"But how will we do it?"
"We won't answer them, Bill; we'll keep them guessing."
"But suppose we find that Scranton has let out something that will give them a pretty good idea as to what has happened?"
"That might be bad," answered Rhodes. "But I have every confidence in Scranton's discretion. He will, I feel sure, maintain that utter silence which I requested, until the period designated expires. Possibly he may never tell what he knows.
"I believe, however," he went on, "that we ought to leave the world, our world, a record of the discovery. I will set down to the extent that time permits those things which, in my opinion, will interest the scientific world. As for the discovery itself, the journey and our adventures, yours, Bill, is the hand to record that."
"A record?" I exclaimed. "Then why all this secrecy, this moving under cover of darkness and pussy-footing around if you are going to broadcast the discovery of Drome to the whole world?"
"Because we will then have left that world and the way to this will have been blasted up and otherwise closed."
"That," I told him, "will never keep them out."
"I believe that it will. And, if any one ever does find his way down, he'll never return to the surface; he'll spend the rest of his days here in Drome, even if he lives to be as old as Methuselah. Be sure that you put that into the record! The Dromans are human, and so they are not quite saints. But their land is never going to be infested with plunderers or any of our sons of Proteus if I can prevent it, and I feel confident that I can.
"This closing of the way will not mean complete isolation. At any rate, I hope that it will not. For I feel confident that ere very long the two worlds will communicate with each other by radio. There is a possibility, too, though that possibility is indeed a very remote one, that each will even see, by means of television, the inhabitants and the marvels of the other."