ed their thanks and hurried up the stairs to Tony's room.
They tried the door, then knocked loudly. There was no answer. They
knocked again, waited, then stared at each other bleakly.

"Now what?" Rick had a feeling that Tony was in danger. He didn't know
why he felt that way when the only news they had was that he had gone
off in a sedan with three men. The workmen hadn't said that he had
fought, or that he had been pulled into the car. He voiced his thoughts
as he followed Scotty to their room.

"That means nothing," Scotty pointed out. "He probably wouldn't argue
with a gun pointing out the window at him. The workmen probably wouldn't
have noticed a pistol barrel."

"You're right, as usual. Well, what now?"

"Call the cops?"

"What would we say? Tony hasn't been gone more than an hour or two, so
far as we know. That's not reason enough to call the cops. We couldn't
tell them about Chahda and what he said. They wouldn't believe any such
stories about their Assistant Secretary of the Interior, and if they
did, they'd probably be afraid to do much about it. If Tony doesn't show
up in another hour or two, we probably ought to call the police. But not
yet."

Scotty had worn a jacket because the morning was cool. But now the room
was warm, and he went to the closet to hang it up.

"Hey, Tony must have taken the earth scanner with him."

Rick was in the act of sitting down on his bed. He bounced up like a
rubber ball. "What? He couldn't have!"

"Well, it's gone. And who else would have taken it?"

"Tony didn't. He hasn't been in this room, except last night when Chahda
was here, and he didn't take the scanner then."

Scotty snapped his fingers. "You gave Angel your key and told him to
clean up!"

Rick slumped down on the bed again. That was it, of course. It had to
be. No one else had had the chance to get the equipment, barring the
possibility that the hotel personnel were dishonest, and there was no
reason to suspect them.

"Then the equipment went with him last night. And we didn't notice until
now. But we would have noticed if it had been gone, wouldn't we? I've
been to the closet a dozen times and so have you."

"Means nothing. I don't know why I noticed just now that the stuff was
gone. But there was nothing to call our attention to it last night or
this morning. Anyway, it was behind my big suitcase--I know. I knocked
the suitcase over when I closed the closet door this morning, and I
didn't stop to