"About an hour."
"Seen anyone—or anything?"
Trelawney regarded him quizzically, shook his head. "Not a thing."
"I won't waste time with too many questions just now," Dowland said. "The laboratory is locked, and the machine you started in there apparently is still in operation. Your brother was found outside the laboratory yesterday morning, and may be dead or dying of internal radiation burns. He was alive and didn't seem to be doing too badly when I left him and Miss Trelawney in the house last night to go looking for you. I had to drug Miss Trelawney—she isn't a very cooperative person. She should still be asleep.
"Now, if I hadn't showed up here just now, what did you intend to do?"
"I intended to stop the machine, of course," Trelawney said. His expression hadn't changed while Dowland was talking. "Preferably without involving the Solar Police Authority in our activities. But since you've now involved yourself, I urgently suggest that we go to the laboratory immediately and take care of the matter together."
Dowland nodded. "That's what I had in mind, Trelawney. Technically you're under arrest, of course, and you'll do whatever has to be done in there at gun point. Are we likely to run into any difficulties in the operation?"
"We very probably will," Trelawney said thoughtfully, "and it's just as probable that we won't know what they are before we encounter them."
Dowland stood up. "All right," he said, "let's go. We'll stop off at the house on the way. I want to be sure that Miss Trelawney isn't in a position to do something thoughtless."