he radio gave its hum of life, and a voice came through.

"We have orders from space police not to escort you through, to turn you
back."

"This is an E ship, with an E on board. His command is to come through,"
Tom said.

"I just work here," the voice answered as if it were bored and tired. "I
take my orders from Space Control."

Tom looked over at Louie. Louie apparently caught the look out of a
corner of his eye, and impatiently waved a finger not to bother him. His
other hand was speeding through the movements of manipulating the
astrocalculator. Then he nodded his head, still not looking up, and the
co-ordinates flashed in front of Frank. Now, as rapidly as Louie, Frank
set up the pattern of the jump band.

"I take my orders from the E's," Tom answered in a voice that matched
the boredom, tiredness. Then with a nod from Frank, "Now!" he said.

There was silence again.

"It's going to add at least an hour," Louie complained. "I've got to
pick my way through this muck."

"We've got time now," Tom answered easily. "Not likely they can find us
out here, away from the regular lanes."

"Not unless we run across a prowl ship," Louie said. "You know there's
some smuggling, and now and then a shipping company thinks it can beat
the rap, not pay the toll, by doing the same thing we're doing. The
prowl patrol is on to all the tricks. We're not the first ones to try
it."

"Just keep figuring, Louie," Tom said.

"All right, all right!" Louie quarreled back.

Tom looked at Cal and grimaced.

"Louie's all right," he said. "Just has to complain."

"I'm sure of it," Cal answered with a grin.

It took closer to two hours. They had no way of knowing how many times
the space police had made a fix on their position only too late to catch
them hovering there. There must have been some fix made and a pretty
careful calculation of where they could go next, for as they neared the
outer moons of Jupiter the radio crackled into life again.

"This is your last warning. We intend to board you and take over. We
will disintegrate your ship if you resist."

Cal took the microphone in his own hand to answer.

"We intend to keep going," he said. "This is a jurisdictional dispute
between the attorney general's office and E.H.Q. We will not allow you
to board us, and I suggest you get confirmation of orders to
disintegrate us directly from the attorney general in person. Meanwhile
you can pass the buck to your Saturn patrol if