and saw at
once the most likely place.

It was in one corner--a large flat desk, and by it the broad panel of
a radio. Scattered over the desk were a number of papers. In seconds
Carse was bending over them, scanning and discarding with eyes and
hands.

Reports of various quantities of isuan ... orders for stores ... a
list that seemed an inventory of weapons--and then the top page of a
sheaf covered with familiar, neat, small writing. Yes!

Plans and calculations dealing with a laboratory! And, down in the
margin of the first page, the revealing, all-important figure--5,576.34!

He had them--and before Ku Sui! Now, only to get away; out the front
door, and up--up from this trap he was in--up into clean and empty
space, and then to Leithgow and Friday at Ban Wilson's!

But, as the Hawk turned to go, his eye took in a little slip on the
desk, a radio memo, with the name of Ku Sui at its top. Almost without
volition he glanced over it, hoping to discover useful information
about Ku Sui's asteroid--and with the passing of those few extra
seconds his chance for escaping out the door passed too.

Carse's back was partly toward the front door when a voice, hard and
deadly, spoke from it:

"Your hands up!"

* * * * *

The adventurer's nerves twanged; he wheeled; and even as he did so
another voice bit out from the rear door:

"Yes, up! One move and you're dead!"

And Hawk Carse found himself caught between ray-guns held unswervingly
on his body by a man at each door. He was not fool enough to try to
shoot, even though his own gun was in his hand; his best speed would
be slow-motion in the hampering space-suit. He was fairly
caught--because for a few precious seconds he had let his mind slip
from the all-important matter of escaping.

At a shout from someone, both doors filled with men, and thin faces
appeared at the window-ports. Their ray-guns made an impregnable fence
around the netted Hawk.

And then a well-remembered voice, harsh as the man from whom it came,
cut through the room.

"Apparently you're caught, Captain Carse!"

The cold gray eyes narrowed, scanned the room, the blocked doors, the
barricade of guns held by the grim men at doorways and window-ports.

"Yes," Hawk Carse murmured. "Apparently I am."

* * * * *

Lar Tantril, the Venusian chief, smiled. He was tall for one of his
race, even taller than the prisoner he faced. Clad