Mike scowled up and down the companionway. "What shape are we in?" "Bad." "How bad?" "The worst. The pile's gone." "The _pile_!" Mike ran aft. The door to the tube cabin stood open. The alley into which the fifteen-pound, lead-crated pile had lately been driven, was empty. * * * * * Swiftly Mike assessed the situation. A helpless ship. A derelict. They'd entered through the aft airlock. They'd taken Professor Brandon off that way. Then they'd closed the lock again. That meant only one thing. Through pure cruelty, they had avoided swift death to the ship's occupant in favor of a long, lingering one. Only the basest of men would do a thing like that. Mike was not acquainted with McKee or Talbott, but he knew something about them. They were the lowest type of the human species. Only the bloodthirsty pirates of Ganymede ever made their victims walk space. He returned to where Nicko was clinging to the companionway guard-rail. Nicko said, "You haven't seen it all, yet." "Is there more?" "That's only the beginning. They smashed everything in the control cabin. All the navigating instruments. Even if we had a pile this boat couldn't find its way down Main Street at high noon." It followed, Mike thought grimly. "I'll be drummed out of the Guild for this." "If you ever get within shouting distance of Outer Port again, which you won't." Mike doubled his fists. "To stand flatfooted and let a boarder move in and take my pile--and my client. How much of an idiot can a man be!" Doree came up the ladder, her eyes wide with fright. "Did you find him?" "No--and don't start crying. Why didn't you tell me about these men? Why didn't you give me a chance to protect my ship?" "We--we didn't know they'd follow us. We--I didn't dream they had any idea of--" "They followed you. And they had the idea. They took our pile and shoved us off on a blind orbit. They arranged for us to die out here." "Won't we--we be found?" "A million to one shot in these spaces." "More than that," Nicko said. "A billion to one. It's empty out here, lady." Mike saw that Doree was again about to burst into tears. He took her by the arm. "We're going to the lounge and you're going to tell me all about this--what's been going on." He drew her toward the ladder, calling over his shoulder. "Clean up what you can, Nicko. See what other deviltry they arranged." In the lounge, Mike sat Doree firmly into a chair. "Now let's not have any tears. Just tell it the way it happened." * * * * * Doree had got control of herself. She sat straight, miserable, a little pathetic, Mike thought. She said, "Lorn McKee and Dean Talbott were Paris art collectors. Their reputations were not of the best but when they approached father he listened to them. "They had a strange looking scroll made of papyrus. It had writing on it in an ancient script and they wanted father to translate it for them."