* * * * *

Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though with
letters blazoned on his forehead--'Watch me--I need watching--' Hah! No
wonder they apprehended him!"

Was George Prince in there? Rankin's voice said: "He would have turned
the papers over to us. I would not blame him too much. What harm--"

"Oh, I'll release him," Miko declared. "What harm? That braying ass did
us plenty of harm. He has lost the pass-words. Better he had left them
in the helio-room."

Moa was in the room. Her voice said: "We've got to have them. The
Planetara, upon such an important voyage as this, may be watched. How do
we know--"

"It is, no doubt," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the
pass-words. When we are in control of this ship...."

It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the
Planetara? Now? It seemed so.

"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them," Moa was saying. "When we get him
out--"

"Hahn is to do that, at the signal." Miko added, "George could do it
better, perhaps."

And then I heard George Prince for the first time. He murmured, "I will
try."

"No need," said Miko. "I praise where praise is deserved. And I have
little praise for you now, George!"

I could not see what happened. A look, perhaps, which Prince could not
avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless saw it, and
the Martian's hot anger leaped.

Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"

And Moa: "Let him alone! Sit down, you fool!"

* * * * *

I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow--a cry, half suppressed,
from George Prince.

Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating
me--frightened!"

I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart, and
Miko taunting him:

"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"

Moa: "Hush!"

"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else,
George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing for
her, but love. If you had not interfered--"

This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in
from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle,
Anita had taken the shot intended for George.

"I did not even know I had hit her," Miko was saying. "Not until I heard
she was dead." He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I had hit,
George. And I will tell you this: You hate me no more than I