The shaft guard light flicked to green. Fitzgerald and I dropped down
to first.
Browne had apparently had his chair directly under the shaft; it was
back from the touchdown pad now and Hirm Sulay was in it, vainly
wriggling, shame-faced.
"Now maybe we'll find out a thing or two--" Browne said meaningfully,
bending toward the alien.
"Wait a minute," I cut in and related what Hirm Sulay had told me
upstairs.
"Is it true?" Browne demanded.
Hirm Sulay nodded.
"But why are you going from door to door? Surely you know where those
children are!"
"Sorry," Hirm Sulay said, "we don't. Some of the older and more
important records were lost. I say more important because the missing
ones I seek are grown. We're fighting a war, as I told you, Jim. You
can't keep fighting a war without young recruits!"
Browne's nearly fantastic dexterity came to my mind then. It apparently
came to his simultaneously; he asked abruptly,
"Could I be one of you?"
"What do you think?" Hirm Sulay countered, his face enigmatic.
"Well, I certainly can't move as fast as you!"
"Have you ever tried? Have you ever gone in for athletics? I'd say no.
Most scientists are essentially inactive--physically, that is."
"Are you saying '_yes_'?" Browne cried.
Hirm Sulay looked us over, one by one. "Each of you is of our blood,"
he said. "I knew Jim and Fitz were when Fitz said I was slowing down
upstairs. I wasn't; they were speeding up to normalcy for the first
time."
I was stunned for a moment, only dimly aware that he went on to say,
"Now please turn off this blasted chair and tell me how it works. The
principle applied as a tractor beam could win our war!"
"I haven't the vaguest idea," Browne said. "But I bet _you_ can figure
it out!"
Browne went to the servomech for drinks. He was gone for precisely
three seconds. Of those the servomech took two. Slow machine.
I don't know what to tell Tessie. Maybe she'd feel strange with the
boys if she knew. I'll certainly have to tell her part of the truth,
though, because I just can't let Browne and Fitzgerald go to help win
_our_ war without me.