going through the most complete set of tests
known to the industry, and if they go into the Skylark at all it will be
after I am thoroughly convinced that they will not give way on our first
trip into space. But we can do nothing until the steel arrives, and with
the guard Prescott has here now we are safe enough. Luckily, the enemy
knows nothing of the object-compass or the X-plosive, and we must keep
them in ignorance. Hereinafter, not even the guards get a look at
anything we do."

"They sure don't. Let's get busy!"

* * * * *

DuQuesne and Brookings met in conference in a private room of the
Perkins Cafe.

"What's the good word, Doctor?"

"So-so," replied the scientist. "The stuff is all they said it was, but
we haven't enough of it to build much of a power-plant. We can't go
ahead with it, anyway, as long as Seaton and Crane have nearly all their
original solution."

"No, we can't. We must find a way of getting it. I see now that we
should have done as you suggested, and taken it before they had warning
and put it out of our reach."

"There's no use holding post-mortems. We've got to get it, some way, and
everybody that knows anything about that new metal, how to get it or how
to handle it, must die. At first, it would have been enough to kill
Seaton. Now, however, there is no doubt that Crane knows all about it,
and he probably has left complete instructions in case he gets killed in
an accident--he's the kind that would. We will have to keep our eyes
open and wipe out those instructions and anyone who has seen them. You
see that, don't you?"

"Yes, I am afraid that is the only way out. We must have the monopoly,
and anyone who might be able to interfere with it must be removed. How
has your search for more X prospered?"

"About as well as I expected. We bought up all the platinum wastes we
could get, and reworked all the metallic platinum and allied metals we
could buy in the open market, and got less than a gram of X out of the
whole lot. It's scarcer than radium. Seaton's finding so much of it at
once was an accident, pure and simple--it couldn't happen once in a
million years."

"Well, have you any suggestions as to how we can get that solution?"

"No. I haven't thought of anything but that very thing ever since I
found that they had hidden it, and I can't yet see any good way of
getting it. My forte is direct action and that fails in this case, since
no amount of