"We'll have to win this one pretty soon," Rodney Maxwell said. "The amount of nuclear energy we've been releasing will be detectable anywhere on the planet by now. The Government has a ship like the _Lester Dawes_ in commission; if this keeps on, she'll be coming out for a look." "Then we'll have help," Captain Poole said. "We need Government help like we need the polka-dot fever," Rodney Maxwell said. "If they get in it, they'll claim the spaceport themselves, and we'll have fought a battle for nothing." Well, that was it, then. The spaceport was essential to the Maxwell Plan. He'd gotten seven men killed--eight, if the recon-car that was taking Abe Samuels to the hospital in Litchfield didn't make it in time--and it was up to him to see that they hadn't died for nothing. He spread the photo-map and the spaceport plans on the chart table. "Look at this," he said. Klem Zareff looked at it. He didn't like it any better than Conn had. He studied the plan for a moment, chewing his cigar. "You know, it's possible they don't know that thing exists," he said, without too much conviction. "You'll be betting the lives of at least twenty men; fewer than that couldn't accomplish anything." "I'll be putting mine on the table along with them," Conn said. "I'll lead them in." He was wishing he hadn't had to say that. He did, though. It was the only thing he could say. "You better pick the men to go with me, Colonel," he continued. "You know them better than I do. We'll need working equipment, too; I have no idea what we may have to take out of the way, inside." "I won't call for volunteers," Zareff said. "I'll pick Home Guards; they did their volunteering when they joined." "Let me pick one man, Colonel," Anse Dawes said. "I'll pick me." X They sent a snooper in first; it picked up faint radiation leakage from inactive power units of overhead lights, and nothing else. The tunnel stretched ahead of it, empty, and dark beyond its infrared vision. After it had gone a mile without triggering anything, the jeep followed, Anse Dawes piloting and Conn at the snooper controls watching what it transmitted back. The two lorries followed, loaded with men and equipment, and another jeep brought up the rear. They had cut screen-and-radio communication with the outside; they weren't even using inter-vehicle communication. At length, the snooper emerged into a big cavern, swinging slowly to scan it. The walls and ceiling were rough and irregular; it was natural instead of excavated. Only the floor had been leveled smooth. There were a lot of things in it, machinery and vehicles, all battered and in poor condition, dusty and cobwebbed: the spaceport junkheap. A passage, still large enough for one of the gunboats, led deeper into the mountain toward the crater. They sent the snooper in and, after a while, followed.