Lucalle accompanied the creature when it released Klane and Ketha from the assessment chamber. She had been woken two hours earlier and put to work cleaning a second holding tank. Tired as she was, the princess immediately identified signs in their body language which marked a change in the relationship between her two fellow prisoners. She shot a glace of wounded suspicion at her handmaiden which turned into a glare as the creature spoke. Ketha only met this unspoken accusation with a faint smile. 

"I note that that you two have made more traditional us... s... e of your night in the chamber," the creature said. "You may res...s ... ume your tasks now Ketha. Be off with you. I s.. shall defer the choosing until tonight. The damage to my aerocopter needs s.. to be repaired this morning if I am to travel to one of the high pass.. s.. es..s.. this afternoon where I am monitoring migration patterns. As interes... s... ting as you no doubt find your lives, I s..till have other s.. cientific concerns," it pronounced loftily. "And they can't wait." 

Lucalle and Klane accompanied the creature out into the compound. "This.. s... girl has not yet been punis.. s.. hed properly for s.. she has done more damage than I first realised! Come with me, both of you. The male mus.. s..t go back in the s... pecimen jar until tonight." 

"You are making a big mistake," Klane said. "It was not Lucalle who planned the escape, it was me. And it is me you should be punishing, not her." 

"Abs.. s.. urd!" the creature said, yet it seemed amused. "I know what this..s.. is.. s... It is all some part of the mating game, isn't it?" 

"I don't know what you mean," Klane said. "I told Lucalle to kill the power in the expectation it would release me. She would not have done it on her own." 

"I know you lie, yet I have not time to devote to study the dynamics of this.. s... today." The translation device conveyed a hint of exasperation as the creature hesitated. "Very well. I will come back to ALL your vexing little human problems tonight. S.. ome one will be punished! Have no fear of that!" 

They reached the jar where Klane was to be confined once more. To his consternation he saw that his weapon was no longer in plain sight on the plinth in front of his prison. As the glass cylinder walls dropped to allow him to enter the jar, Lucalle suddenly pressed him back against them and delivered a passionate kiss. 

"I know where the creature has taken it," she whispered without needing a question from him. "And I can get it back to you, if it will help." Then she kissed him again. Of course it was necessary for them to speak secretly in this intimate proximity if they were to hide their words from the creature. Even so, Klane thought that Lucalle was far more convincing in her acting today than she had been yesterday.

High above the base, Ketha crouched before the machinery which generated the alegoyle deterrent music. It was her task this morning to activate it. The control mechanism was secured to the wall in front of her but the amplification and broadcasting of the signal went through a much smaller portable device, which clipped into a socket at the top. These amplifiers were remarkable pieces of equipment. The creature used one to broadcast its own translated voice and it kept several spares here. Once before, Ketha had been instructed to replace the alegoyle screen amplifier and from watching how the creature used it, she had learned a lot about the way the amplifiers worked. 

"Can you bring me one?" Klane had asked when they plotted in whispered interludes between their love making.

"The best time to act will be if the creature leaves the base because even if it somehow finds out about our escape immediately, it still has to get back to stop us," Klane had said. "Otherwise if it shows no signs of going anywhere we might have to act more quickly but let's not risk triggering any alarms until we are totally ready this time. Switch the alegoyle deterrent on as you would normally do so as not to make the creature suspicious but try and get one of those amplifiers to me as soon as possible provided you think there is no risk of an alert. Then we must be patient again and when you decide the time is right switch the screen off."

Now that the creature planned to take a trip in the afternoon, it seemed sensible to wait until it had been gone for a while and only then to make their bid for freedom. Ketha hoped that she hadn't damaged the aerocopter too badly since it was now needed to take the creature away and give the prisoners all this second chance. She didn't really know what Klane had planned though. He had just promised a surprise.

There was a row of the hand held amplification devices on a small shelf next to the screen generator. Ketha was convinced that if she took one, these things would not trigger any alarm. They weren't connected to the alegoyle screen and they weren't active, though she knew they could be switched on easily, having seen how the creature used them. It could not suspect that an amplifier would help the prisoners at all. In fact Ketha had no idea how Klane intended to use it either....

The amplifier was shaped like a small metal box with conical horns projecting from five of the six faces and a pattern of depressions and bumps on the sixth face which acted as control switches. The device was capable of projecting and baffling recorded and live sound and a variety of other sophisticated sonic functions of which she was wholly ignorant. It fitted comfortably in Ketha's hand and it felt slightly warm to the touch on this winter morning. The next thing was to smuggle it to Klane in his glass prison without the creature's knowledge. She already had a plan for that.

It was Ketha's job to prepare food for the human prisoners today. Breakfast consisted of a bowl of porridge and a mug of some hot, strongly astringent, herbal infusion which acted as a mild stimulant. The tray of food was passed through a hatch in the pedestal at the base of the specimen jar under the watchful eye of the creature, but it had no reason to suspect that the porridge was the perfect cover for the amplifier and it soon departed to continue repairing the aerocopter. When Klane had cleaned his bowl and retrieved the smuggled device, he took the small metal object in his hand and rolled it round thoughtfully, remembering what Ketha had told him about how it worked. He knew he wouldn't get more than one chance to try his idea.