woman and she never opens her mouth to give me any sass!"

The four spacemen laughed at Shinny's obvious indignation.

"Now come on!" he growled. "Let's eat. I'm hungry!"

Refusing to allow them to get near Molly, Shinny began pushing food into
slots, compartments, turning on switches and punching buttons. In the
cozy living room, Strong relaxed while the three cadets played with the
Venusian wolfhound. Finally Shinny announced dinner and they fell to
with gusto. There wasn't much talk during the course of the meal. Strong
and the boys felt that Shinny would let them know when he was ready.

Finally the meal was over. Shinny sprawled in his chair, lit his pipe,
then looked at his guests, his eyes twinkling. "All right, me friends, I
think you've held back long enough. Let's have it."

Strong immediately told the old spaceman the entire story, from Wallace
and Simms' false concession at the exposition to the present.

"You see, Nick," he concluded, "with an adjustable light-key enabling
them to open any lock in the solar system, nothing is safe. Personally,
I think it's only because they haven't a larger or faster ship and
aren't better armed that they haven't tried more daring piracy. They'll
reach that point soon, though. They've already robbed four ships for
arms alone."

"I'll do anything I can to help you, Captain," said Shinny. "What is it
you want to know?"

"We suspect that Wallace has a secret hide-out in the asteroid belt,"
said Strong. "Since you once prospected the asteroids with him I thought
you might know where the hide-out is."

Shinny grew reflective and knocked the ashes out of his pipe before he
answered. "That was a long time ago, Captain. More'n ten years. And Gus
Wallace was a real square spaceman then. He didn't turn bad until after
we split up and he met that other feller."

"What other fellow?" asked Strong.

Skinny paused. There was a hard glint in his eyes. "Bull Coxine!" He
spat the name out as though it had left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Coxine!" exclaimed Strong.

"You heard me," snorted Shinny. "Bull Coxine and Gus Wallace got
together after me and Wallace lost our stake hunting for uranium
pitchblende in the asteroids and split up. Next thing I heard, him and
Coxine was mixed up in that business up on Ganymede when the Credit
Exchange was held up."

Strong's face had turned the color of chalk. "Coxine!" he repeated under
his breath.

Noticing Strong's reaction to Shinn