now on
my control-deck scanner. It's the same model ship as the _Avenger_, but
it isn't Coxine's!"

"Are you sure?"

"Positive, sir. I was on her long enough to know."

"Blast it! Then what--?"

Roger suddenly interrupted Strong. "Sir, look at her over the
magnascope! She's been abandoned!"

The Solar Guard captain quickly turned to the magnascope screen. There
he saw a close-up view of the target. It was a helpless derelict. All
emergency ports were open and the jet-boat locks were empty.

Strong's face grew pale and he slumped back in his chair.

"What--what do you suppose happened, sir?" asked Roger hesitantly.

"It's easy enough to figure," Strong replied, his voice dull and
lifeless. "Coxine is using more than one ship now. And when this one was
damaged, he simply transferred to another one. He's outfoxed us again!"

Slowly, with wooden legs, he walked over to the teleceiver.

"Attention all ships! Resume former search stations. All we've caught
here is a red herring!"

And as the powerful engines of the _Polaris_ picked up speed, Strong
imagined he could hear Gargantuan laughter echoing in space around him.

CHAPTER 17

"Spaceman's luck, sir," said Tom, shaking Captain Strong's hand.

Silently the other two cadets in turn gripped their skipper's hand
tightly.

"Thanks, boys," said Strong. "If we're going to get that space crawler,
we have to trap him. And the best bait I know is a twenty-million-credit
pay roll."

"But won't you take at least one man with you, sir?" pleaded Tom.
"Sitting up there in space in a decoy ship waiting for Coxine is
like--" Tom paused. "Well, you won't have much of a chance, sir, if
Coxine opens fire before asking questions."

"That's the risk I've got to take, Tom," said Strong. "It took a lot of
talking to get Commander Walters' permission to try this. But we've got
to force Coxine to come out far enough from the asteroid belt to catch
him before he can run back in and lose himself again." The young captain
smiled wanly and added, "Don't think that your job is unimportant!"

Tom, Roger, and Astro nodded. On their return from the unsuccessful
attempt to capture Coxine, they had been suddenly faced with the routine
duty of transporting a twenty-million-credit pay roll from Atom City to
the satellite of Titan for the crystal miners.

Thinking one sure way to catch any rat was to use a lure, Tom suggested
that the Titan armored freighter be used as a decoy t