As he turned away, I murmured, "But I do thank you...." * * * * * The name _Set_ Miko glowed upon the door. It was in a transverse corridor similar to A22. The corridor was forward of the lounge: it opened off the small circular library. The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflected lights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder case. The door of Miko's room was in sight. I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized that doubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tiny eavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its little battery; focused its projector. Was Miko's room insulated? I could not tell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across its opening, if the room was insulated, a blue sheen of radiance would be showing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this distance I could not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to approach closer. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have no place to hide, no way of escape. If anyone approached Miko's door, I would be trapped. I threw the current into my apparatus. I prayed, if it met interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George Prince had said that 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 passwords." "He got them from the radio 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!" 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 passwords. Better he had left them in the radio room." Moa was in the room. Her voice said, "We've got to have them. The _Planetara_, upon such an important voyage as this, might be watched." "No doubt it is," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the passwords. 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, "I'll try." "No need," Miko said unexpectedly.