Toralen Ki turned from the communicator. "Hotang," he called. "They
have the answer!"
"Good. Then our time has not been wasted! For now we have the other one
back."
"The technicians on Tlembo have just given me full and complete
instructions on how to lower the sensitivity of the detector to a
proper level."
"Not shielding?" asked Hotang Lu skeptically.
Toralen Ki laughed. "What manner of shielding would stop the suppressor
wave? Nothing, I know. Absolutely nothing can deflect or stop it."
Toralen opened the detector case and started to fumble inside. He was
not deft, and the tools from the equipment case did not fit his hand.
But in an hour he had made the changes suggested by the technicians on
Tlembo--but aided finally by one of Thompson's crew of technicians who
went to work on the thing with dexterity but complete ignorance of its
principles of operation.
* * * * *
Then with the one detector in operation, in Thompson's ship, the
flight took off and began to take the last measures necessary to the
completion of their task.
Hour after hour they went, out into the space beyond the last planet of
the catmen, and out and out, running slowly so that they would neither
collide with the machine nor overrun it.
It was a matter of days.
"Dead ahead," said Thompson on the communicator.
"Target?" asked Lane.
"Meteor, it looks like."
"Might be camouflage," suggested Downing. "Remember if it must be
destroyed, it is a sign that those who made it knew that it would be
against the wishes of _somebody_."
"Did either of you think that it might be a good thing?"
"You mean the machine might be benign?"
"Yes," answered Thompson.
"That's why you are going to analyze it before we destroy it," said
Lane.
"Yes?"
"If we destroy it and discover it is benign, then we can reproduce it.
Follow?"
"Excellent idea," said Thompson. "Kennebec thought of that?"
"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."