Somebody's radium-dial watch began to glow brightly. The searchers looked at each other and went pale. They hunted frantically, fear making them clumsy.
They found it. Rather—they found them.
The stubby tramp had an adequate if rather clumsy atomic bomb in each of its two holds. The lading of the ship was of materials which—according to theory—should be detonated in atomic explosion if an atomic bomb went off nearby. Otherwise they could not be detonated.
The anonymous tramp-steamer had been headed for the harbor of Naples, whose newspapers—at least those of a certain political party—had been screaming of the danger of an atomic explosion while American warships were anchored there.
It was not likely that two atom bombs and a shipload of valuable secondary atomic explosive had been put on a carefully nameless ship just to be taken for a ride. If this ship had anchored among the American fleet and if it had exploded in the Bay of Naples ...
The prophecies of a certain political party would seem to have been fulfilled. The American ships would be destroyed. Naples itself would be destroyed. And it would have appeared that Europeans who loved the great United States had made a mistake.
It was, odd, though, that this ship was the only one that the Invaders' flying craft had struck with its peculiar weapon.
VI
We humans are rational beings, but we are not often reasonable. Those who more or less handle us in masses have to take account of that fact. It could not be admitted that the fleet had had a fight with a ship piloted by Invaders from another solar system. It would produce a wild panic, beside which even a war would be relatively harmless. So the admiral of the Mediterranean fleet composed an order commending his men warmly for their performance in an unrehearsed firing-drill. Their target had been—so the order said—a new type of guided missile recently developed by hush-hush agencies of the Defense Department. The admiral was pleased and proud, and happy....
It was an excellent order, but it wasn't true. The admiral wasn't happy. Not after battle photographs were developed and he could see how the alien ship had dodged rockets with perfect ease, and had actually taken a five-inch shell, which exploded on impact, without a particle of damage.