"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."