And so on. Bill was certain that it would never end, that they must be caught at sunrise by an investigating party of the green aliens; but suddenly the midget and the soldier were moving off from the control banks, looking at each other with expressions half smug and half fearful. "Let's get out," said Trace abruptly.
"What did you do?" asked Jane Kelly, as they hurried through the rooms toward the entrance port.
"Gimmicked it," said Trace. His hand fell on her arm and squeezed reassuringly. "The electronic device is now altered so it'll build up an intolerable frequency; it's also connected with the thing we think is the fuel feeder, and with a row of buttons we're almost certain connect with the blasting rays."
They reached the port. "In other words," prompted Jane, "what?"
"In other words, when the ships are set to zoom old Earth into the sub-space subways, this disk is going to blow sky-high; and since they're all connected in series electronically, the whole goddam fleet will explode simultaneously."
They wriggled through the short passage, dropped to the ground. It was very dark on the plain. Patches of snow on the ground showed dark shapes of tree and bush and boulder; after the green light of the saucer, this outer world was dim and full of illusions. Jane thought she saw a Graken approaching, and stifled a scream when she realized it was the shadow of a swooping owl. She said loudly, "I don't like it."
"What?" asked Trace. They were standing in the shadow of the saucer, indecisive.
"I don't like this. It's too easy. It's a let-down." She grasped him by the arms, and he, startled, looked down into her face that was a lovely softened blur in the night. "I'm half Irish too, Trace Roscoe, half pure black Irish; that's the Kelly in me. And I tell you plain, I feel wrong about this. It can't happen so pat, you can't just change a wire or two, hook up this and attach that, and foil the kidnapping of a whole world. There's something wrong, there's a thing missing that's vital."
"Baby," he said, so low that no one heard but the girl, "I can tell you what it is. It's a security on this. Because there's about one chance in a thousand that what we did will work like we want it to. That machinery's out of this world. Half of what we did I can't explain to myself, even. We just made a purblind stab at bollixing the deal."
"It's something else. You're forgetting something. Oh, Trace, Trace," she cried suddenly, gripping him savagely in her anguish, "I know! It's that there's no crew in this saucer, and they aren't coming to fight us! That means they've either taken the earth into their galaxy already, or else that they'll do it without bothering about this saucer—and then where will your fine plan be?"