on a trip to Mendez and never
made it any farther than Sirius IV. There, he had vanished. Why? How
could they prove anything?

On the other hand, Turnbull was safe. The letters from Duckworth, plus
his visit to Drawford, plus his acknowledged destination of Sirius IV,
would be enough to connect up both cases if Turnbull vanished. Rawlings
should know he couldn't afford to do anything to Turnbull.

Dave Turnbull felt perfectly safe.

He was in his hotel room at the Mayfair when the announcer chimed, five
hours later. He glanced up from his book to look at the screen. It
showed a young man in an ordinary business jumper, looking rather
boredly at the screen.

"What is it?" Turnbull asked.

"Message for Dr. Turnbull from Rawlings Scientific Corporation," said
the young man, in a voice that sounded even more bored than his face
looked.

Turnbull sighed and got up to open the door. When it sectioned, he had
only a fraction of a second to see what the message was.

It was a stungun in the hand of the young man.

It went off, and Turnbull's mind spiraled into blankness before he could
react.

* * * * *

Out of a confused blur of color, a face sprang suddenly into focus, swam
away again, and came back. The lips of the face moved.

"How do you feel, son?"

Turnbull looked at the face. It was that of a fairly old man who still
retained the vitality of youth. It was lined, but still firm.

It took him a moment to recognize the face--then he recalled stereos
he'd seen.

It was Scholar Jason Rawlings.

Turnbull tried to lift himself up and found he couldn't.

The scholar smiled. "Sorry we had to strap you down," he said, "but I'm
not nearly as strong as you are, and I didn't have any desire to be
jumped before I got a chance to talk to you."

Turnbull relaxed. There was no immediate danger here.

"Know where you are?" Rawlings asked.

"Centaurus City," Turnbull said calmly. "It's a three-day trip, so
obviously you couldn't have made it in the five hours after I sent you
the message. You had me kidnaped and brought here."

The old man frowned slightly. "I suppose, technically, it _was_
kidnaping, but we had to get you out of circulation before you said
anything that might ... ah ... give the whole show away."

Turnbull smiled slightly. "Aren't you afraid that the police will trace
this to you?"

"Oh, I'm sure they would eventually," said Rawlings, "but you'll be free
to mak