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“General Margrave here, Straut. I’m glad you’re back on your feet. There’ll be some scientists from the State University coming over. Cooperate with them. You’re going to have to hold things together at least until I can get another man in there to—”

“Another man? General Margrave, I’m not incapacitated. The situation is under complete control—”

“It is, is it? I understand you’ve got still another casualty. What’s happened to your defensive capabilities?”

“That was an accident, sir. The jeep—”

“We’ll review that matter at a later date. What I’m calling about is more important right now. The code men have made some headway on that box of yours. It’s putting out a sort of transmission.”

“What kind, sir?”

“Half the message—it’s only twenty seconds long, repeated—is in English. It’s a fragment of a recording from a daytime radio program; one of the network men here identified it. The rest is gibberish. They’re still working over it.”

“What—”

“Bryant tells me he thinks there may be some sort of correspondence between the two parts of the message. I wouldn’t know, myself. In my opinion, it’s a threat of some sort.”