I threw the current into my little apparatus. I prayed, if it met interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George Prince had said he would make opportunity to disconnect the room's insulation. He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior sounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling fingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in the darkness behind the cylinder-case, I synchronized. "Johnson is a fool." It was Miko's voice. "We must have the pass-words." "He got them from the helio-room." A man's voice; I puzzled over it at first, then recognized it. Rance Rankin. * * * * * 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.