ll us the approximate cost of the cruise?"

"I can haul you to the ninth segment and back for around seven
thousand but that won't leave much leeway for search."

Professor Brandon beamed. "We can just about manage it. And I assure
you very little search will be necessary."

"If you'll give me the planet's location I'll plot a course and give
you an exact figure."

"It is not my intention to seem mysterious, but I'd prefer to give you
that data after blast-off."

* * * * *

Mike scowled and half-rose from his chair. Professor Brandon hastily
drew a pack of yellow bills from his pocket and laid it on the table.
"There are four thousand. I have the rest at the hotel. We shall
demonstrate complete faith in you by paying the seven thousand before
we leave Outer Port."

With that he smiled and arose from his chair. "I guess that concludes
our business at this time. We'll be at the hotel when you wish to
contact us. Come Doree." He herded the girl out quickly and closed the
door.

Nicko chuckled. "Smart old codger. He had you pegged dead to rights."

Mike turned his scowl on Nicko and snapped, "For Christ's sake, speak
Terran!"

Nicko had inadvertently used a Plutonian hill dialect he'd heard once,
this being the hideous little Martian's amazing talent--an instinctive
grasp of all tongues. His lingual talents were a tremendous asset to
Mike but at times they drove him crazy because Nicko might
absent-mindedly use several different tongues during a conversation;
some of which he could not classify himself, having forgotten where he
heard them.

"I said he had you pegged. He knew you were ready to turn him down so
he upped with the mool. He knew once you touched the yellow you'd be
his pup."

"I'm not so damned sure about that--"

Mike Mallison was a big game guide--a life he loved. He was a man of
action and asked nothing better than the perils of his calling; the
stalking of the great Plutonian ice bears; crouching in a Venusian
swamp waiting for the ten-ton lizards to blow slime a hundred feet in
the air and rise from their lava-hot beds; matching wits with the
telepathic Uranian rock wolves, the most elusive beast in the
universe; setting his sights on a Martian jet-bat so some Terran
millionaire could have a new trophy for his game room.

"You're not sure," Nicko was saying in Ganymedian French, "but you'll
stay glued to the mool."

Mike was busy thinking and didn't ask f