"Go boom when we leave," Blekeke said.
Maxwell said, "Judas! Everyone will just assume that we and Blekeke and all the cultists have gone boom, too. That's likely to end the investigation right there. Slow it down plenty, at least."
Blekeke nodded applaudingly. "Yups. Is so."
He pushed the wall-button and we had the spaceship scene again. Men and Martians were loading large crates into the port of the ship. The other bulky boxes were being moved across the beach from the opening in the hill.
"Leaving soon now," Blekeke said as he switched the lights on. "That most of vital equipment. Other going boom. We work awful quickness, yups?"
"Just how do you mean?" I asked, more to kill time than out of real curiosity.
"Ha! You not knowing how quickness we work since morning—since getting Maxwell brain band on measure machine Sun Ray...."
Maxwell exclaimed; "Oh, hell, of course! Son of a blunder! That's how you got it."
I had already figured that out, and I guessed it was the information Blekeke had gained from Maxwell's mind that was forcing him to act now, before he had planned.