“A shoe?”
“No. Only an extension to a shoe. A pair of them would made a dwarf look like a tall, thin man,” she explained.
“And you’ve seen such a man?” he asked.
“Three times.” Gale told of her adventures with the tall, thin man in the temple back at the city, and of the other times she had seen him.
“Looks as if the Woman in Purple and the Black Dwarf who is sometimes a tall, thin man, were on your trail. But that,” the colonel straightened up in his chair, “That’s not why I sent for you. Tonight,”—he leaned forward to speak in a whisper—“Tonight at one A.M. is the Zero-hour. The big push starts then.” His eyes gleamed.
For a full moment Gale stared at him in awed silence. Then, speaking with an effort, she said: “I—I wish you luck.” She put out a hand. He gripped it hard.
“It means a lot to me.” His voice was almost solemn. “That other time we did our best, but always we had too little, too late.”
“But now—”
“Now we’ve got everything—tanks, guns, men, airplanes—everything. We’ll beat the tar out of them. I wondered,”—again he leaned forward, “if you’d like to go along?”
Gale stared, but said never a word. “It’s been hard to arrange.” His voice rumbled. “But I’ve got it all fixed.”