e end of my laboratory--and us too, if we were caught
inside."

"Yes," snapped the Hawk. "You imply that the papers were left in
Kurgo's house?"

"I had them in the bottom drawer of the clothes-chest in the room I
always use. The coolies did not take them. At that time they wanted
nothing but me."

Friday, rubbing his woolly crown, interjected: "But, even if Ku Sui's
still alive, he wouldn't know about them papers. Far's _I_ can see,
they're safe."

"No!" Leithgow cried. "That's it! They're not! Follow it logically,
point by point. Assuming that Dr. Ku's alive, he has one point of
contact with us--Kurgo's house, in Porno, where I was kidnapped. He
wants us badly. He will anticipate that one of us will go back to that
house: to care for Kurgo's body, to get my belongings--for several
reasons. So he will radio down--he probably can't come himself--for
henchmen to station themselves at the house and to ransack it
thoroughly for anything pertaining to me. The papers would fall into
their hands!"

"All right," said Carse levelly. "We must get those papers. They will
either be still in the house or in the possession of Dr. Ku's men at
Porno. But whichever it is--_we must get them before Ku Sui does_." He
paused.

"Well," he said, "that means me." He turned and looked down at the old
man and smiled. "There's no use risking the three of us. I'll go to
Kurgo's house myself."

"If the papers are gone, suh?" asked Friday.

"I don't know. What I do will depend on what I discover there."

"But," said Leithgow, "there may be guards! There may be an ambush!"

"I have a powerful weapon. M. S. Unknown, so far; new to Satellite
III. Ku Sui himself supplied it. This space-suit."

* * * * *

The Hawk scanned the "western" sky and began giving brisk orders.

"Eliot, you've got to go to some place of safety until this is all
over. You too, Eclipse, to take care of him. Let me see.... There's
Cairnes, and Wilson.... Wilson's the one. He should be at his ranch
now. You remember it: Ban Wilson's ranch, on the Great Briney Lake?
Right. Both of you will go there and wait. I'll meet you there when
I'm finished. And at that time I'll either have the papers or know
that Ku Sui has found the laboratory."

Again on his feet, the old Master Scientist regarded anxiously this
slender, coldly calculating man who was his closest friend. He was
afraid. "Carse," he said, "you're going back alone into probable