The experts hope that the War Department of this country will never need such a weapon. But if it does, it will have it.
But the thing that plagues the experts, that frets the archeologists, that has caused Rocks Malone to tear his hair, is the fact that the weapon was designed to be used by a creature who had six fingers. Not five fingers. Six. And the archeologists are having drizzling fits trying to decide whether there was once a race of six-fingered creatures here on earth, a race that reached tremendous scientific heights, and vanished.
Or was earth once visited by creatures out of space, who left a weapon behind them?
Nobody knows. Possibly nobody will ever know.
But Rocks Malone is preparing to leave for Asia Minor, to dig in the ruins of lost and gone civilizations, searching for another clue to the identity of the lost race.
Penny is going with him.