It was while he was lying perfectly still like that hoping his negative mime might have some positive effect, that he felt something under the tightly drawn mattress covering that had certainly not been there before… a foreign body that was irregular in shape, sharp at the edges, and extremely hard.
And suddenly he remembered that last glance the prettier of the nurses had thrown him. Hadn't she been swiveling her eyes in a meaningful sort of way at this corner of the room? And, now that he came to think of it, hadn't that parting gaze been the last of several? Had she not been continually staring over at the bed today?
Carefully, slowly, in case he was still being watched by the camera, he slid one hand beneath the cover. In a few moments, he had it back under his chin with some thing small and metal grasped in it. There were several separate objects under the cover - and not until he had withdrawn all of them did he drop his eyes and look at what lay beneath the protective wall of his cupped palm.
Four small stainless steel instruments lay on the bed: a nail file, a scalpel, an implement like a crochet hook with a sharp point, and a thin, flexible spatula.
Solo stared at them unbelievingly. Why had the girl left them there?
With a combination of two of them, he could probably pick the lock of the cell door. If the spatula was strong enough and flexible enough, he might even be able to slip the tongues without picking it.
Could the girl possibly have known this?
If not, what a curious coincidence that she should leave just the particular tools that could be used successfully to master this particular lock. On the other hand, even if she had known it, why leave him the means to escape from the cell?
He would puzzle it out later, he thought: the thing now was to find out if he was still watched - and therefore whether or not he could safely make use of this gift from Heaven. After a few moments, he decided that the best thing was simply to sit up on the bed holding the tools in full view of the camera. If it was switched on, someone would come through the door soon enough to take them away from him; if it was off, nothing would happen and he could get to work on the lock. In either case, he lost nothing - for he could never use the implements if the TV circuit was still on...
After sitting for some time with the shining steel things in his hand, he decided that at last his luck had changed. No sound came through the grille; no footsteps clattered in the passage outside; nobody burst into the cell.
In three strides, he was at the steel door, his fingers busy twisting, probing, manipulating. He slid the spatula between the edge of the door and the jamb, testing the tongues and the resilience of their springs. It couldn't be opened with the spatula alone, that was for sure - perhaps the slender point of the scalpel, aided with a little extra leverage from the file here… Ah! There was the slight rolling movement of a tumbler beginning to fall.
He paused with the two instruments inserted, one supporting the other, into the keyhole. No matter how he turned, the wretched thing would not quite overcome its nul-point and drop.
But of course - that was what the crochet hook was for! He fed the shaft in, questing delicately with the curved point. It was extremely tricky feeling about blind with this while keeping up the complementary pressure on the other two instruments with his left hand. But eventually he sensed the satisfying chuck! of the wards falling home. The door should now be unlocked and ready to open.
He pulled with his fingertips at the edge. The door would not move.
Puzzled, he squinted into the crack by the lock... Of course! This was the Mark III. He had moved back the retaining bars, but the tongues were still groove into their steel nests in the jamb. It needed a gentle pressure to push them aside - and that, naturally, was what the spatula was for!
He cased the flat blade into the crack and worked at it with his wrist. One after the other, the greased metal bars slid silently back into the body of the lock. The door swung slowly open.
Outside, a dimly lit passage stretched away in each direction. There were closed doors like the one he had just opened on either side, and flush fitting lamps in the ceiling every few yards. From somewhere beyond the right-hand branch of the corridor, machinery hummed quietly. Feeling faintly ridiculous in singlet and under pants, Solo tiptoed on stockinged feet towards the sound.
Around the bend in the passage the girl was waiting. His breath hissed in with surprise as he saw her - but then he realized she had a welcoming smile on her face and he breathed out in a long, slow sigh of relief. She had taken off the white nurse's uniform and now she was dressed in the D.A.M.E.S. green. Her lips were parted in a smile but her eyes, shadowed by a bang of blonde hair, were troubled.
"I thought you were never coming," she whispered. "What happened? I thought you were supposed to be a top agent!"
"I had to wait to make sure the TV was off before I started on the lock," Solo whispered back. "But I don't get it. What gives? Why would you help me escape?"
"I hated my foster parents," the girl murmured. "They used to keep birds in cages. When I was eight I set most of them free. The old man half killed me - and ever since then I've always hated to see anything in captivity. Setting things free is my way of getting even, I guess. I suppose that's why I married Danny."
"Danny?"
"Danny Lerina. Greatest safe man on the Coast. There wasn't a lock made that he couldn't master."
"Wasn't?"
"He was killed on some government job in Korea - but not before he'd taught me most of what he knew. Come to think of it, you're a little like him, you know. Maybe that's why I kind of took a shine to you when I saw you in there."
"Well, thanks," Solo said softly. "But tell me - just what's going on in here? Where is this place? What's happening?... Forgive my interrupting - we can continue the mutual admiration society afterwards, and I think you're pretty, too - but first I'd like to know where I am!"
"Gee, I'm sorry. Of course. Here, put these on." She produced a rolled up dungaree suit from under her arm. "It's not much but it was all I could get in the time. I'll talk while you dress."
"Shouldn't we go somewhere – ah - quieter?"
"What for? We're on C Level down here - just the cells, the stores, some of the minor offices, and the reactor."
"Did you say reactor?"
"Sure. It's only a little one, of course - but since the power station outside the dam's a blind, we have to get power from somewhere, don't we?"
"I – ah - I guess so, yes. What about the offices, though - isn't somebody likely to be in and out of them?"
"At three-thirty in the morning?"
"Oh... I'm sorry. I'd no idea. I thought it was just after lunch time!"
The girl laughed. "No, I suppose you could hardly know, down here," she said. Not that it's much different on B and A, for that matter."
"And what does one find on B and A?"
"Well, living quarters on B, of course. And catering. And the important offices and the Council Chamber. And the radio room and the armory. The barracks and so on. A Level is mainly the pen, of course -"
"The pen?"