Again Polter's voice turned ingratiating, even more so than before. "We will be friends, Kent. Our little Babs will lof me; why should she not? You will tell her--advise her--and we will all three be very happy."
Dr. Kent said abruptly, "Then leave her with me now. That was her request, a moment ago. If you expect to treat her kindly, then why not--"
"I do! I do! But not now. I cannot spare her now. I am very busy, but I must take her with me."
Babs had been silent, clinging to the bars of our cage. She called:
It struck a pang through me. Babs was scheming, but not the way Polter thought. She wanted the cage put on the floor, herself out, and a chance for me to escape. I had not yet told her of my miserable stupidity in losing the vial.
Polter was repeating. "No, little bird. Presently; not now. I may take you out with me, my last trip out. I want to talk with you in a normal size when I haf time."
Our room swooped as he stood up. "You think over what I haf said, Kent. You get ready now to make the fresh drugs I will need to bring down all my men from the outer world. They will all be glad to come, or, if not--well, we can easily kill those who refuse. You make the drugs. I need plenty. Will you?"
"That iss good. I come back soon and gif you the catalyst for that last reaction. Will you be ready?"
The blur outside our bars swung with a dizzying whirl as Polter turned and left the room, locking its door after him with a reverberating clank.
Left alone in his laboratory, Dr. Kent began his preparations for making a fresh supply of the drugs. This room, with two smaller ones adjoining, was at once his workshop and his prison. He stood at his shelves, selecting the basic chemicals. He could not complete the final compounds. The catalyst which was necessary to the final reaction would be brought to him by Polter.
How long he worked there with his thoughts in a whirl at seeing Babs, he did not know. His movements were automatic; he had done all this so many times before. His mind was confused, and he was trembling from head to foot, an old, queerly, unnaturally old man now--unnerved. His shaking fingers could hardly hold the test tubes.
His thoughts were flying. Babs was here, come down from the world above. It was disaster--the thing he had feared all these years.