"The big one is De Boer, the depth bandit. I can't hear what they're saying--but I can send you their voice murmurs." "Amplify them all you can. Relay them up," Hanley ordered. I caught Perona's murmurs again; I swung them through my tiny transformers and off my transmitter points into the ether. "Hear them, Chief?" "Yes. I'll try further amplification." It was what I had intended. Hanley's greater power might be able to amplify those murmurs into audible strength. "I'm getting them, Phil." He swung them back to me. Grotesquely distorted, blurred with tube-hum and interference crackle, they roared in my ear-grids so loudly that I saw the nearby guard turn his head as though startled. Listening.... But evidently he concluded it was nothing. I cut down the volume. Hanley switched in. "By God. Phil! This--" "Off, Chief! Let me hear, too!" * * * * * He cut away. Those distorted voices! They came from Perona and the bandits to me across this five hundred foot moonlit bowl; from me, thirteen hundred miles up to Hanley's instruments; and back to me once more. But the words, most of them, now were distinguishable. Perona's voice: "I tell it to you. De Boer ... and a good chance for you to make the money." "But will they pay?" "Of course they will pay. Big. A ransom princely." "And why, Perona? Why princely? Who is this fellow--so important?" "He is with rich business men, I tell to you." "A private citizen?" "... And a private citizen, of a surety. Fool! Have you come to be a coward, De Boer?" "Pah!" "Well then I tell you it is a lifetime chance. All of it I have arranged. If he was a government agent, that would be very different, for they are very keen, this administration of the American government, to protect their agents. But their private citizens--it is a scandal! Do you not ever pick the newscasters' reports, De Boer? Has it not been a scandal that this administration does very little for its citizens abroad?" "And you want to get rid of this fellow? Why, Perona?" "That is not your concern. The ransom is to be all yours. Make away with him--in the depths somewhere. Demand your ransom. Fifty thousand gold-standards! Demand it of me. Of Nareda!" "And you will pay it?" "I promise it. Nareda will pay it--and Nareda will collect the ransom from the American capitalists. Very easy." His voice fell lower. "Between us, you will get the ransom money from Nareda--and then kill your prisoner if you like. Call it an accident; what matter? And dead men are silent men, De Boer. I will see that no real pursuit is made after you." * * * * * They were talking about me! It was obvious. Questions rushed at me. Perona, planning with this bandit to abduct me. Hold me for ransom. Or kill me! But Perona knew that I was not a private citizen. He was lying to De Boer, to persuade him.