Mark nodded. "Crazy—just crazy! Ours not to reason why—eh, old girl?" He checked his watch again. "Nearing zero."
They donned glasses, oval-shaped, with contoured side pieces an extension of the three-colored lenses. Vertical stripes of purple, orange and green with an opaque sheen on the convex surfaces. The timing and translation controls on the receiver were set to prearranged figures and the lenses lined on a compass bearing.
Each took a cylinder from a padded pouch in their assault belt, about the size of a two-cell hand torch but larger at its base and sloping to a tiny aperture. A thumb-press, a red safety switch and a recessed gun site were the only breaks in its shiny black surface.
They checked watches again. Mark began to count down from ten to zero. "... five, four, three, two, one!"
At that second there appeared in the sky over forty miles away a series of stuttering flashes, as if sunlight was being reflected off the windshields of fast-moving cars. But through the three-colored lenses, each flash could be seen as a different shape. Some shapes repeated themselves more often than others. The relay moved at fantastic speed—so fast that whole words appeared as if some celestial type writer was impressing keys on to the hazy blue paper of the sky.
April and Mark vied with each other in their attempts to read the messages, but the phonetic alphabet used by the Laser Beam Sender had not yet been included in their curriculum and they only managed to decipher a few words in every sentence.
When the relay ceased, they both sent two long and two short flashes into the sky from their own hand beams. It took about five seconds for these flashes to reach the relay area, where they exploded into phonetic letters spelling "okay".
As they removed their glasses, Mark said:
"The range test was impressive. I'm going to have a test of my own."
"Careful," April warned.
"They won't be able to see anything from way down there."
"I didn't mean that, you oaf!"
He smiled at her. "I'll remember your concern for me—in the right place." He moved the red switch, lifted the recessed gun site on the torch body, took aim at a smallish rock some hundred yards away and pressed the button.
The rock exploded with a dull crack. Pulverized stone spurted up in a fan-shaped arc. When it had settled, only a faint depression remained where the rock had been.
Mark moved the safety-catch to "off". They looked at each other steadily, silently. April shivered slightly, then stooped over the laser beam receivers. She opened the slide panels and drew out the purple-orange-green striped film. Mark did the same.
"We could have saved one," said Mark. "But orders is orders. We might have been separated at the time."
On the films were the messages, translated into ordinary words. These read:
"Move in dusk. All forces position 1800 hours. Target area sealed. Avoid or destroy hazards. No wrecking. Repeat: no wrecking. We cover but avoiding inter-in. Delicate."
"Once the department boys get into the act they start pussy-footing around," said April. "Why try to avoid an international incident when the whole darn caboodle down there is directed against all of us?"
Mark shrugged. "The F.B.I. claim that large numbers of genuine foreign nationals—sick people—do actually come to Little Basin. That's why we can't just march on the place. You know how dicey these inter-ins can be. The dipsomatic boys have nightmares about agents shooting one foreign national who is under their protection—which same these sick people are."
"Phooey!" said April. "Sick people might have checked in there one time—when Karadin was building up a front—but not now."
"Don't be bloodthirsty, darling. Read on."
She read on:
"Retreat and contact if infiltration impossible. Major attack set-up discovered Chicago. Suspect others. Keep finger off button. Good luck. A. W."
"Ah—that's better!" said April. "A far more valid reason for no-wrecking attack."
"I think A. W. was pacifying the dipsomatic boys."
"Do you mind not mispronouncing that word? Some of my best friends are diplomats."
"Gertcha!" said Mark. "Most of my best friends aren't. Let 'em be friends with each other—there are enough of them. They don't speak our language, me old darling."
"This finger-off-button bit means that A. W. must be dead sure that Little Basin is their American H.Q."
"And the Chicago bit means even more," said Mark. "With all forces alerted, it's possible they've picked up some lesser agent in Chicago. Maybe more than one. Lesser agents crack easy."
"But they don't always know much."
"Only who tells them to do what, and when."
"So?"
"So A. W. and our Government pals may have cracked the Global Globules alarm system. There won't be anything casual about the way their project swings into major action. To do the greatest harm in the shortest time, they'd have to synchronize the blast-off of their blasted spray—a one-button job for certain."
April nodded pensively. "And dat is down dere?" She pointed.
He chuckled. "Dat is. Tell you something else—dere is someone over dar." He pointed to further around the hills. "I seen him bobbing behind a rock."
"A peeping Tom?"
Mark looked at her, one eyebrow flicked up. "You're kidding, of course?"
She looked away. "Well, I mean—we're not what people might think, and—"
He grabbed her, held her tight. "Darling—you're really human! Let's give Tom an eyeful he won't forget."
She stared at him calmly, her face close to his. She kissed him gently, then said softly:
"Let go of me, you over-sexed rat, or I'll clobber you!"
"At last!" he cried. "At last, the real woman emerges from her glossy career cage!" He too kissed her gently. "You're a sweet bitch. Keep looking over my shoulder."
She lay still. "Yes—yes, I saw a movement. Ah! He's gone now—scuttled up and over the brow of the hill."
Mark looked back and released her. "Now who? Not one of our friends, surely? And it's a powerful long hike from the valley to where he was, so we'd have seen him." Mark pulled out the range glass and twisted the bevel for focus. "He's gone right enough. It's a great big lonely world out there." He switched to the sprawled cluster of buildings below them. "No activity. Strange, y'know. Not seen a soul outside ever since we got here. There's movement inside—can just see shadows through the screens over those picture windows. What is it—off-season for nut hatches?"
She held out her hand for the glass, then laughed. "They must have heard you!"
"I can see them—not to identify though. They look like women."
"They're not," said April firmly. "They're dressed like women, but they're husky men." She lowered the glass, then looked at Mark. "Could be they have spotted us and are putting on a show?"
"Not a chance. We were here before dawn. We've built a natural stone rampart, plus the cover that scrub further down must give us against anyone looking up here." He tapped his chest. "Plus these desert-camouflage track suits which blend perfectly against the background. Why, I couldn't even spot you when I reccied along the ridge." He paused before adding: "But chummy-boy over there might have set them off."