"No, and you ain't going to shoot nobody either!" the other strange voice mimicked her. That one was high-pitched and thin, with a pronounced nasal twang to it. "Chief, if there're kids with them, it's just a bunch of space-rats that happened along. It couldn't be Flauval!" "I'd say 'it couldn't be Flauval', if we'd found her dead in her cabin," the deep voice said irritably. "But that door was burned out from inside--and _somebody_ ditched the _Ra-Twelve_ on this clod!" It sounded as if the discovery of Peer had interrupted an argument between them. "I still can't see how she got out," Nasal-voice Ezeff said sullenly. "She must have been sleeping in her spacesuit. We were out of the ship thirty seconds after I slap-welded that lock across her door! She must have felt the boat leaving and started burning her way out the same instant--" "It doesn't matter how she did it," said the deep voice. Apparently, it belonged to someone with authority. "If Flauval could think and move fast enough to switch the drives to Full Emergency and still get alive out of a ship full of the Yomm, she could cheat space, too! She always did have the luck of the devil. If we'd had just that minute to spare before leaving, to make sure--" It paused a moment and resumed gloomily: "That stubborn old maniac of a Koyle--'I'm the Duke's man, sir!' Committing suicide--like _that_--so no one else would get control of the Yomm! If we hadn't managed to start the launch's locators in time.... Well, I hope I'll never have to sweat out another four days like the last. And now we still have to find whoever got Koyle's records!" "Flauval ain't here," Peer offered at that point, brightly. There was a pause. It seemed that the two newcomers must have almost forgotten their prisoner for a moment. * * * * * "What was that you said, kid?" Nasal-voice inquired carefully. "Those space-rats are all half crazy," the deep voice said contemptuously. "She doesn't know what we're talking about." "Sure I know!" Peer said indignantly. "You was talking about Flauval. It's Wilf that's the crazy one--I ain't! And she ain't here. Flauval." "She ain't, eh?" Nasal-voice said, with speculative alertness. "No, sir," Peer said, timid again. "She's went with the rest of'm." Both voices swore together in startled shock. "Where are they?" the deep voice demanded. "Hiding on the ship?" "No, sir," quavered Peer. "It's just me on the ship, till they come back." "You mean," the deep voice said, with strained patience, "you're supposed to be on the ship?" "Yes, sir," said Peer. She added in a guilty mutter, "Sleepin'...." "Where did the others go?" Nasal-voice inquired sharply. "But I ain't tired," said Peer. "Well, with the boxes and stuff! What Flauval wants buried." There was another duet of exclamations which Channok, at almost any other time, would have considered highly unsuitable for Peer's ears. Right now, it escaped his attention.