"Kennebec is a smart man," said Lane. "He wanted the stuff in the Little Man's ship--stuff none of us can understand yet. He agreed to come out here and blast the machine. But he considered it likely that the Little Man was making a cat's-paw out of the human race and he wanted to repair any damage done as soon as we found out we'd made a mistake." "Did you ever think that the interval between destroying this and getting the reproduction in working order might be just time enough?" demanded Thompson. "Yup. I've figured all of that. But I'm following orders, Billy. I'm going to wreck that thing as soon as you tell me you can reproduce it." Downing interrupted. "You're going to do it? I am." "Want to bet?" snapped Lane. "Cut it," said Thompson. "Make you a deal," said Lane, ignoring Thompson. "Go on." "I order you to stop it," snapped Thompson. "Go fly a kite," growled Lane. "Look, Downing, I'll fight you for the privilege of destroying that machine." "Deal. How?" "When Billy has his pictures and data, we'll take off in our fleeters. The idea will be to see who can blast the thing first--no holds barred, right?" "It's one way of finding out who's the best flier," agreed Downing. Toralen Ki looked up at Thompson. Billy smiled. He made motions, conveyed the idea to the Little Man that Downing and Lane were going out to destroy the machine personally. Toralen Ki fumbled for the meaning and then understood. He agreed vigorously, nodding and smiling. "The Little Man here says to go ahead," Thompson said, into the communicator. "I'm supposed to be a buffer until this mission is complete--it will be complete when that machine is blasted. Everybody knows that you fellows are going to go rivet-cutting sooner or later--might as well have something to do it over." "Thanks," said Downing dryly. "And the guy that loses makes a public announcement of his inferiority, see?" "I'll be listening to you," came Lane's taunting laugh. "What you'll be hearing is my acceptance," returned Downing. * * * * * Thompson left them quibbling and took his crew over to the meteor that carried the machine. It was a real meteor, a huge one almost a half mile in jagged diameter. A well penetrated it, sealed by huge metal doors. They breached the doors and resealed them, once they were inside, to pressurize the cavern. Then they went to work on the huge machine. It was bizarre. It was unreal and unearthly. Atomic generators powered it silently, pouring torrents of high power into its apparently senseless circuits. Great silvery crystals twisted and distorted slowly under piezoelectric stress, and sputtered-silver contacts carried off the impulses to other circuits. Solid metal bars carried some sort of circulatory impulse from place to place--they were reminiscent of wave-guide plumbing but no microwave set-up could function in a system like this.