Steel was about ready to give up. He knew he wouldn't be even faintly surprised at anything else that happened here. He clung to one thought, a praying hope that the police could get here before whatever getaway the gang planned. But, with the crushing ice balls and those weapon-snatchers, Dirk could hold the police off indefinitely, and with this super-speed the gang apparently had at their disposal--the speed that could get Dirk back and forth from Venus in a matter of seconds--they'd be gone long before the police got started. Steel was so deep in these thoughts, he barely considered what his own fate might be.... The passage ended in a place that made New York's central power plant look like a child's play room. Fifty-foot generators towered in the center of the huge room and along the walls were banks of vacuum tubes flashing like fireworks. The group halted before a master switch panel that equalled the Terminal's dispatch board. "Check the coils, Tom. Get at those insulator switches, Joe." Dr. Harmon quickly assumed command here. "Lois and I'll finish keying in the main control group." Along the rows of tubes and moving in and out of the generator housings, Steel saw other scores of workers, busy as ants at whatever devil's work this was. The heavy-muscled guard delegated to remain with Steel took it all with a yawn, however, leaning against a battery case and eyeing Steel sleepily. And this was what made Steel want to tear his hair--the utter confidence of everyone here. The fact that the police were on the way seemed to bother them only slightly. They seemed quite convinced they had here the power of a science that need fear nothing the whole world might send against them. "I suppose you're making your getaway with some sort of electric expulsion system," Steel said finally. From combustion power to jet propulsion--it was just one step further to the ultimate speeds of some expulsion system. There had always been a basic flaw in vehicles having to carry their own means of power. "What bothers me though is where the hell you think you're going." To leave the earth was simple. To have to stay away, forever, in the molten cold or venomous atmosphere of one of the other planets--that should be no happy prospect for any fugitive. "Where we're going?" Steel's guard laughed quickly. "Buddy, that's something you'll be mighty interested in if Miss Harmon has a mind to tell you about it." And Steel saw the girl walking toward them, wiping a smudge of grease from her cheek. "He wants to know where we're going," the guard grinned as she came up. She also laughed, a tinkling laugh that Steel hated more because he would have liked it if she hadn't been who and what she was. "Bring him along," she told the guard. "Everything seems to be running smoothly. We'll take a moment off to show him around."