nonsense about a space race?"

Again, the murmur filled the room and the men glared accusingly at
Walters. But the commander refused to knuckle down to any show of
arrogance. He fixed a cold, stony eye on the short man. "Mr. Brett," he
snapped in a biting voice, "you have been invited to this meeting as a
guest, not by any right you think you have as the owner of a shipping
company. A guest, I said, and I ask that you conduct yourself with that
social obligation in mind!"

Before Brett could reply, Walters turned away from him and addressed the
others calmly. "Despite Mr. Brett's outburst, his question is a good
one. And the answer is quite simple. The bids submitted by your
companies were not satisfactory in this case because we believe that
they were made in bad faith!"

For once, there was silence in the room as the men stared at Walters in
shocked disbelief. "There are fourteen shipping companies represented in
this room, some of them the most respected in the Solar Alliance," he
continued, his voice edged with knifelike sarcasm. "I cannot find it in
my conscience to accuse all of you of complicity in this affair, but
nevertheless we are faced with one of the most startling coincidences I
have ever seen."

Walters paused and looked around the room, measuring the effect of his
words. Satisfied, he went on grimly, "There isn't enough difference
between the bids of each of you, not _five credits'_ worth of
difference, to award the contract to any single company!"

The men in the room gasped in amazement.

"The bids were exactly alike. The only differences we found were in
operational procedure. But the cost to the Solar Guard amounted to, in
the end, exactly the same thing from each of you! The inference is
clear, I believe," he added mockingly. "Someone stole the minimum
specifications and circulated them among you."

In the shocked quiet that followed Walters' statement, no one noticed
Tom, Roger, and Astro slip into the room. They finally caught the eye of
Captain Strong, who acknowledged their presence with a slight nod, as
they found seats in the rear of the room.

"Commander," a voice spoke up from the middle of the group, "may I make
a statement?"

"Certainly, Mr. Barnard," agreed Walters, and stepped back from his desk
as a tall, slender man in his late thirties rose to address the men
around him. The three Space Cadets stared at him with interest. They had
heard of Kit Barnard. A former Solar Guard