visiphone projector and shot its
invisible beam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored
figures furiously busy at the panels.

"Dirty work at the cross-roads!" he blazed to his captain, man to
man--formality disregarded, as it so often was in the Triplanetary
service. "There's skulduggery afoot somewhere in our primary air! Maybe
that's the way they got those other two ships--pirates! Might have been
a timed bomb--don't see how anybody could have stowed away down there
through the inspections, and nobody but Franklin can neutralize the
shield of the air-room--but I'm going to look around, anyway. Then I'll
join you fellows up there."

"What was it?" the shaken girl asked. "I think that I remember your
saying 'Vee-Two gas.' That's forbidden! Anyway, I owe you my life,
Conway, and I'll never forget it--never. Thanks--but the others--how
about all the rest of us?"

"It was Vee-Two, and it is forbidden," Costigan replied grimly, eyes
fast upon the flashing plate, whose point of projection was now deep in
the bowels of the vessel. "The penalty for using it or having it is
death on sight. Gangsters and pirates use it, since they have nothing to
lose, being on the death list already. As for your life, I haven't saved
it yet--you may wish I'd let it ride before we get done. The others are
too far gone for oxygen--couldn't have brought even you around a few
seconds later, quick as I got to you. But there's a sure antidote--we
all carry it in a lock-box in our armor--and we all know how to use it,
because crooks all use Vee-Two and so we're always expecting it. But
since the air will be pure again in half an hour we'll be able to revive
the others easily enough if we can get by with whatever is going to
happen next. There's the bird that did it, right in the air-room! It's
the chief engineer's suit, but that isn't Franklin that's in it. Some
passenger--disguised--slugged the chief--took his suit and
projectors--hole in duct--p-s-s-t! All washed out! Maybe that's all he
was scheduled to do to us in this performance, but he'll do nothing else
in this life!"

"Don't go down there!" protested the girl. "His armor is _so_ much
better than that emergency suit you are wearing, and he's got Mr.
Franklin's Lewiston, besides!"

"Don't be an idiot!" he snapped. "We can't have a live pirate
aboard--we're going to be altogether too busy with outsiders directly.
Don't worry, I'm not going to give him a break. I'm taking a St