"That looks like a button switch," the general volunteered, reaching into the port.
Winthrop slapped his hand away. "Don't be a fool. The slightest touch might detonate it."
"Guess you're right," the general conceded, turning away. "Montemur, run an extension over here."
Winthrop crawled into the ship, arose, and stared in bitter indecision.
He remembered a blockhouse at Bikini, another at Frenchman's Flat, voices harsh on loudspeakers counting the seconds away to zero. He remembered armed bombs on ghastly, towering frameworks of steel vibrating beneath his touch with the furious kiss of atomic death awaiting the slightest slipping of his fingers.
Get on with it!
He did. The plugs were out. He was faint, drenched with perspiration.
The general was peering intently through the port.
"It's okay now, Bert."
Cautiously the general entered, then turned back with an abrupt gesture. "Montemur," he cried to the Signal Corps major, "the equipment in here is still energized. Take shots of everything. We mustn't chance accidentally disarranging a single circuit. We've perhaps acquired a means of conquering space. We mustn't ruin it through carelessness."