Dugan crawled like a weasel. Manning lost sight of him. He waited with
humming nerves, firing spaced shots into the enemy's log fortress.
Then he noticed he had stopped drawing any return fire. That might mean
things had started happening inside the house, if it wasn't a trick--He
discarded most of his caution and darted into the open, zigzagging
from scanty cover to cover--something must have happened inside--and
flattened against the rustic wall beside one shattered window, just in
time to hear a voice beyond it exclaim hoarsely, "_Gut!_"
That was all he wanted to know. If anything was going _gut_ in
there, it was time Ray Manning got into the picture. He cleared the
window-ledge with automatic level.
There was a big, raftered room, and in the middle of the floor
Eddie Dugan was struggling groggily to get up, while behind him
stood a white-goateed civilian with a wrench, and in front of him a
tough-looking younger man was lifting a rifle.
The two Germans saw the gun in Manning's hands and made a tableau as
they were. It was broken as the burly one's grip relaxed and his Mauser
clattered on the floor.
Manning motioned toward the goatee. "Dr. Kahl? Better drop that," he
advised in German.
The little physicist looked down at his wrench and let it fall with
an expression of disgust. Then he glared at Manning and called him a
couple of names culled from biology rather than physics. "If your man
hadn't caught Wolfgang reloading--As it is, you have interrupted my
work at the most crucial point imaginable--a work that might yet save
the Reich--" He woke up to the nature of his audience, and finished
lamely, "And which is in any case the greatest scientific advance of
all time."
Dugan got shakily back to his feet, scooped up his dropped Browning,
and trained it on Wolfgang. "Is that Kahl?" he inquired sourly. "If I'd
known this guy wasn't the one we had to capture, I'd have let him have
it when I first got the drop on him."
Manning didn't answer. His eyes roved rapidly about the interior, alert
against another surprise entrance; but anybody else on the premises
was lying pretty low. One, in fact, was doing it just under the window
Manning had first fired at. He was no longer a factor.
One end of the room was storage space for the overflow of Kahl's
electrical equipment. Manning recognized some of the articles there and
read the labels on a couple of crates, but they gave him no clue to the
Herr Doktor's world-shaking research. The door behind Kahl was ajar on
a room that, from what showed, might be his laboratory....
* * * * *
They'd taken the required prisoner, and all duty called for now was a
short wait until Intelligence took him off their hands. But Manning's
curiosity was needled. Kahl wasn't modest about whatever he'd done--but
his wrath at the "interruption" was genuine, and there might really be
something here. The soldier in Manning fought a brief battle with the
student, and lost.
"What is this work of yours?" He made his voice authoritatively crisp,
over the automatic's steady muzzle.
Kahl glanced momentarily toward the open door, then glowered at the
American for a long ten seconds. "It is not for barbarian eyes."
"So there's something worth seeing--or a booby trap, maybe?" said
Manning to himself. Aloud he snapped, "Suppose you show us what's in
that room. Ahead of me--no, let Wolfgang go first. Keep him covered,
Eddie!"
Dugan hadn't been able to follow the conversation--his German was
limited to "_Komm heraus mit die Hand in die Luft!_" and a few other
useful expressions from the American Tourists' Phrase Book, 1945
edition--but he didn't question Manning's wisdom. He did a silent and
highly efficient job of shepherding Wolfgang through the doorway, and
stood well aside as Manning followed, preceded by a cowed-looking
physicist.
Manning was all eyes for Kahl's invention; his first impression was
that the room was disappointingly small and bare. There was nothing
that looked like a rocket motor, a guided missile, or even an improved
submarine periscope. But then the American's eyes narrowed as they took
in what was there.
There were no windows, and walls, floor and ceiling were metal or
sheathed with metal. Around them ran what looked like medium-thick
pipes, without openings or discernible use. The only furniture was a
table, supporting a rather fantastic electrical setup--stuff in the
thousands of megacycles, judging by the heavy dielectric tubes and
coils that were just a copper twist or two; that was what Manning had
glimpsed from outside.
Then a movement jerked Manning's gaze back to the prisoners--and he
almost shot the Herr Doktor. For Kahl had contrived to halt near the
apparatus-laden table, had taken one quick step and thrown a switch.
The damage--if damage there was--was already done; that thought stayed
Manning's trigger finger. But nothing seemed to have happened; only
when the contacts had touched the light had flickered briefly, and
something had made a deep humming sound that rose in pitch like an
electric motor starting under load--rose and snapped off in an instant.
But something stayed wrong. The unconscious faculty of observation
that had been sharpened for Manning in shell-smashed towns where the
ability to notice small wrongnesses might keep a man from touching off
a hidden mine told him that.... He tried to read the expressions of the
two Germans. Every wrinkle on Kahl's face beamed crafty triumph. But
his helper's look made Manning blink. Wolfgang's Aryan-blue eyes bulged
with panic. And they were staring past Manning, at the door.
Eddie Dugan broke the tense silence. "Ray--where's the light coming
from?"
That was it! "Watch them!" rasped Manning, and whirled to face the door.
It was ablaze with green-gold sunlight.