Soames scowled.
"It's security," said Gail. "It would be taking too big a gamble to risk that the children can only receive sensory impressions and only through those little devices in their belts. Nobody's been able to make the belt-devices do more than that, but they can't be sure...."
"They took the belts away!" insisted Soames.
"Yes. But it doesn't seem enough. You destroyed their signalling device. But you don't feel safe. They've taken the devices, but they still don't feel sure that the children can't do more.
"And, I thought it was wise to tell Captain Moggs about us. To explain why you might want to come back here. They know I'm rather protective of the children. An explanation for you to come back seemed wise. The children aren't popular since they've been thought able to read minds. So I wanted you to be able to come back without anybody suspecting you of friendly feelings for them."
"I'd have come back on account of you," growled Soames. "So it mustn't appear that anybody wants to be decent to them, eh?" Then he said abruptly, "About Fran...."
"He ran away," said Gail with a hint of defiance. "I'll tell you more later, maybe."
They reached the cottage, and Soames reminded himself that anything he said would very probably be overheard and recorded on tape. They went inside. The boy Hod, and the younger girl Mal lay on their stomachs on the floor, doggedly working at what would be lessons. Zani sat in a chair with a book before her and her hand seemingly shielding her eyes. Her expression was abstracted.
As they entered, Hod made a clicking sound in his throat. Zani put one hand quickly in her pocket and opened her eyes. They had been closed. The book was a prop to hide something.
Soames had a flash of insight. He'd worn a belt with a built-in quasi-telepathic device just once and for the briefest of times. While he wore it, too, he'd been fiercely intent upon the use of it to recover another such device that had been looted in the broadcast studio during the most disastrous of all public-relations enterprises. He'd had no time for experiment; no time to accustom himself to the singular feeling of seeming to inhabit more than one body at a time. He'd had no opportunity to explore the possibilities of the device. But he'd worked out some angles since.
And because of it, he knew intuitively what Zani had been doing when he arrived. With closed eyes, hidden by her hand, she'd been receiving something that came from somewhere else. The two other children had kept silent. Hod clicked his tongue as a warning of Gail's and Soames' approach. And Zani put her hand in her pocket quickly and opened her eyes. She'd put something away. And Soames knew with certainty that she'd been receiving a message from Fran, in the teeth of merciless watching and probably microphonic eavesdropping on every word.
But the children's belt with the sensory-transmitters and receivers had been taken from them.
Little Mal said politely:
"Fran." A pause. "Where is?"
"I'd like to know," Soames told her.
"That's almost the only thing they're ever questioned about, nowadays," said Gail. "As a security measure only Captain Moggs and enlisted personnel without classified information, and the police who're hunting for Fran, are allowed to talk to them."
"Fran's been gone—how long? A week? Over?" Soames scowled. "How can he hide? He knows little English! He doesn't even know how to act so he won't be spotted if he walks down a street!"
Gail said with an odd intonation:
"I'm afraid he's in the wilds somewhere. He won't know how to get food. He'll be in danger from wild animals. I'm terribly afraid for him!"
Soames looked at her sharply.
"How'd he get away?"
"He roamed around, like boys do," said Gail. "He made friends, more or less, with the children of a staff sergeant's family. It was thought there could be no harm in that. And one morning he left here apparently to go and play with them, and they didn't see him, and he hasn't been seen since."
Hod was on his stomach again, doggedly working over a book, murmuring English words as he turned the pages from one picture to another. Mal and Zani looked from the face of Soames to that of Gail, and back again.
"They understand more than they can speak," said Gail.
Soames searched the walls of the room. Gail had said microphones were probable. He looked intently at Zani. He duplicated her position when he'd entered and her actions, the quick movement of her hand to her pocket and the opening of her eyes. She tensed, staring at him. He shook his head warningly and put his finger to his lips.
She caught her breath and looked at him strangely. He settled down to visit. Gail, with the air of someone doing something that did not matter, had the children display their English. Their accent was good. Their vocabularies were small. Soames guessed that Gail drilled them unceasingly in pronunciation so they wouldn't acquire so many words that they could be expected to answer involved questions. It was a way to postpone pressure upon them.
But it was not a good idea for Soames to have too parental or too solicitous an attitude. He said with inner irony:
"I'm disappointed in Fran. He shouldn't have run away. He made some sketches for me, of things boys his age make, at home. I wanted to get more such pictures from him. Hmmm.... Did he leave any sketches around when he disappeared?"
Gail shook her head.
"No. Every scrap of paper the children use is gathered up every night, for study. They don't like it. It disturbs them. Actually, I believe language experts are trying to find out something about their language, but they feel like it's enmity. They're jumpy."
"And with reason," said Soames. He stirred. "I'm disappointed. I'll go talk to the people who're hunting Fran. Walk back with me to the store, Gail?"
Gail rose. Zani stared at Soames. She was pale. He nodded to her again.
Gail and Soames went out into the now fully fallen night. Soames said gruffly:
"We'd better walk closer together.
"When we're married," he said abruptly, "I doubt we'll hide many things from each other. We'd better start being frank right now. The kids' belts may have been taken away, but they've got sensory-transmission gadgets just the same. Zani was using one when we went in the cottage."
Gail's footsteps faltered. "Wh-what are you going to do?"
"Give some good advice," said Soames. "Tell the kids you know about it. Point out that the Security people have three of the four belts, and they can wear them and pick up communications. Sooner or later they will and the kids will be caught. If Fran talks aloud they can pick up and identify his voice. If Zani writes, and looks at what she's written so he can read it through her eyes, her hand or her dress in what she sees could identify her. I'm telling you to remind Zani that communication by those sensory transmitters can be overheard. Sooner or later it will be. She must work out ways to avoid being identified. If they think more people of her race have landed, that's all right. But it may be bad if she's caught communicating with Fran."
Gail said nothing for a long time.
"That's—that's all?"
"Just about. I'm Fran's antagonist in one matter only. I'll do anything I can to keep him from calling all his race to come here. I hate it, but I'll do it. Outside of that, I feel that he's here through my fault. I do not want him to be psychologically vivisected by people who want everything he knows, and won't believe there are limits to it. So long as he's at large, there probably won't be frenzied questioning of the others."
"The—things in the belt are very simple," said Gail unsteadily, "and the children were scared and jumpy when they were taken away. So Fran told me, and he'd picked up some scraps of metal. Copper, it was. And I watched for him."
Soames said nothing.
"He took a straw," said Gail, "and used it as a sort of blowpipe. He could direct the flame of a candle I made for him. It would be heat-treatment?"