On the vision plate, Earth swung into view. The hitherto unseen side of the moon was facing it. What a furore must be upsetting both amateur and professional astronomers at home! Only a thin crescent was Earth now, with a vast dim area lighted only by moonlight from here.
Soon there'd be a brilliant circle up there, a circle ten miles in diameter, sharp against the near-blackness. And, if Peterson won, it would close in gradually until there would be a searing, blazing speck consuming everything within its one mile circle. Not if Bonwitt could stop it. The super's foot, he saw, was nearing the secret button.
The sense of swaying motion ceased; the moon once more was still, ominously so. Earth rushed forward in the viewplate as the magnification of the radio telescope was multiplied. Peel depressed a lever and, in slightly more than a second of time, there flashed a circle of sunlight that enclosed nighttime New York City and its environs. What a panic this must be starting! Peterson's foot moved suddenly. In the same instant, Bonwitt flung himself upon him, slamming him to the floor.
Peterson's foot slipped suddenly. In the same instant Bonwitt flung forward, slamming him to the floor.
"Peel! Peel!" he yelped, fighting to keep the maniac's hands from his pistols. "He'll kill you all. Believe me, Peel!"
Then, amazingly, there was the screaming hiss of a lunar weapon. Peterson's head exploded almost in his face with brilliant pyrotechnics. Peel had killed the man and was standing there grinning in a most friendly manner, pistol holstered, waiting for the engineer to rise.
"Thanks, good friend," Peel was saying. "We knew he traitor but not find machine. Pauchek learn some but not know all. You fix."