leaned forward to ask
harshly: "No chance of a mistake?"

"You saw the detector." The thin gray string of a man behind the desk
answered with chill precision. "No, no possible mistake. These five have
definitely been snooped."

"And two choices among them," Ashe murmured. That was the important
point now.

"I thought these were under maximum security," Kelgarries challenged the
gray man.

Florian Waldour's remote expression did not change. "Every possible
precaution was in force. There was a sleeper--a hidden
agent--planted----"

"Who?" Kelgarries demanded.

Ashe glanced around at his three companions--Kelgarries, colonel in
command of one sector of Project Star, Florian Waldour, the security
head on the station, Dr. James Ruthven....

"Camdon!" he said, hardly able to believe this answer to which logic had
led him.

Waldour nodded.

For the first time since he had known and worked with Kelgarries Ashe
saw him display open astonishment.

"Camdon? But he was sent us by--" The colonel's eyes narrowed. "He must
have been sent.... There were too many cross checks to fake that!"

"Oh, he was sent, all right." For the first time there was a note of
emotion in Waldour's voice. "He was a sleeper, a very deep sleeper. They
must have planted him a full twenty-five or thirty years ago. He's been
just what he claimed to be as long as that."

"Well, he certainly was worth their time and trouble, wasn't he?" James
Ruthven's voice was a growling rumble. He sucked in thick lips,
continuing to stare at the disks. "How long ago were these snooped?"

Ashe's thoughts turned swiftly from the enormity of the betrayal to that
important point. The time element--that was the primary concern now that
the damage was done, and they knew it.

"That's one thing we don't know." Waldour's reply came slowly as if he
hated the admission.

"We'll be safer, then, if we presume the very earliest period."
Ruthven's statement was as ruthless in its implications as the shock
they had had when Waldour announced the disaster.

"Eighteen months ago?" Ashe protested.

But Ruthven was nodding. "Camdon was in on this from the very first.
We've had the tapes in and out for study all that time, and the new
detector against snooping was not put in service until two weeks ago.
This case came up on the first checking round, didn't it?" he asked
Waldour.

"First check," the security man agreed. "Camdon left the base six days
ago. But he has bee