"In other words, when the ships are set to zoom old Earth into the
sub-space subways, this disk is going to blow sky-high; and since
they're all connected in series electronically, the whole goddam fleet
will explode simultaneously."
They wriggled through the short passage, dropped to the ground. It
was very dark on the plain. Patches of snow on the ground showed dark
shapes of tree and bush and boulder; after the green light of the
saucer, this outer world was dim and full of illusions. Jane thought
she saw a Graken approaching, and stifled a scream when she realized it
was the shadow of a swooping owl. She said loudly, "I don't like it."
"What?" asked Trace. They were standing in the shadow of the saucer,
indecisive.
"I don't like this. It's too easy. It's a let-down." She grasped him
by the arms, and he, startled, looked down into her face that was a
lovely softened blur in the night. "I'm half Irish too, Trace Roscoe,
half pure black Irish; that's the Kelly in me. And I tell you plain, I
feel wrong about this. It can't happen so pat, you can't just change a
wire or two, hook up this and attach that, and foil the kidnapping of
a whole world. There's something wrong, there's a thing missing that's
vital."
"Baby," he said, so low that no one heard but the girl, "I can tell you
what it is. It's a security on this. Because there's about one chance
in a thousand that what we did will work like we want it to. That
machinery's out of this world. Half of what we did I can't explain to
myself, even. We just made a purblind stab at bollixing the deal."
"It's something else. You're forgetting something. Oh, Trace, Trace,"
she cried suddenly, gripping him savagely in her anguish, "I know!
It's that there's no crew in this saucer, and they aren't coming to
fight us! That means they've either taken the earth into their galaxy
already, or else that they'll do it without bothering about this
saucer--and then where will your fine plan be?"
Trace almost sat down, his body went so limp. "Oh My God," he said
slowly in capitals. "I never thought of that."
"You've got to get a crew here," she said, as the others crowded about
them stammering their worry and terror. "You've got to get them out of
their ships, no matter how busy they are, and let them see that they
can take this one over again. They can't know anything that's happened
since we killed the last one in there."
"She's right," exclaimed Bill. "We have to create a diversion to suck
'em out of their hidey-holes, Trace."
"The only way is to attack the saucers," he said wearily, "and how we
do that with two rayguns and a revolver, heaven only knows."
"Why, we do it with two rayguns and a revolver, then," said Barbara
suddenly. "Why not? That next saucer's maybe a hundred feet away. Take
a shot at it, for Pete's sake. Try it and see."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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