He was right. Their acting and their timing couldn't have been more perfect except that they had had to gamble from the first on getting to McGinty before we did and still make things look all innocence. Maybe we could make them lose that one, anyway. You could be too clever. But they were armed, and that hedged their gamble pretty convincingly. We had two clumsy jury-rigged torpedoes which might or might not hit whatever they were fired at. The voice halted, and then it was up to me. I was supposed to be the one to make up the excuses, not Kolomar. I was the one who had to give "an immediate account of the untoward and unadvised action" of my L-8s. And Kolomar would let me sweat it out by myself. "What'll I tell 'em, Ken?" "Tell 'em--oh, hell. Tell them one of our crew went Space-psycho, and that we're doing all in our power to recover him and the rig he's flying before any inconvenience can occur which might disturb the planned schedules of our esteemed Comrades of Space. One fairy tale's as good as another." Loftus reworded the message as nice as pie, and then after a minute the H-F was quiet. For the record, things were fine. Of course, our Comrades were going to "assist" in the recovery of our wayward crewman-- "We'll beat 'em, I think!" Knight was hollering. "Any guns--" Loftus began. I answered that one myself. "They'd ruin their own show," I said. "A premature show of muscle would tip their hand. If they make it work this way, all we can ever do is accuse, but we won't be able to prove a damn thing. And they'll know what they want to know, and be ready for our quick little shuffle. They'll be ready at those conference tables. If they miss this time, they'll just try again later, another way." "It sure reads fine," Loftus said. "But I wonder how soon they start shooting." We were both at the starboard port, watching. We could see McGinty's L-8 out there, floating like a three-barrelled hour-glass, its tiny rocket bank glowing red against the blackness, one side a blinding white brightness in the sun. The Moon hung like a chewed-up white basketball below the both of us, and you could see the greenish cast of Earthshine stretching out a little beyond the night shadow over the ridge of the lunar Appenines. "How do you suppose they ever got wise to the microstats in the first place?" Loftus was asking. "We're still not sure they did. Or sure that he--or sure of anything," I snapped back at him. "But you think it's McGinty all right, by this time. I mean--" "I guess so," I said. * * * * *