He eyed the panting engineer sharply and was apparently satisfied, for he thrust the two pistols in his belt. But he wasn't taking any chances with the powerful and alert Bonwitt; he'd been quick to snatch that second pistol out of reach during the fight.
The succeeding days were nightmares of uncertainty to Bonwitt. Under Peterson's eye constantly, no way of getting the upper hand over the man occurred to him. And, could he have done that, he'd still have the Selenites to account to. Besides, even if he could remove Peterson and get himself away, there was little time left in which to do it. It was self-preservation now.
The big geared down motor was already starting to churn the mercury in the crater above into rotation. Its starting torque must be terrific to get that huge mass of metal in motion. Even to think of so enormous a disc, liquid or solid, in rotation was staggering; the speed must be not in revolutions per minute but a fraction of one turn in that terrestrial measure of time. For, even at one revolution per minute, the peripheral speed of the mass would be 31.416 miles a minute. Not only an impossible figure but far in excess of that needed.
Time fled on wings. Bonwitt did his best to locate the supersonic wave generator. If he could find this and warn Peel he might circumvent Peterson and perhaps earn from the brown men a gratitude that would pave the way for Earth's acceptance of them as colonists.
The more he contacted them the more he liked the little brown folk and the more he sympathized with their wish to get to the good green Earth. Essentially harmless, they were most admirable in their manner of living and considerate in their relations one to the other.
Undoubtedly, New York had long since known of the absence of four important men from the Lunar workings. By now, quite likely, they had sent over one of the transports to learn what was wrong. But nothing could be done from there; they didn't even know of inner Luna.
Bonwitt's nerves drew tautly near the breaking point. Peterson was waiting until the last minute to loose his supersonic vibrations on the unsuspecting brown folk. He'd have to wait till the moon had turned over and the beam of reflected sunlight was directed earthward. For the huge machines necessary to these important preliminaries needed many men in their operation. After that, these men could be dispensed with. One man could operate the final controls; one could blast out an entire city if he wished; one could operate the ethertype and make terms. Two were better; perhaps that was why Bonwitt was still alive.
All too quickly came the day. Huge machines hummed and groaned. The great gelid sun began to roll slowly over the inner surface of the satellite. The outer shell of the moon started rotating. Luna was turning over. The great mirror of liquid metal above was revolving at precisely the speed to produce a plane surface, astronomically plane.
Peel was at the final control with Peterson beside him, watching the viewing plate. Bonwitt was there, too. Peel's customary two guards.... The engineer hadn't had time to find the supersonic wave generator. How could Peterson get away to activate it? Bill's eyes dropped accidentally to the man's feet, one of which was edging toward the base of the control pedestal. A hidden button was there; this wholesale murder was to be accomplished by remote control!