyn had ever seen or imagined before. It crouched on
many-jointed limbs, and even so was twice the height of a man. Its ropy
arms and legs were covered with fine chitinous spines, laid on as close
as hairs in a pelt, and sharp as thorns. There was a layer of chitin
around its reddish eyes. What was more horrible than all, it spoke.
It said squeakily: "You all ready? Come on, snap it up! The Pyramids
have got something big building up and we've got to squash it."
Citizen Germyn whispered feverishly to Haendl: "That voice! It sounds
odd, yes--but isn't it Tropile's voice?"
"Sure it is! That's what old Joey is good for," said Haendl. "Tropile
says he's telepathic, whatever that is. Makes it handy for us."
And it did. Telepathy was the alien's very special use to Glenn
Tropile, for what Joey was in fact was another Component, from a
previous wristwatch mine. Joey's planet had once circled a star never
visible from Earth; his home air was thin and his home sunlight was
weak, and in consequence his race had developed a species of telepathy
for communicating at long range. This was handy for the Pyramids,
because it simplified the wiring. And it was equally handy for Glenn
Tropile, once he managed to wake the creature--with its permission, he
could use its body as a sort of walkie-talkie in directing the tactics
of his shanghaied army.
That permission was very readily given. Joey remembered what the
Pyramids had done to its own planet.
"Come on!" ordered Joey in Tropile's filtered voice, and they hastened
through a straight and achingly cramped tunnel in single file, toward
what Tropile had said was their target.
They had nearly reached it when, abruptly, there was a thundering of
explosions ahead.
The party stopped, looked at each other, and got ready to move on more
slowly.
At last it had started. The Pyramids were beginning to fight back.