Scrambling up a steep hillside with his face hardened into granite, Thorn drew that from his pocket again. Crossing a hill-top, he stripped off his coat.
He traveled at the highest speed he could maintain, though it seemed painfully deliberate. An hour after he had started, he was picking up small round pebbles wherever he saw them in his path. By the time the tall, bulbous tower was in sight he had picked up probably sixty such pebbles, but no more than ten of them remained in his pockets. They, though, were smooth and round and even, perhaps an inch in diameter, and all very nearly the same size. And he carried a club in his hand.
He went down the last slope openly. The television lenses on the tower would have picked him out in any case, if Kreynborg had repaired the screen. He went boldly up to the rocket-ship.
"Kreynborg!" he called. "Kreynborg!"
He felt himself being surveyed. A door came open. Kreynborg stood chuckling at him with a pocket-gun in his hand.
"Ha! Just in time, my friend! I haff been fery busy. Der Com-Pub fleet is just due to pass in refiew abofe der welcoming United Nations combat-squadrons. I haff been gifing them last-minute information and assurance that der domes of force are solid and can hold forefer. I haff a few minutes to spare, which I had intended to defote to der fair Sylva. But—what do you wish?"
"I'm offering you a bribe," said Thorn, his face a mask. "A billion dollars and immunity to cut off the outer dome of force."
Kreynborg grinned at him.
"It is too late. Besides being a traitor, I would be assassinated instantly. Also, I shall be Commissar for North America anyhow."
"Two billion," said Thorn without expression.