"And there's hell poppin' there, I'm bettin'! That Headquarters lad didn't tell much—he wouldn't be worth a dime on a newscast—but I gathered there was somethin' doin'."
He had spoken more to himself than to his companion who had been a silent listener to the incoming orders. But the Infant replied in his own peculiar way.
"The one you saw," he said inquiringly: "he did his dirty work with a little rod or tube, you said?"
With an effort, O'Rourke brought his thoughts in line with the question. "Oh, you mean the man-thing I saw in Stobolsk? Yes, that's right; he had a thing like a gun."
"And he held it in his hand?"
"In the big paw that passed for a hand, yes!"
"All right! Now think carefully, Danny, and tell me: was there anything fastened to it—a wire, perhaps—a connection of some kind with the ground?"
O'Rourke stared at the pink and white face of the cherub who sat with him in the control room of a rocket-ship that threw itself like a red meteor across the high skies. "You're a bit of a devil, yourself," he said wonderingly at last. "How in the names of the Saints did you know? Yes, there was a wire, and I had forgotten it myself. It hung down, I remember, from the butt of the thing. But not to the ground. Infant—you missed it there; 'twas looped back like into the folds of the damn blue nightie he wore."
"And then went to the ground," said the Infant imperturbably, "—through his shoes most likely; or, if the robe was metal, that may have dragged on the ground instead."