He jumped back. Something had to give--belt, bed or door. He barely breathed. The belt slowed. What if it stopped? But it didn't stop. It slowed, but still moved inexorably on. What if the frame bent? But it didn't bend. Its tough metal twisted between the bars, wedging itself more tightly. Then inch by screeching inch, the bars in the door bent. With a sound like a pistol shot, one snapped. Steel shot toward the door like a loosened spring. He squeezed between the bars and jumped out on the belt. Then he was running up the belt, ignoring its snail's pace, racing up the shaft toward that video room. In seconds, he was at the door. He halted, paused there, listening. "Any contact yet?" "Not yet...." Two different voices--there were at least two men in the room. How many more? But he couldn't risk waiting to find out. Any moment somebody might appear on the shaft. He threw open the door and stepped in quickly, ready to tear his way to that video transmitter. The room was dark, with only a small light in one corner, the glow of a video screen. In front of it were silhouetted two heads. One had close-cropped hair; the other wore a skull cap. Chairs pulled up close to the video, they were so engrossed in their work they didn't even turn around. "Shhh!" said the black skull cap. "We're about to make contact, Mike," said the short haircut. Steel stood motionless in the darkness. They thought he was Mike, the boxer! And there were only two men in the room. Marvelous! Just walk up behind them and bang their heads together. He stepped silently forward. He was within arm's reach of the two shadowed figures when the video screen's light suddenly flared. He halted. "Here she is!" The skull cap bent low over the panel under the screen. Dim-lit hands played the video's controls like a piano. Slowly fading in on the screen, Steel saw the familiar green sphere that was Venus. The picture was swelling in from a video camera on a space ship somewhere close in the Venusian sector. The picture was closing up, each ice peak gleaming. Behind the planet was a blurred background of white lines--he couldn't figure out what they were. And they certainly didn't matter now. His hands started out for those two necks in front of him. Then the video screen stopped him again. Stopped him cold this time. He stared at the screen incredulously. The distant camera had turned from the green planet, turning in from the space ship's window through which it had been shooting, and had focussed upon the cameraman. It was Dirk. Dirk--tall and thin-lipped, with bandages on his face--Dirk, _that_ far out in space when not twenty minutes ago he'd been with Steel in that cell below. How had he gotten out there? How could any space ship have gotten him to Venus that fast? The other watchers in the room seemed to take it for granted, however. "How'd it go?" the fellow with the skull cap asked.