would say. "Commander O'Brine, this is Foster!"

No, that wouldn't do. Connies would know that Kevin O'Brine commanded the
_Scorpius_, and if they had taken over the Planeteers on the asteroid,
they would also have learned Rip's name. He had to say something that
would identify him beyond a doubt.

The snapper-boat was closing in slowly. Rip knew the pilot and gunner must
be tense, frightened, ready to blast with their guns at the first wrong
move on the asteroid. He groped with his good arm and turned up his helmet
communicator to full volume.

The fighting rocket drew closer, cut in its nose tube, and hovered only a
few hundred feet above the Planeteers.

Rip summoned enough strength to make his voice sharp and clear. His words
sped through space into the bubble of the pilot, echoed in the helmet and
were picked up by the pilot's microphone, then hurled through the
snapper-boat circuit through space to the control room of the cruiser.

O'Brine stiffened as the speaker threw Rip's voice at him, amplified and
hollow-sounding from reverberations in the boat pilot's helmet.

"_O'Brine is so ugly he won't look at his face in a clean blast tube! That
no-good Irishman wouldn't know what to do with an asteroid if he had
one!_"

The commander turned purple with rage. He bellowed, "Foster!"

A junior space officer hid a grin and murmured, "Looks like the Planeteers
still have the asteroid."

O'Brine bent over the communicator and yelled, "Deputy commander! Launch
landing boats. Get those Planeteers and bring them here, under armed
guard. Ram it!"

The snapper-boat pilot through whose circuit Rip had yelled turned to look
wide-eyed at his gunner. "Did you hear that? Throw a light down on the
asteroid. It must have come from there."

The gunner threw a switch and a searchlight port opened in the boat's
belly. Its beam searched downward, swept past, then steadied on two
space-clad figures.

"It worked," Rip said tiredly. He closed his eyes to guard them against
the brilliant glare, then waved his good arm.

Santos called from the cave entrance. "Sir, landing boats are being
launched!"

"Bring out the prisoners," Rip ordered. "Line them up. Planeteers fall in
behind them."

The landing boats, with snapper-boats in watchful attendance, blasted down
to the surface of the asteroid. Spacemen jumped out, awkward at first on
the no-weight surface. An officer glided to meet Rip, and he had a pistol
in his hand.

"It'