"The younger generation! If that's the kind of men Earth is breeding nowadays, Lord help us all!" * * * * * Dr. Rockingham Roswell pattered down the long, metal corridors of the _Gaea_ to his A-deck suite. He fumbled near-sightedly at the vibro-lock and stumbled into his compartment. But once inside, the door securely bolted behind him, a change came over him. A change which would have astonished those who had a few moments before been amused at his timidity. He removed his spectacles, casing them and thrusting them into an inside pocket. He then removed his coat. Oddly enough, rid of that closely-tailored garment, his shoulders looked considerably broader, his chest inches deeper. He drew a deep breath ... much the same sort of breath as a sponge diver draws when he emerges from the hampering depths of the sea to the more accustomed world above ... and called a name. "Bud?" A figure appeared from the plushy wallows of a divan, waved at the young professor companionably. "Hi, Rocky! Beginnin' to wonder when you was comin' back. We're halfway to the cradle. What's the good word?" "The good word," grinned his informant, "is that I've paved the way. Miss Graham is going to ask her father to let us stay at the Patrol base." "Huh?" Mulligan looked baffled. "What's good about _that_? We could've stayed at the Patrol Base anyway. All you had to do was tell Colonel Graham who you were--" His superior officer groaned in mock despair. "Sometimes I wonder if that cranium of yours is good for anything but a hair-garden! Don't you see, Bud, that the whole scheme depends on our being _invited_ to become guests at the Patrol base? Of course, we could present our credentials, walk directly from the _Gaea_ to headquarters. But it would be a cold tip-off to Grossman that we are S.I.D. men. "As it is, he hasn't got the faintest idea that 'Doctor Rockingham Roswell' and his 'valet' are members of the Solar Investigation Department. He thinks I'm a very badly rattled pedagogue, and you're a mealy-mouthed nonentity. And that is exactly what we want him to believe--until we get the goods on him." "Then he _is_ our man?" "I'm practically certain of it now. He's as nervous as a cat. Flared up the moment I questioned his reasons for living on Titan. As factor of the New Boston trading-post he is in an ideal situation to stir up trouble amongst the Titanians. And that's precisely what he has been doing. We don't know exactly why--yet!--but it's quite clear that for some reason of his own he wants all Earthmen save himself to leave Titan." "Gold, maybe?" suggested Bud. "Oil? _Ekalastron?_" "No-o-o, I don't think so. The mineralogists would have detected the presence of any of those when they surveyed Titan. His reason is something deeper than that--Say! Wait a minute! I wonder if it possibly--?" "Yeah?"