So Lockley backed the car into the street as silently as was possible. He did not turn on the lights. He stopped, headed away from the area in which the truck rumbled. He sent the car forward at a crawl. Then an idea occurred to him and cold chills ran down his spine. It is possible to use a short wave receiver to pick up the ignition sparks of a car. Normally such sparkings are grounded so the car's own radio will work. But sometimes a radio is out of order. It was characteristic of Lockley's acquired distrust of luck and chance that he thought of so unlikely a disaster. He eased the car into motion, straining his ears for any sign that the truck reacted. Then he moved the car slowly away from the business district. It required enormous self-control to go slowly. While among the lighted streets the urge to flee at top speed was strong. But he clenched his teeth. A car makes much less noise when barely in motion. He made it drift as silently as a wraith under the trees and the street lamps. They got out of town. The last of the street lamps was behind them. There was only starlight ahead, and an unknown road with many turns and curves. Sometimes there were roadsigns, dimly visible as uninformative shapes beside the highway. They warned of curves and other driving hazards, but they could not be read because Lockley drove without lights. He left the car dark because any glare would have been visible to the men of the trailer-truck for a very long way. Starlight is not good for fast driving, and when a road passes through a wooded space it is nerve-racking. Lockley drove with foreboding, every sense alert and every muscle tense. But just after a painful progress through a series of curves with high trees on either side which he managed by looking up at the sky and staying under the middle of the ribbon of stars he could see, Lockley touched the brake and stopped the car. "What's the matter?" asked Jill, as he rummaged under the instrument panel. "I think," said Lockley, "that I must have damaged something in that truck. Otherwise they'd have turned their beam on us just to get even. "But maybe they'll be able to make a repair. In any case there are other beams. Those are probably stationary and the truck knows where they are and calls by truck radio to have them shut off when it wants to go by. That would work. Using the Wild Life truck was really very clever." He wrenched at something. It gave. He pulled out a length of wire and started working on one end of it. "If they guess we got a car," he observed, "they'll expect us to run into a road block beam that would wreck the car and paralyze us. I'm taking a small precaution against that. Here." He put the wire's end into her hand. "It's the lead-in from this car's radio antenna. It ought to warn us of beams across the road as my watch spring did in the hills. Hold it." "I will," said Jill.