Once he’d bypassed the instruments that monitored the monsters’ body heat, oxygen consumption, and so forth, the escapees would race to the ramp, shut down the warning unit that would indicate it was in use, exit, and run across the frozen landscape to the exit above the hangar. There they would descend, overwhelm whatever guards might be present, and power up their shuttle. The hangar doors would be programmed to open and several minutes after entering the hangar they would lift clear.

At least, that was how the escape was envisioned. Ryo and his friends studied it repeatedly, refining movements, trying to shorten the necessary time. Whether the plan would work or not remained to be seen. There could be no trial run.

It was a particularly dark and cold night. Ryo hurriedly retreated from the observation post, though his presence did not surprise the indifferent guard, who attended to his fiction chips and ignored the consultant Ryo’s peculiar affection for the surface was well known throughout X Section, confirmed by those who’d researched his past.

Omoick, the larger moon, was new and black. Omuick, the smaller, was only half full. That should aid concealment as they made the dangerous run from one exit to the next.

He made his way back toward the study sector, occasionally greeting cheery celebrants. Not all of them were drunk, but all were involved in season-end celebration and little else. A quality that may not facilitate intellectual advancement, he mused, but one which both races shared.

No one questioned Ryo’s presence as he ambled from room to room checking instrumentation. Most of the study chambers were empty. A few were temporarily occupied. He waited in those until their inhabitants departed, then quickly activated the altered cannister controls. The sleep gas was odorless and colorless. If you knew it was present you had seconds in which to flee. If not, you quietly succumbed.

He did not have to use the small filter mask he carried in his vest except once when he thought to check a room originally empty.

A young researcher was preparing a report on the conjectured premating nocturnal habits of the monsters. She was having a difficult time because the aliens were not cooperating much in that area. Ryo watched from the corridor as she started to enter her observation room, halted, swayed for an instant, then toppled onto her right side.

Retreating, he closed a corridor barrier, shoved several wads of expanding plastic against it to insure a tight seal. He repeated this with doorways on the opposite side of the corridor. Then he hurried inward, steeling himself.

Only a single guard was mounted where he’d expected two, but this advantage was mitigated when the guard turned and recognized him.

“Good evening, Consultant.”

“Good evening.” Ryo fought to recall the guard’s name. Time was ticking away. “How are they behaving, Eush?”