"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.
Then, slowly, the thing appeared to have pattern. Whatever it was, the
output of the slowly-distorting crystals was fed in or out of phase
through filters and transmission bars to the topmost crystal. It was
multi-faceted and obviously not a natural formation. It scintillated
and pulsed rapidly, and the facets gleamed against the lights as the
crystal throbbed in tune with the feeding currents.
"This," said Thompson, "is going to be reproduced later if for no other
reason than just sheer curiosity. Whoever built it is a little ahead of
our time and I want to get caught up. Benign or malignant, it must be
remade and studied."
Then for hours, Thompson's technicians went over the machine with a
fine-tooth comb. Pictures--tridimensional shots, moving pictures,
microtime film, and hand sketches. Technicians measured potentials,
made pictures of wave shapes from the oscilloscope patterns, and drew
endless schematic diagrams. Metallurgists took minute samples of the
metals, of the dielectrics, of the crystals themselves, cutting bits
out with microscopic modine beams.
Then, as they ran out of things to measure, Thompson took one last look
at it. "O.K., fellows," he said, "can you rebuild it?"
"To the last decimal place."
"It's alien," warned Thompson.
"It's still made of metal and crystal."
"O.K." He turned to Toralen Ki and made suggestive motions. He turned
off the main feed line, and the atomics thrummed to a stop. Then he
suggested that now it was off, why didn't they just take it back to
Terra and not bother reproducing it. Toralen Ki shook his head--No. He
waved Thompson to come along, and they left the machine in the meteor
forever.
"I'm finished," said Thompson, "but wait before you blast. The Little
Man seems to want me to confer with him for a moment."
Thompson's ship took off. Toralen Ki emerged from his stateroom with
the instrument. He planted it on a table, turned it on, and strapped
the plate to his forehead. He offered the other one to Thompson.
Thompson understood. He knew that the Little People had a means of
mental communication that augmented their speech. He accepted the
plate and strapped it on his own head.
"Now," said Toralen Ki, "I may at last converse with you and your race."
"What is the machine?" asked Thompson.
"The others--they are all right?"