y flipped a coin, and the
result was that Ch'ien was allowed to come and go as he pleased, as
though he were nothing more than just another government physicist.

And now he was in the hands of China.

How much did the Chinese know? Not much, evidently; otherwise they would
never have bothered to go to the trouble of kidnaping Dr. James Ch'ien
and covering the kidnaping so elaborately. They _suspected_, yes: but
they couldn't _know_. They knew that the earlier papers meant something,
but they didn't know what--so they had abducted Ch'ien in the hope that
he would tell them.

James Ch'ien had been in their hands now for two months. How much
information had they extracted by now? Personally, Spencer Candron felt
that they had got nothing. You can force a man to work; you can force
him to tell the truth. But you can _not_ force a man to create against
his will.

Still, even a man's will can be broken, given enough time. If Dr. Ch'ien
weren't rescued soon....

_Tonight_, Candron thought with determination. _I'll get Ch'ien
tonight._ That was what the S.M.M.R. had sent him to do. And that's what
he would--_must_--do.

Ahead of him loomed the walls of the Palace of the Great Chinese
People's Government. Getting past them and into the inner court was an
act that was discouraged as much as possible by the Special Police guard
which had charge of those walls. They were brilliantly lighted and
heavily guarded. If Candron tried to levitate himself over, he'd most
likely be shot down in midair. They might be baffled afterwards, when
they tried to figure out how he had come to be flying around up there,
but that wouldn't help Candron any.

Candron had a better method.

* * * * *

When the automobile carrying the People's Minister of Finance, the
Honorable Chou Lung, went through the Gate of the Dog to enter the inner
court of the Palace, none of the four men inside it had any notion that
they were carrying an unwanted guest. How could they? The car was a
small one; its low, streamlined body carried only four people, and there
was no luggage compartment, since the powerful little vehicle was
designed only for maneuvering in a crowded city or for fast, short trips
to nearby towns. There was simply no room for another passenger, and
both the man in the car and the guards who passed it through were so
well aware of that fact that they didn't even bother to think about it.
It never occurred to t