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interest but did not choose to add any toothmarks of his own. No conversation passed between them, but abruptly the captain left. The crewman took a seat and kept the prism ready.
    Evidently they did not intend to leave the captives to their own devices while the onlay was in preparation.
    "They don't miss any bets," Miss Galland said ruefully.
    Dillingham shrugged and bent to his work. It seemed that the surest way to get rid of the visitors was to complete the operation. He sawed his die into four separate segments, one for each damaged tooth, and plunged into the complex portion of the job. The wax he applied had to be shaped into the exact pattern of the desired cast. This, not the original tooth, was the actual model. The die determined the juncture with the living tooth, but the artistry lay in sculpting the upper surface of the wax into a serviceable and aesthetic duplicate of the healthy original.
    He set the cruder plaster cast of the captain's jaw before him and began the most difficult construction of his career. It was not an image he had to make, but a mirror image, and his reflexes were hardly geared to it. Each of the four patterns would take several hours.
    Night fell as he completed the second pattern. A new alien came to replace the crewman, but there was no chance to escape. They chewed sociably on rods, exchanged them, and parted.
    "Dr. Dillingham!" Miss Galland exclaimed. "That's how they talk! They make marks like that old-wedge-writing."
    It made sense. "Cuneiform," he agreed. That explained what the teeth were for! But the revelation, while satisfying intellectually, didn't help them to escape. The new guard was as vigilant as the first.
    Night passed. Miss Galland slept on the emergency cot while Dillingham kept working. They both knew that help was unlikely to come, because the aliens had shown up on Friday and there would be no appointments for the weekend. Dillingham lived alone, and Miss Galland's room-mate happened to be on vacation. The captain had been quite lucky.
    Something else occurred to him. "Miss Galland!" She sat up sleepily. "Since these creatures don't use sound to talk with, they probably don't associate it with communication at all!"
    "Have you stayed up all night, Doctor?" she inquired solicitously, "You must be tired."
    "Listen to me! We can plan our escape, and they won't realize what we're doing. If I can distract the guard's attention—"
    She came alive. "Now I follow you. We could have telephoned long ago, if... but how can we get him to—"
    He explained. They worked it out in detail while he poured thick jel around the wax and vibrated the cup. She slowly opened the windows, then set up a chair in front of one and sat down. One agile flip could tumble her into the back lot—if the guard were off-guard.
    The work continued. The guards changed again, and the new one did not realize that the window was open. Dillingham poured melted gold into the inverted hollows of the final mould. The alien's attention was taken up by the sight of the hot metal; he knew that was dangerous.
    "Now," Dillingham cried, as he plunged the hot cast into cold water. Steam puffed up, bringing the guard to his feet—and Miss Galland was gone.
    Dillingham finished with a flourish. "How's that for a set of castings!" he cried. "Not to mention a slick escape," he added as the guard turned to discover what had happened. "The police will be here within half an hour."
    The alien had been tricked, but he was no fool. He wasted no time in a futile chase after the girl. He pointed the prism at Dillingham, fired one warning beam that blasted the wall beside him, and gestured towards the door.
    Two blocks away they came to an overgrown lot. Hidden within the thick brush was a shining metal cylinder, large enough to hold several men.
    "Now wait a minute!" Dillingham exclaimed as a port swung open. But already he was coming to understand that the clever alien captain had anticipated this situation also, and had