ey were dressed in
Venusian-type clothes also, but we didn't get a close look at them."

"Very well," said Walters. "Proceed with your mission, Major. I'll have
an alert sent out for the cab driver, and I'll have the owner of the
pawnshop picked up. There must be someone on the Solar Delegate's staff
who stole those priorities. We'll start searching there first, and if we
come up with anyone who can't explain his absence from Venusport at the
time the priorities were used, and fits Corbett's description, we'll
contact you. End transmission!"

"End transmission!" repeated Connel. The screen blanked out and Roger's
voice came over the intercom immediately. "We'll be over Sinclair's in
three minutes," he called. "Stand by."

Tom turned to the controls and in exactly two minutes and fifty seconds
the clearing surrounding Sinclair's home and the burned outbuildings
came into view. Working effortlessly, with almost casual teamwork, the
three cadets brought the giant spaceship to rest in the middle of the
clearing. As the power was cut, the cadets saw George and Mrs. Hill
jumping into a jet car and speeding out to greet them.

After Tom introduced Connel to the couple, the major questioned them
closely about their absence during the attack by the shock troops.

"Mr. Sinclair often gives us time off for a trip into Venusport,"
explained Hill. "It gets pretty lonely out here."

"Is Mr. Sinclair in now?" asked Connel.

"No, he isn't," replied the plantation foreman. "He's on his weekly trip
around the outer fields. I don't expect him back for another day or
two."

"For goodness sakes," exclaimed Mrs. Hill, "you can ask your questions
just as easily and a darn sight more comfortably in the house! Come on.
Let's get out of the sun."

The small group climbed into the jet car and roared off across the
clearing toward the house. The lone building left standing by the
Nationalists looked strange amid the charred ruins of the other
buildings. In the house, the three cadets busied themselves with
home-baked apple pie which the housekeeper had brought out, while Connel
was telling George of the attack on the plantation.

[Illustration]

"I've known about them all along, of course," said the foreman. "But I
never paid any attention to them. I just quit, like Mr. Sinclair, when
they started all that tomfoolery about wearing uniforms and stuff."

"Well," said Connel, accepting a wedge of pie at Mrs. Hill's insistence,
"now the