Ciel's voice said, "Don't worry, darling, we'll explain everything. And when it's all over it will be for the best. You'll see that it will."
"All right, everybody," said Pell, half-belligerently, "what's the big idea?"
"Big idea is right," Larkin's voice came back. "The biggest that ever hit the human race. And as Ciel says we'll explain it all in a moment. But first I'd like your word that you won't be foolish and make any kind of a struggle. If you'll promise that you can come in the other room here and we can all talk face to face."
Pell frowned. "I don't know—I'm not so sure I can honestly promise that."
"Suit yourself, then. A few minutes from now it won't make any difference anyway."
"Will you stop being so damned mysterious and tell me what it's all about?"
Larkin's voice laughed. "Very well. I haven't had much chance to tell about it, frankly. And I think you'll agree we've rather neatly kept our parts under cover—until you got dangerously close to the answer, anyway."
"Until I got close?"
"Certainly. Doc Wilcox's office on the moon was perhaps our one weakness in the whole set-up. How you managed to stumble on to that, I'll never know—your luck must have been with you."
"It wasn't luck, Larkin, it was a hunch."