"Won't silence be suspicious?" I asked him. "Don't you suppose they'll begin to wonder, over on the mainland?" "Hell, no. Too dangerous to keep up steady communications to a place that's supposed to be as dead secret as this hunk of rock. You can bet only emergencies would make 'em radio from here." He laughed. "You see, we laid our plans well." * * * * * I had just thought of something, something big. I blurted it out before I'd more than recognized it as a possibility. "Here, Bill, for God's sake, how do we know this thing is ready to leave the earth?" I pointed to the metal moon. "How do we know it won't just come apart when we try to lift it?" "There again," said Cuff, as Skagarach gave him a dirty look and obviously tried to concentrate, "we haven't just presumed, or taken our chances. We've been watching the three-stage rockets--and for two days they've been ready to go in an instant's notice. And two of our fellows reported that they had stand-by orders; they're on the rocket crews," he added smugly. Skagarach said, "I've established contact with Milo. Now will you clamp your goddam jaws shut!" Bill Cuff nearly hit him. I caught Bill's eye and gave a grin, as one who would say, Let the jerk strut, _you_ can handle him later. Then, Bill turning away, I winked at Skagarach. Both ends had to be played against the middle fast and furious in this game. "All right," said Skagarach finally. "Milo will keep touch while they make their moves, and so will Summers from post three. Now we have to get into this thing." Cuff, overbearingly, shouted orders; and the Old Companions scattered to look for the entrance. A strange thing happened then, a weird thing to watch. Two of them remained standing before us as the others left. Cuff shouted at them. They did not move. Skagarach shook them by a shoulder each, and they collapsed without a sound. They had died on their feet, of wounds sustained in the fight. I was glad to see two more gone and at the same time I felt a chill at the tenacity of such a race. A cry announced that the door had been found. We three ran over. There was a portable ramp running up to the sleek side. A door like that in a commercial plane showed its outline above the incline. Eagerly Cuff and several others leaped upward. And now they hit their first real unexpected obstruction, for the door could not possibly be opened from the outside. Not without TNT. It had been closed from within and it stared blindly at the Old Companions and in a moment they began to snarl and curse. I turned away from them so that they wouldn't see my face, which I knew must be hopeful; and across the brilliant field toward us I saw a man and a woman approaching. The man, or rather brute, was the gray-eyed Trutch. The girl was my wife Nessa, and she was walking as though she were in pain. CHAPTER IX I ran and caught her in my arms. "Nessa! What is it?"