ieve it! Please believe it!"

"What have they done to you?" he repeated terribly.

"What have they done to the world?" demanded Jill. "They've made every
nation look to us as the defender of their freedom. And we are!
They've made everybody ready to fight against more monsters if they
come, and to fight against men if they try to enslave them with the
terror beam or anything else! Would traitors have done that?"

Lockley knew that he had to decide. It was an unbearable
responsibility. He was not convinced, even by Jill. But he was no
longer certain that he'd been right.

"Why didn't you kill me?" he demanded. "I could have been shot down
from a distance. You didn't have to come close to talk to me. If the
rocket blew, what would it matter?"

"You've got a protection against the terror beam," said the general
matter-of-factly. "So have we. But ours weighs two tons. Yours can be
carried without being a burden. And--" his eyes went to the unlikely
cheese grater over Lockley's shoulder--"and yours detonates
explosives. If we can equip the world with those, Lockley, we'll have
peace!"

Lockley thought of a decisive test. He grimaced.

"You want me to risk being a traitor! All right, what's in it for me?
What am I offered?"

The general shrugged, his eyes hardening. Vale spread out his hands.
Sattell snorted. Jill moistened her lips. Lockley turned upon her.

"You want me to believe," he said harshly. "What do you offer if I
turn over the thing to these men you say are honest men and neither
spies or traitors. What do you offer?"

She stared at him. Then she said quietly, "Nothing."

Lockley hesitated once more, for a long instant. But that was the
right answer. Nobody who'd been bought or bribed or frightened into
being a traitor would have thought of it.

"That," said Lockley, "by a strange coincidence happens to be my
price."

He ripped away a wire. He flung the queer combination of pocket radio
and cheese and nutmeg graters to the general.

"I'll explain later how it works," he said wearily, "--if I haven't
made a mistake."

* * * * *

After a suitable time the general came to him. Lockley was convinced,
now. The reaction of the men who'd been guards and truck drivers and
the like was conclusive. They regarded him with a certain cordial
respect which was not the reaction of either traitors or invaders.

"We've been checking that little device, Lockley," said the general