rped and ruined even if the crash hadn't wrecked them beforehand. Joe
made thick, incoherent sounds of rage.

The plane was now an incomplete, twisted skeleton, licked through by
flames. The crash wagon roared to a stop beside them.

"Anybody hurt? Anybody left inside?"

Joe shook his head, unable to speak for despairing rage. The fog wagon
roared up, already spouting mist from its nozzles. Its tanks contained
water treated with detergent so that it broke into the finest of
droplets when sprayed at four hundred pounds pressure. It drenched the
burning wreck with that heavy mist, in which a man would drown. No fire
could possibly sustain itself. In seconds, it seemed, there were only
steam and white vapor and fumes of smoldering substances that gradually
lessened.

But then there was a roaring of motorcycles racing across the field with
a black car trailing them. The car pulled up beside the fog wagon, then
sped swiftly to where Joe was coming out of wild rage and sinking into
sick, black depression. He'd been responsible for the pilot gyros and
their safe arrival. What had happened wasn't his fault, but it was not
his job merely to remain blameless. It was his job to get the gyros
delivered and set up in the Space Platform. He had failed.

The black car braked to a stop. There was Major Holt. Joe had seen him
six months before. He'd aged a good deal. He looked grimly at the two
pilots.

"What happened?" he demanded. "You dumped your fuel! What burned like
this?"

Joe said thickly: "Everything was dumped but the pilot gyros. They
didn't burn! They were packed at the plant!"

The co-pilot suddenly made an incoherent sound of rage. "I've got it!"
he said hoarsely. "I know----"

"What?" snapped Major Holt.

"They--planted that grenade at the--major overhaul!" panted the
co-pilot, too enraged even to swear. "They--fixed it so--any trouble
would mean a wreck! And I--pulled the fire-extinguisher releases just as
we hit! For all compartments! To flood everything with CO_2! But it
wasn't CO_2! That's what burned!"

Major Holt stared sharply at him. He held up his hand. Somebody
materialized beside him. He said harshly: "Get the extinguisher bottles
sealed and take them to the laboratory."

"Yes, sir!"

A man went running toward the wreck. Major Holt said coldly: "That's a
new one. We should have thought of it. You men get yourselves attended
to and report to Security at the Shed."

The pilot and co-pilot turne