e soon enough." Ishie sighed, then grinned
impudently. "There is," he said, "the little matter of the fact
that--in all innocence but nevertheless quite actually--we wiped out
Thule Base.

"If we don't get the big Confusor in operation very soon, it may be
that we shall spend a good deal of time in Earth's courts proving our
innocence while someone else botches most thoroughly the job of
creating a Confusor that could take us to the stars. And that," he
added mournfully, "neither of us would enjoy. We might not even be
able to prove our innocence, for there would be many very anxious to
prove us sufficiently guilty to keep us out of the way for many years.

"So you see," he said, "you have a very real P.R. problem. Our
assistants here could work better if they knew what they were doing.
The people aboard the wheel would be most excited by a space drive,
and would give us every aid.

"But what the law says, it says--and the captain would have no choice
but to put us in irons if he heard, though I think our captain is such
that he would not want to do it.

"We must tell everyone what we have, for where the wheel takes us,
they will go. But we can't tell them, for if we tell anyone, it will
get back to Earth--and we murdered Thule, according to the law of
Earth.

"It is a very neat problem," he said.

* * * * *

Major Steve Elbertson arrived first at Project Hot Rod, and trailing
behind him on their scuttlebugs, the other six men.

As he slipped through the lock and out of his spacesuit, he reached
down the neck of his coveralls and carefully extracted the Security
key in its flat, plastiskin packet, from between his shoulder blades.
At least the villainous captain had not gotten his hands on this, he
thought, and whatever damage had been done to Hot Rod probably could
be quickly repaired.

He had heard of the hunt for the key, and been silently amused, though
he had volunteered no information to his briefing officer,
Chauvenseer.

Stepping forward as briskly as a sick rag doll, he fitted the key into
the Security lock and snapped open the bar that prevented Hot Rod's
use.

As the others entered, he turned to them. Supporting himself against
the edge of the console and managing to look perfectly erect and
capable despite his weakness, he said: "I have instructed each of you
to learn as much as you could of the operation of this device. It is
now necessary that the civilian sci