"Mr. Blackhawk, do you realize that what you are doing constitutes mutiny in space and will be dealt with accordingly on Earth? I have officially taken control of Hot Rod at the command of my superiors in the new U.N. Security Control Command."
Mike didn't bother to answer. As the wheel turned him towards Hot Rod again, he said into the radio, "Two minutes."
Elbertson's voice came again. "With this new weapon we control Earth. Don't you realize that you can't stand up against the new people's government of Earth?"
The wheel came around. Mike replied: "One minute."
The lock on the Hot Rod control room opened. Frantic tiny figures burst forth, activated scuttlebugs, and started on the five-mile trek back towards the big wheel.
Mike worked his way back through the clinging net to the catwalk, failing completely to see the tiny figure that dodged beneath the rim as he approached.
Glancing around he carefully scanned over the entire inner rim before stepping out into the sunlight of the catwalk itself. Nothing.
Then a blink caught his eye, and he glanced up toward the observatory. There. In the observatory.
He thought for a minute it was someone signaling, but it was only a touch of sunlight on the shiny surface of the automatic tracking telescope, which was poked out of the open shutters of the airless observatory, still doing its automatic job of recording solar phenomena in the absence of the astronomers.