And in five minutes he found the device he was hunting.
"Slough!" he shouted, in the bull's roar that once had nearly drowned out the Red guns in Korea. "Slough, come here!" And the small man, who had been six steps away, bounded to his side with his blue eyes wide in astonishment. "Is this it?" asked Trace fiercely. "Am I right, is this it?"
Slough glared at the small recess, and said, "Aha!" It was an intricate and highly specialized form, if he was any judge, of the resonant cavity magnetrons with which he had worked often in the past. He said so, and Trace nodded. "Okay. Now we gimmick it."
"Can I help?" asked the midget, eager as a boy.
"You're damn right. My fingers are too big to get into all the crannies. You do what I tell you; get in behind the tube, like so, with your index finger...."
As Trace ordered and Slough obeyed, the others came round them, still alert for raiders, but eager to listen to the mysterious words which came, sharp and intense, from the sergeant's lips. Now and then Slough would disagree, and they'd argue; Bill began to fidget with apprehension. The words were Greek to him.
"But if we lead in the wire from this other thing, which has got to be the fuel feed—"
"Why must it be? We don't know it is. I say build up the frequency of oscillation until—"
"Well, then, stick your damn fingers over here and hold this steady while I—"