"We've got to have them. The
_Planetara_, upon such an important voyage as this, might be watched."

"No doubt it is," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the
passwords. When we are in control of this ship...."

It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the
_Planetara_? Now? It seemed so.

"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them," Moa was saying. "When we get him
out--"

"Hahn is to do that, at the signal." Miko added, "George could do it
better, perhaps."

And then I heard George Prince for the first time, "I'll try."

"No need," Miko said unexpectedly.

I could not see what had happened. A look, perhaps, which Prince
could not avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless
saw it, and the Martian's hot anger leaped.

Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"

And Moa, "Let him alone, you fool! Sit down!"

I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow--a cry, half suppressed,
from George Prince.

Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating
me--frightened!"

I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart,
and Miko taunting him:

"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"

Moa: "Hush!"

"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else,
George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing
for her but love. If you had not interfered--"

This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in
from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle,
Anita had taken the shot instead of George.

"I did not even know I had hit her," Miko was saying. "Not until I
heard she was dead." He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I had
hit, George. And I will tell you this: you hate me no more than I hate
you. If it were not for your knowledge of ores--"

"Is this to be a personal wrangle?" Rankin interrupted. "I thought we
were here to plan--"

"It is planned," Miko said shortly. "I give orders, I do not plan. I
am waiting now for the moment--" He checked himself.

Moa said, "Does Rankin understand that no harm is to come to Gregg
Haljan?"

"Yes," Rankin said. "And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannot
make Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate."

"I know enough to check on them," Miko said grimly. "They will not
fool me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch of
sulphuric--" His laugh was gruesome. "It makes the most stubborn, v