That could make sense. Sharing such a secret would be worth all the money and supplies we had poured into England. If America and Great Britain both had a superior long-range missile, it would be the biggest factor I knew for holding off war. But the long ranges involved in Steele’s explanation made the thing incredible. “How are they powered? What fuel do they use?” I asked him. “That’s the one thing I couldn’t get,” said Steele. “This man told me it was the most carefully guarded secret of all. They’ve tapped a new source of power.” “If he means atomic engines,” I said, “I don’t believe it. I don’t think anyone is that far along.” “No, no,” Steele said earnestly, “he said it wasn’t that. And the rest of the story hangs together.” Privately, I thought of two or three holes, but I let that go. “If it’s British,” I said, “do you think we should even hint at it?” “I don’t see any harm,” Steele answered. “The Russians undoubtedly know the truth. They have agents everywhere. It might do a lot of good for American-British relations. Anyway, it would offset any fear that the saucers are Soviet weapons.” “Then you’re not worried about that angle any more?” Steele laughed. “No, but it had me going for a while. It was a big relief to find out the disks are British.” “What’s the disks’ ceiling?” I asked, abruptly. “Oh—sixty thousand feet, at least,” said Steele. After a moment he added quickly, “That’s just a guess—they probably operate much higher. I didn’t think to ask.” Before I hung up, he asked me what I thought, of the British explanation. “It’s certainly more plausible than the Soviet idea,” I said. I thanked him for calling me, and put down the phone. I was tempted to point out the flaws in his story. But I didn’t. If he was sincere, it would be poor thanks for what he had told me. If he was trying to plant a fake explanation, it wouldn’t hurt to let him think I’d swallowed it. When I saw Redell, I told him about Steele. “It does look like an attempt to steer you away from the interplanetary answer,” Redell agreed, “though he may be passing on a tip he believes.” “You think there could be any truth in the British story?” “Would the British risk a hundred-foot disk crashing in some American city?” said Redell. “No remote control is perfect, and neither is a detonator system. By some freak accident, a disk might come down in a place like Chicago, and then blow up. I just can’t see the British—any more than ourselves—letting huge unpiloted missiles go barging around the world, flying along airways and over cities. Certainly, they could have automatic devices to make them veer away from airliners—but what if a circuit failed?” “I go along with that,” I said. “I don’t say the British don’t have some long-range missiles,” Redell broke in. “Every big nation has a guided-missile project. But no guided missile on earth can explain the Mantell case and the others we’ve discussed.”