a mutiny. We don't want to turn anything over
to the Mekinese--after all, no matter what the king has commanded, once
the fleet had lifted off, there can be no punishment if we destroy our
planes and blast our equipment! Will you give us an unofficial--"

Bors broke in quickly.

"I may be able to give you a chance at a Mekinese cruiser. Can you lend
me a plane with civilian markings and a pilot who's a good photographer?
I'll need a magnetometer to trail, too. There's a rather urgent
situation coming up."

The men stared at him.

He explained the possibility of a Mekinese space-cruiser lying in fifty
fathoms off Cape Farnell. He did not say where the information came
from. Even to men as desperate as these, Talents, Incorporated
information would not seem credible without painstaking explanation.
Bors was by no means sure that he believed it himself, but he wanted to
so fiercely that he sounded as if some Mekinese spy or traitor had
confessed it.

The feeling of tenseness multiplied, but voices grew very quiet. No man
spoke an unnecessary word. In minutes they had made complete
arrangements.

When the atmosphere-flier took off down the runway, wholly deceptive
explanations were already being made. It was said that the
atmosphere-fliers were to load bombs for demolition because the king was
being asked for permission to bomb all mines and bridges and railways
and docks that would make Kandar a valuable addition to the Mekinese
empire. Everything was to be destroyed before the conquerors came to
ground. The destruction would bring hardship to the citizens--so the
story admitted--but the Mekinese would bring that anyhow. And they
shouldn't profit by what Kandar's people had built for themselves.

The point was, of course, to get bombloads aboard planes with no chance
of suspicion by spy or traitor of the actual use intended for them.
Meanwhile, Bors flew in an atmosphere-flier which looked like a private
ship and explained his intentions to the pilot, so that the small plane
did not go directly to the spot five miles offshore that the mysterious
visitors had mentioned, to make an examination of the sea bottom.
Instead, it flew southward. It did not swing out to sea for nearly fifty
miles. It went out until it was on a line between a certain small island
where many well-to-do people had homes, and the airport of the planet's
capital city. Then it headed for that airport.

It flew slowly, as civilian planes do. By