The ship had taken off at noon, Eastern Standard Time. At only a little after sundown the pit was emptied. Outside the earthen cradle there were still a great many fumbling or delayed individuals. A fair number had run out of gasoline in the traffic jam, idling their motors for hours while creeping more slowly than a snail toward the highways. But there were others. Important ones. In the brightly lighted glass-enclosed part of the grandstand, informal but detailed negotiations still went on between at least one ambassador from behind the iron curtain and some prominent politician from behind a bamboo screen. They talked with great care, but they talked. Doubtless they agreed on something or other.
But there were still many thousands of ordinary citizens who hadn't left, and some who couldn't. There had been crashes in the traffic jam. There were bent axles and smashed radiators. Some had had to telegraph for money to get home when what they had brought was lost or stolen. And of course there are some people who simply hang around where something important has taken place. Not all of them are admirable.
Hackett went to get his car. It was a mile and a half from the grandstand, and its contents would not be particularly safe overnight. He and Lucy intended to stay on here until something had been decided. The discoveries in the garbage pit couldn't be made public, of course, but something had to be done about them. Since Hackett was responsible for them, he waited to see what action would be taken. It wouldn't be revelation of the discoveries to a waiting world, though! Most people wouldn't believe them. They'd consider the revelations as attempts to rob them of dreams about to come true. They'd rage because such things were said, not even considering whether or not they were true. Yet something had to be done.
For one thing, Hackett needed to sort out his own thoughts. He'd been ashamed of hating the Greks because they classed him as incapable of learning their sciences. But they'd lied about that. They must have! They'd lied about their crew. There'd been many more than forty or fifty Aldarians on the ship. There'd been members of both sexes, and children as well, and they weren't aspiring students. The Greks had lied about them.
They'd lied about being so grateful to Lucy and himself. The crewman on whose behalf they claimed to feel gratitude—they'd tortured and killed him, and then others. The Greks had gone to great pains to try to locate the man and woman who might know something about whatever it was that had made them murder members of what—-it was blindingly clear now— the Greks considered an inferior race.
It was no less clear that the Greks considered men an inferior race, too. Their intentions could not be benign. They could not be philanthropic, as the world believed. It must be that they had some purpose they'd kept humanity from suspecting. It was probable to the point of certainty that they classed humans and Aldarians together. It was now unthinkable that they'd taken so much trouble to enlighten and civilize mankind, only to go away with nothing to show for their trouble.
So Hackett went to get his car while some conclusion was reached on these matters by persons in high positions. He meant to move his car to a better-lighted position where it would be safer. An FBI man went along with him. They crossed the now nearly open spaces that had been used for parking some hundreds of thousands of cars. The ground was inches deep in dust. If there'd been rain today, it would have been knee deep in mud.
"I still don't see how you figured it," said the FBI man. "Nobody else had the germ of an idea there was anything wrong with the Greks, except they were so generous."
"They classed me as a fool," said Hackett tiredly, "and they classed some fools above me. So I suspected that maybe they lied. If they lied about me, they might lie about other matters."
He paused.
"The trouble was to find a test to prove it. It occurred to me that they mightn't really be interested in us at all. And if so, it shouldn't occur to them that we might be interested in them, aside from what we could get out of them. But we were interested. We'd like to know all sorts of things. Even undignified things. And I remembered what Clark had found out about the ancient Britons when he dug up their kitchen middens —which are really garbage heaps. So I thought it might be useful to examine their garbage. I suggested it to Clark. He liked the idea. So now we've all got cold chills running up and down our backs, instead of feeling pious and happy and confident that soon we won't have to do anything useful and can become permanent loafers."
Then he said abruptly, "There's my car."
A man knows his own car even in the darkness, especially if it's a few years old. Hackett's car was practically alone in a great emptiness in which rarely more than one stalled car was visible from any one spot. It was dark now. As Hackett moved toward his car, a figure came out of the dimness. There were no lights except those far away at the grandstand, and here and there headlights or battery lights where a car was being worked on.
The figure called, "Hey! Have you seen a Daimler roadster over that way? I can't find my car!"
The FBI man said, "No, we haven't seen it. It's hard to pick out a car with no lights, though."
"I can do it," said the man's voice. "What're you looking for?"
Hackett named his car's make and year. The nearly invisible man said instantly, "You're almost on top of it. Keep heading the way you are!" Then he said, gratified, "Ah, here's mine!"
He moved away and was lost in the darkness. The FBI man said, "That's queer!"
"What's queer?"
"He knew where your car was."
A car started up. As soon as its motor was running it rolled swiftly away. The FBI man said, "That's not a Daimler, but he drove it away. This is yours?"
Hackett nodded, and then stopped.
"I've got a crazy idea," he said. "It's as crazy as the idea that the Greks aren't nice people, after all the pleasant things they've done for us. Wait here, will you?"
The FBI man, puzzled, remained where he was. Hackett went to the car. It was his, of course. He opened the door, then reached in very carefully and switched on the lights. The instrument board cast some illumination into the front part of the car. Hackett came back. The FBI man heard him tearing cloth. He seemed also to be grinding his teeth.
The FBI man said, "Well?"
"My transmission—my gearshift," said Hackett, "is set in park. And I never use park. I leave my car fixed in low when I get out of it. Have you got a handkerchief?"
"Yes, but—"
Hackett showed him, in the vague reflected light of his car's headlights pointing elsewhere, that he was making a cord out of strips of torn handkerchief. The FBI man hesitated and then handed over his own.
"I think you're—"
"Showing signs of a delusion of persecution," said Hackett grimly. "Yes. But the Greks did want to talk to Lucy and me. I don't know what they'd have done if they'd found us, but I'm glad we stayed hidden out."
"But still—"
Hackett began to tear the second handkerchief into strips.
"In all history," he observed savagely, "there's never been a would-be conqueror who couldn't find men ready to be traitors in the country he meant to overrun. I'm talking wildly, but if you can think of anything wilder than we have to believe after what that garbage pit contained, name it!"
He went back toward the car. After an instant, the FBI man followed him.
He said urgently, "Maybe I can help. I know something about booby traps!"
Hackett said doggedly, "Somebody's shifted the gear lever to park, where it has to be if the engine's to start. Lucy and I would both be in the car with the engine running before I put the transmission into drive. So if anything is going to happen, it'll be when the gear is changed from park to drive."