For the ships, of course, such a jet unit wouldn't do. The ships needed jets which would work while in motion, at speeds exceeding a hundred miles an hour. Thus, they'd had to fly the ship until its gravitors completely polarized its hull. Then they had to determine the air-flow over that hull at flying speeds with flow and pressure indicators mounted on the hull. Then they had to rebuild the tail-jets to conform with their findings.
A flight half-way across the continent and back to their workshop would have served for that. But then, they had to be sure that there was no further change in the air-flow or polarization or gravitor field. For that reason, they had decided on this trip all the way across the country. It would give them a complete, thorough test of the ship.
They had even gone so far as to arm themselves for defense, in case they were forced down anywhere and someone tried to get rough with them. In a strictly legal sense, the streamlined plastic pistols they carried were not lethal weapons.
Technically, those pistols were ray-guns. They fired a beam of light.
That light came from a standard photographer's flash-bulb. It was focused into a tight, narrow beam by the pistol's barrel reflector. It wouldn't penetrate the human skin; it wouldn't even raise a blister. It was almost physically harmless. But directed at a person's face at a distance of no more than twenty feet, it would leave them totally blind for about three minutes. A simple flash-bulb delivered a nice, bright flash.
A person suddenly struck blind wasn't likely to be in any condition or mood to cause trouble.
All other preparations for the trip had been as completely thorough, as carefully planned. Yet they had made one slight error. They had forgotten to include extra batteries for the ship. In all their careful and intricate preparations, that one, simple precaution had been overlooked.
And now, because of it, Morrow wondered if the whole purpose of their trip wasn't going to be changed. They were flying to Westerton where he would borrow a car from someone he knew.
The one person in Westerton he felt he could trust more readily than others was, of course, Gwyn Davidson. And Gwyn's father had a car.
But they couldn't land their ship anywhere near town, where he could go directly to Gwyn. They would have to land some distance from town, at a spot he knew quite well, and he'd have to proceed from there. He couldn't hitch-hike into town; people knew him, would recognize him and ask questions. He'd have to fly in on his suit gravitor.
And when Gwyn saw that, he'd have some explaining to do. He wondered what she would think....
He wondered, too, at the thrilling tingle of excitement which was washing through him in waves of—of ecstasy, almost! There was no other word for it! He felt like a kid with his first toy.
The ship glided down through the cold moonlight and grounded behind a thick screen of trees, hidden near the shore of a small lake. Across the glistening, ice-covered lake, the sprawling log structures of Lakeshore Lodge loomed blackly against the snow glare. The buildings were deserted, uninhabited during the winter.
Morrow remembered it during the summer season, alive with people in bathing suits, and small boats out on the lake, and this small clearing behind the trees where they landed, where he and Gwyn had sprawled on a blanket, sunning themselves. He remembered the spot quite well.
Westerton was twenty miles away.
He was numb with the shock of the cold air and the weird experience of his flight when he approached the town.
It felt so damned strange!He was flying at about four hundred feet, sprawled flat with the wind blowing and buffeting over him. His head was protected by his helmet, of course, and he was only doing about fifteen miles an hour—but the weightless condition of his arms and legs made it feel as if he were battling a sixty-mile gale! And using his legs to guide his flight completed the impression: heswamthrough the air!
The yellow lights of town began to outline the streets and intersections below him. Never having seen them from the air, they were at first strange to him, unrecognizable—then he got his bearings and flew onward. Or swam. His breath was coming in labored gasps. His whole body was tensed against the cold seeping into his suit.
He searched frantically for Gwyn's house. It was after two in the morning; she'd be home asleep now.
He spotted it, flew over it, and cut his tiny jets. Then, tuning down his gravitor, he drifted gently downward until his feet crunched in the snow in the small back yard. Looking up, he saw with a start that he'd just barely missed straddling a telephone wire on his way down.
Shivering, he strode toward the house. It was a two-story, white frame structure and Gwyn's room, he believed, was on the left side upstairs. He went around to the side of the house and looked up at the windows, puzzled. Which was hers?
It wouldn't do to try to scramble in a window, anyway. Gwyn would probably let out a scream that would awaken the whole neighborhood—or her father might take a shot at him!
Better to do it the conventional way. Knock on the front door. Ring the bell.
Should he take her father into his confidence, too? Morrow decided against it—no point in stretching his luck too far.
Then he had to get Gwyn out of the house. Alone.
Morrow shook his head, grinning wryly. This was getting more like a kid's game all the time! Then he shuddered. It was cold as blazes! He had to get inside and get warm!
He strode purposefully around front, went up on the porch, and rang the bell. A good, long ring. Then he jumped off the porch and ran back to the side of the house.
A light flashed on upstairs. A shapely, feminine silhouette passed across the curtains as Gwyn crossed the room, pulling on her housecoat.
Morrow stepped close to the wall, tuned up his gravitor, and rose easily up to the window. He grabbed the sill to stop himself and peered in. The room was empty. The window was raised slightly.
He pushed it up, scrambled in, and lowered it behind him. The room was small and neat, littered with feminine knick-knacks, and smelling more clean and polished than sweetly perfumed. He strode past the rumpled bed and sat down in the chair against the wall, out of sight from the doorway.
His gravitor tank kept him well-forward on the edge of the chair. His suit remained ice-cold and snug in the room's warmth, which he felt seeping in through the vents in his helmet collar. He shuddered violently, then sucked the wonderfully warm air into his lungs. He gazed around, noting that his helmet gave everything in the room a bluish tint, but he was so accustomed to that he didn't mind it. Then he saw himself in the dressing-table mirror, across the room, and almost doubled over with silent laughter.
What a strange creature he was, with a shimmering, bright skin and a huge, dark globe of a head!
Gwyn would scream her lungs out!
He reached up hastily, broke the clamps on his helmet and swung it back. Best to let her see his face, first, and recognize him—
A door opened out in the hallway.
"Who is it, Gwyn?" Old man Davidson's voice had the mellowness of a concrete mixer.
"Nobody, Dad!" Gwyn's voice came from downstairs, puzzled. Small feet stamped on the stairs. "It's awfully cold out for anyone to be playing pranks. When I opened the door, there was nobody out there!"
"Well, go back to sleep, honey."
"All right. 'Night, Dad."
The door closed in the hallway. The small footsteps trod disconsolately toward Gwyn's door.
Then she was swirling into the room, closing the door, and pulling the housecoat off over her blue, pink-flowered pajamas.
When she saw him, she froze and sucked in her breath.
"Bill!"
It wasn't a loud exclamation, but a faint, weak cry. Morrow had his finger over his lips, motioning her to silence.
Her face went blank; then she tugged her housecoat frantically back on and strode over to him. Her voice was a low, insistent murmur. "Bill, how didyouget in here? Whatisthis, anyway?" Her wide eyes were sweeping over him from head to foot, unbelievingly. "What on earth'shappened?"
"Sit down," Morrow said gently. "Keep your voice low. Can't let anyone know I'm here, Gwyn—and I need your help!"
Gwyn looked at him steadily for a long moment. Then she said, with a kind of silent protest, "All right, Bill. I'll get Dad's car out and go with you. Now—how are you going to get out of here?"
"Same way I got in," he told her, quietly. "I'll meet you outside."
Then, before she could protest, he strode to the window, raised it, climbed out, and shoved free—using his gravitor, of course, as he did.
She stared at him from the window until he touched ground. Then he waved to her and went around the house to the garage.
She came out a few minutes later, dressed in a warm, woolen suit.
Morrow explained the project to her as they drove downtown. When they got out on the highway, approaching an all-night garage, she dropped him off. A half-hour later, she was back.
"Got the batteries?" he asked, piling into the front seat beside her.
"Yes, I got them," she said.
They drove on out to Lakeshore Lodge.
She was grimly silent all the way. No questions, no comments whatsoever. She kept her eyes straight ahead on the highway, her face expressionless and a little pale in the passing lights.
She doesn't like it, Morrow thought bitterly.
But if she didn't like it, why didn't she say so? Did she think this female silent treatment would work on him? Gwyn should know him well enough to realize that such typically feminine maneuvers always have the opposite effect of what they were supposed to have on him. Silent disapproval, huh? Then the devil with her!
But such obvious deceit wasn't like Gwyn, either, he realized. Maybe it was something else, then.
Maybe she had gotten the idea that he didn't want her opinion. Suppose she wasn't asking questions because she thought he didn't want her to ask anything!
Possible, he thought. Even probable. He might have overdone it when he tried to impress her with the need for absolute secrecy. Maybe she thought he'd merely come to her because he needed help, that she wasn't included in the project itself—
Butwasshe?
Morrow realized, then, that he wanted her to come back with him. Back to California, to the workshop—
What would the others say about that?
And did he want to expose Gwyn to the sort of risks they were taking?
They drove up to the Lodge and parked. "I'll have to take the batteries in one at a time, I guess," he said dourly.
"Where?" She seemed to rouse herself out of her own thoughts.
Morrow pointed across the lake. "The ship's over there, beyond the trees. Remember the place?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed softly. He couldn't see her face in the darkness.
"I'd better call them," he said, opening the car door. He stepped out into the snow, straightened up beside the car, and swung his helmet over his head. There was a tiny, pocket-sized walkie-talkie built into the helmet collar under his chin; he flipped its switch and waited for the set to warm up.
Then he began calling quietly. "Angel One to Cloud Two. Angel One to Cloud Two—do you hear me? Come in. Over."
"Cloud Two to Angel One," Smitty's voice was a tiny, metallic sound inside the helmet. "Hear you faint but clear. Give your position, over."
"I'm at the Lodge," Morrow replied. Gwyn was watching him, wide-eyed. "The girl is with me. We've got the stuff. I'll have to bring it one at a time to you, over!"
"Angel One, are you observed? Repeat, are you observed? Over."
Morrow scowled in puzzlement. "Nobody here but us chickens," he quipped back. "What're you driving at, over?"
"Do not attempt to bring stuff here," Smitty's voice taunted him. "You might drop something. Remain at your position—we'll come there!"
Morrow's mouth went slack. Of course! He should've thought—
"Cloud Two to Angel One! Acknowledge, please. Over."
"Okay, guys!" he snapped. "Roger, wilco, over and out!" He switched off the set, angrily.
But what was he angry about?
He wasn't sure. Something was wrong, somewhere. Somehow, things just weren't working out right.
"They're—coming here?" Gwyn asked hesitantly.
"Sure," he retorted, his tones unnecessarily brusque. "They're coming here."
"Oh." She gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead, not looking at him.
"Gwyn—" Morrow started around the car, around to her side to open the door and lift her out—
A faint, whining sound came from above as he reached the front of the car. He stopped and looked up, startled.
The sleek, black ship settled down to the white snow before them. A sort of strangling gasp came from Gwyn, then she was out of the car and standing beside him, clutching his arm tightly.
The thick door swung open on the faintly gleaming hull. A figure in bright, snug garments, with a dark globe of a giant head, floated out of the door and came gliding toward them. It swung its legs down and settled to a crouch in the snow in front of them.
"Well?" the strange, dark globe-head drawled. "Don't I rate an introduction?"
The batteries were installed. The old ones they replaced were stored on the cargo deck to be recharged when the ship had returned home.
The forward lounge was bright, warm, and cheerful, with the ultra-modern interior fittings and deep, foam-rubber chairs and the moonlit snow and trees outside the long port-holes' slits. Gwyn sat between Smitty and Morrow, holding her cup out for Foster to pour her coffee. Foster poured with a deft flourish. He had his jacket tied around his waist as an apron.
"I've always maintained," he observed with mock seriousness, "that the woman's touch is absolutely essential to the success of any project attempted by man!"
"Quite true," Smitty agreed, going along with the gag. "Though I'm not a lace-curtains man, mind you. Just lace." He grinned wolfishly at Gwyn.
"Being a married man, myself," Foster went on, pouring himself a cup of coffee, "I have so accustomed my tastes to minor discrepancies as practiced by the fairer sex that I'm no longer disturbed by such. Nylon stockings and underthings hanging all over the bathroom, for example. As one gets used to that sort of thing—"
"Hear, hear!" Smitty chanted.
Foster sprawled in a dignified pose in the chair facing them. "As one gets used to it," he continued unmindfully, "it fades to its proper insignificance. Then a man can truly visualize the worth of feminine companionship—the slippers, the evening paper, the scratching of one's back—"
Gwyn was laughing. The tension was going out of her shapely, young body. Her gaze was mirthful, speculative—especially when her glance slid over to Morrow.
"One finds," Foster went on, "that the prime essence of—of—"
He broke off with a violent sneeze.
Morrow finished his coffee, set his cup aside, and rose. "We'd better take off," he said flatly. He turned and faced them.
Smitty and Foster were looking at him with a silent reproof. Gwyn's eyes were on the floor. She set her cup aside, untouched.
Morrow returned their look without expression. Something danced and giggled and rolled, hugging its sides with laughter, inside him, but he kept it off his face.
"Gwyn!" he said. His tone was sharp, insistent.
She stood up uncertainly. "I'd—I'd better be getting home, too," she said.
"Right." He nodded. "We've got to get off before sunrise catches us—we'll be safe over the Pennsylvania brush country."
"All right." She moved toward him, toward the bulk-head door at his back.
He reached out and touched her shoulder, stopping her before him. "When we get back, I'll write you," he said gruffly. "Meanwhile, you can be straightening out your affairs here, and—in a couple of weeks or so—"
She looked at him, then. Eyes wide open and shining, lips parted.
"Well, don't juststandthere!" Smitty bellowed indignantly. "Go on andkiss her!"
It was hardly a month later when Morrow stood in the doorway of the sawmill-workshop, his arm around Gwyn, and said, "We need a good mechanical engineer! Can't get anywhere without him—"
And a small, gray-haired man sat up in bed, a few nights later, and stared at the two strange creatures standing before him. Their heads were dark, featureless globes. Their bodies were covered with a bright, shimmering skin. He noted vaguely that the female of the species was stacked quite well.
"Can't do anything without a good structural engineer!" the little man snapped angrily, a few months later, as they were standing around a littered workbench.
A slender, middle-aged woman stepped off the bus and walked up the quiet, dark street toward her home. Then she froze, a scream stuck in her throat, as several weird creatures swarming out of the shadows....
A Northern Airlines pilot glanced out at the port wing of the giant, humming stratoliner. His mouth fell open, then he grabbed his co-pilot's shoulder and pointed out toward the wingtip.
Two sleek, fish-like little ships were flying perfect formation with the big plane, their black silhouettes outlined sharply in the warm summer moonlight.
An Air Force pilot rode his powerful, deadly jet-fighter across the desert country, thinking of the wife and children waiting for him in Los Angeles. Suddenly, he tensed, staring over the side. Far below, a black shape was outlined against the gray earth.
Quickly, the pilot radioed his flight h.q. and fired his guns, blasting their muzzle-covers away. Then he peeled over into a dive and went screaming downward. The black shape appeared on his sights, his thumb pressed the fire-button—no time to set up for auto-fire—
And then, the black shape was gone!
The wind stopped screaming around the little ship as Smitty cut its gravitors back in, halting its helpless plunge. He pointed its needle-nose up the black maw of a deep canyon and glanced upward, grinning as he thought what must be going through that jet jockey's mind.Which way'd he go?
Just let 'em try following a "spaceship" through one of these twisting canyons! At a jet-fighter's thousand-mile-an-hour combat speed, just let 'em try!
But, as Morrow discovered, a heliocopter could follow anywhere. It wasn't when he and Gwyn drove into Stockton to get married, but later, when they were playing follow-the-leader in silvery wonderland of clouds under a full moon. He and Gwyn wore gravitor-units strapped to their backs, with the harness incorporated into a swim-suit attire, without helmets or any other garments. It was a warm summer night filled with cool breeze that caressed their skin as they circled and skimmed over and around the bright masses of cloud.
A civilian pilot riding his little ram-jet heliocopter southward toward 'Frisco saw them gliding around the clouds at approximately the same moment Morrow caught sight of him. The 'copter gave chase. Morrow and Gwyn parted, trying to confuse the pilot, but the 'copter swung on its whirling blades and went after Gwyn. Its speed was greater than hers and it was rapidly overtaking her—the pilot jockeying it into position so its blades would strike her. Apparently, the pilot had a morbid sense of humor.
Seeing this, Morrow swung back, intercepted the chase, and swooped low under the 'copter, trying to unnerve the pilot. But the pilot merely waved at him and laughed, shouting something about "Gonna get one of you, anyway!" that Morrow barely heard.
He circled and dived at the 'copter again, fumbling at his belt. This time, he pulled up to the side of the 'copter's teardrop cabin, stopping himself by slamming both feet against the cabin. Startled, the pilot jerked the controls and the 'copter dipped its blades at Morrow. He had just enough time before cutting his gravitor and plunging free to fire his flash-bulb pistol directly into the pilot's face.
Checking his fall several hundred feet below, he looked up and saw the 'copter wallowing precariously on auto-controls, its pilot pressing his hands over his eyes. Gwyn came swooping downward, her dark hair billowing out behind her, and called anxiously to Morrow—when he fell, she'd thought the 'copter blades had struck him.
They lost themselves in the starry blackness before the pilot regained his sight.
That spring season, the newspapers broke out in a rash of headlines and front-page stories about ships from outer space and life on other worlds, quoting eye-witness reports and authoritative comments. By summer, the latest best-seller book was a loosely-written volume entitled THE MONSTERS ARE AMONG US!
Those fortunate members of a certain group of thirty-seven men and women broke into grins every time they heard the book mentioned. This group had laid out a collective sum of slightly over a hundred thousand dollars for the construction of a small vacation resort in the Nevada desert.
It was a rather special resort. The buildings were built cheaply, yet were designed by certain talented engineers so that their structures were considerably stronger than those of conventional buildings using costlier materials—a not too difficult feat, considering the outmoded building codes which governed most construction—and were surprisingly sleek and ultra-modern, as well.
The members of this group usually continued their work in plants and laboratories outside. Each year, when their vacation-time came up, they would rush off to a little radio repair shop in Stockton and have a quiet talk in the back room with its youthful proprietor. That night, they would drive up into the mountains to an old, abandoned sawmill, where a strange ship would drop out of the darkness to greet them....
It was a deep, twisting canyon east of the Kawich Range. Sand-stone cliffs towered up nearly three hundred feet on each side and a spring-fed stream trickled along the boulder-strewn floor, curling around clumps of stunted pine trees and dense brush. The wind sometimes tore through the canyon with a deep, mournful whistle.
Farther up, the canyon widened out. A pile of giant boulders formed an island in the middle of the floor and cliff-dwellers had built their dwellings in a large cave half-way up on one wall. Those dwellings were now occupied and joined by slender spans to the three sleek towers rising up from the island. At the foot of the island, a flat space had been cleared and long, low sheds built around it.
In the middle tower overlooking the clearing, which was now occupied by a slender, black ship. Morrow sat before the observation wall of his living room and gazed downward. He wore a simple pair of trunks on his tanned body, and socks and sneakers on his feet.
The man sitting in the chair next to him was tall, broad-shouldered, and husky. There was a two-day growth of beard on the lean face and the soiled white trousers and shirt looked as though they had been slept in. The man's eyes were cautious and tense when he glanced over his shoulder.
Smitty was standing behind his chair. Smitty wore the same casual attire that Morrow did, with the addition of a cartridge belt and holstered pistol about his thighs. The brown hand resting on the pistol-butt—it was a Colt .45 revolver—gave their visitor silent confirmation to the fact that he was, essentially, their prisoner.
"So it took you just six months to find us, did it?" Morrow asked musingly. "Too bad about the shipping records on those plastic construction materials—you must have traced down the shipments from every company in the country before you found that."
"We traced nearly all of them," the visitor conceded. "In fact, this one would've escaped our notice if you'd used any half-reasonable company in Stockton to cover up your use of the materials."
Morrow took cigarettes and matches from the pocket of his trunks and proceeded to light up, calmly. It was nearing sunset and the canyon was already plunged into a blue twilight, in which the lights in the towers and on the small landing field below glowed softly, in soothing pastel colors.
The visitor sat unmoved through the silence. He had been caught inside the old sawmill and flown to the hidden base the night before. His credentials said he was an agent of the United States Bureau of Internal Security, that his name was David Lyle. Morrow glanced at him, speculatively.
"I've told you all I dare about our group, here," he said. "I've told you some of the things we've done—"
"Without explaining them," Lyle interjected wryly.
Morrow smiled. "You wouldn't grasp the technical end of it if I had told you. It's as if I were the first man to invent the wheel and had gathered a few others about me who were now developing the propellor, the fly-wheel, gear-ratios and the piston engine. We can generate enough electrical power in this canyon site to light a large metropolitan city, and we're now working on a means of using broadcast power and perhaps harnessing atomic energy. We already suspect some of the chemical and medical possibilities inherent in gravitor-field conditions—"
"And you have the answer to interplanetary travel at your fingertips!" Lyle muttered dourly.
"Yes, but without the financial means to do it," Morrow agreed. "Interplanetary travel won't be important for another hundred years anyway—if it is at all—since it will take that long for the world's population to reach any dangerous numbers."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Mankind is due to reach the stage of population where he can no longer feed himself on Earth," Morrow explained. "He simply won't be able to raise enough food on this one planet to feed such numbers. Either that, or there'll be three or four atomic wars in the next few generations—if there's one, there'll be several wars—and population will cease to be a problem.
"There's been some talk of birth-control as the only logical answer to this overpopulation. It may be used, but I doubt its logic. You'll have to tell some people they simply can't have children, and on a world-wide scale you're going to have many cases where they disregard authority and have children anyway. Then, to make your authority stick, you'll have to take those unauthorized children away from their parents and kill them. You'll need a world dictatorship to do that.
"The only answer that's really logical is when this world gets too small to support mankind, go out and settle a couple more. That's where interplanetary travel becomes important, and not before. The astronomers claim there is very little likelihood of any native species of intelligent beings living on either Mars or Venus. I only hope they're right!
"But that isn't answering our present problem, is it?" Morrow grinned reflectively. "We could kill you, Mr. Lyle, but that would gain us nothing. There would be other agents following you. Also, it doesn't sit well with our attitude."
"Just whatisyour 'attitude' as you call it?" Lyle demanded.
Morrow glanced at him through narrowed eyes and replied, "Just what wouldyourattitude be if you were in our position, Mr. Lyle?"
Later, as Morrow sat alone, Gwyn came out of the kitchen and joined him, perching herself on the arm of his chair.
"It'll work out all right, Bill," she murmured soothingly, running her fingers through his hair. "Don't worry about it."
Morrow shook his head. "We've got to let him go, Gwyn. We can't hold him."
"Then let's just face it," she replied, using her practical feminine approach. "The government is going to learn about our project. What can they do about it? Can they throw us into prison and confiscate all we have here? What'll they do with it? Without us, they won't understand it!"
"How muchwillthey understand, I wonder!" Morrow said dubiously. "Will they realize this could ignite the present world tension into a raging war?"
Gwyn looked out on the silent, brooding canyon. "Would it, Bill? I mean—I'm not doubting you, darling—but are you sure?"
Morrow sighed wearily. "No," he said. "Not sure. I'd just rather not risk it."
"Well, if it happens, it won't be our fault." Gwyn slipped her arms around him and settled down in his lap. "Don't worry, Bill—"
It was nearly midnight when Morrow stood down on the field, with the gleaming, black ship looming beside him, and watched Smitty and Lyle, the agent, walking out toward him.
"Finished your inspection, Lyle?" he called out, his voice sharp, brittle.
"Yah. I've finished." Lyle strode up with a thoughtful expression creasing his forehead. "You got quite a lay-out here."
"Thanks." Morrow hooked his thumb at the ship's open hatchway. "Climb in, Boy Scout. We're taking you back to Uncle."
"Ah-hmmm—just a sec, Morrow." Lyle paused, lighting a cigarette. "I've been thinking about that question you asked me—what my attitude would be in your place."
"Yes?" Morrow stiffened warily.
Lyle grinned. "One of the things that surprises me is that of all the people in your group, none has spilled the beans. How come nobody talked?"
"If you had what we've got, would you talk about it?"
Lyle chuckled, flicking the ash from his cigarette. "We're back to attitudes, then—right?" He looked up, his gaze suddenly intent. "I think I've got an answer to your question now, Morrow."
Morrow squinted at him. "What're you getting at, Lyle?"
"Those aircraft construction materials you had shipped to Stockton," Lyle said quietly. "Building an experimental plane without authorization is a federal offense. The fine's five hundred dollars. You got five hundred bucks, Morrow?"
"I think so," Morrow replied cautiously.
"And you got a couple aeronautical engineers here who could whip up some kind of little airplane, haven't you?"
"Suppose I have?"
"Well, whip up something! Just so it'll get off the ground—put a motorcycle engine in it—and the Civil Aeronautics boys will have something to take their hatchets to. Plant it out at that sawmill of yours." Lyle's sombre eyes were laughing silently.
"So I'll pay a five-hundred-dollar fine?" Morrow asked perplexedly.
"Uh huh. And I can write a report that'll close this case."
"You—" Morrow broke off, staring at the calm, good-natured agent.
"The stuff you've got here is poison to today's world," Lyle said quietly. "Maybe, in time, guys like me can change all that. Until we do—" He left the rest unsaid.
Morrow let his breath out slowly. Then he extended his hand. The young agent's grasp was firm, decisive.
"If you two're through yakking," Smitty growled, shoving past them, "let's get outta here!" He mounted to the ship's hatch.
The two men followed him and the hatch folded shut, flush with the sleek hull. Then, gravs humming, the black ship lifted from the field.
It dwindled rapidly into the upper darkness.