"What in heaven's name were you doing with those two men?" Egavine
inquired, twitching his eyebrows disapprovingly up and down. The doctor
was a tall, thin man in his forties, dressed habitually in undertaker
black, with bony features and intense dark eyes. He added, "They
appeared to be unconscious ... and fettered!"

"They were both," Dasinger admitted. "I've confined them to their
cabin."

"Why?"

"We had a little slugfest in the control section a few minutes ago. One
of the boys was beating around on our pilot, so I laid him out, and she
laid out the other one when he tried to get into the act with a knife.
She says the original dispute was a Fleet matter ... in other words,
none of our business. However, I don't know. There's something decidedly
fishy about the situation."

"In what way?" Egavine asked.

Dasinger said, "I checked over the crew quarters for weapons just now
and found something which suggests that Willata's Fleet is much more
interested in what we're doing out here than we thought."

Egavine looked startled, peered quickly along the passage to the control
section. "I feel," he said, lowering his voice, "that we should continue
this discussion behind closed doors...."

"All right." Quist, a bandy-legged, wiry little man with a large bulb
of a nose and close-set, small eyes, moved back from the door. Dasinger
went inside. Egavine pulled the door shut behind them and drew a chair
out from the cabin table. Dasinger sat down opposite him.

"What did you find?" Dr. Egavine asked.

Dasinger said, "You know Miss Mines is supposed to be the only Fleet
member on board who speaks the Federation's translingue. However, there
was a listening device attached to the inside of the cabin communicator
in the crew quarters. Its settings show that the Willata Fleet people
have bugged each of the Mooncat's other cabins, and also--which I think
is an interesting point--the control section. Have you and Quist
discussed our project in any detail since coming aboard?"

"I believe we did, on several occasions," Egavine said hesitantly.

"Then we'd better assume Taunus and Calat knew that we're looking for
the wreck of the Dosey Asteroids raider, and ..."

Egavine put a cautioning finger to his lips. "Should we...?"

"Oh, no harm in talking now," Dasinger assured him. "I pulled the
instrument out and dropped it in my cabin. Actually, the thing needn't
be too serious if we stay on guard. But of course we shou