The Martian Vincennes went first. As soon as the pressure gauge showed he was safely outside the Earthman gestured to Nolan. He wedged himself wearily into the air chamber, closed the door. He was ready for a break when the outer portal opened ... but there was no break. Not with Vincennes and his ready pyro there. Woller, stumbling and cursing, followed, and the Earthman. Vincennes opened the main lock and they went into the dome. There were two great ships inside, dimly lighted by a string of pale lumes overhead. Nolan looked at the mass of them, at the rodlike projections clustered around the nose, and knew them for what they were. Warships! Scaffolding was still around them. They were not yet ready for launching, not ready for whatever mission of treason Woller had planned them for. But by the look of them the day was close. And Nolan was--awaiting execution. One look at Woller's iron countenance under the tape showed that. Vincennes' hand, tight-knuckled around the butt of his gun, was ample confirmation. But the moment had not yet come. Woller said, "Are they waiting?" Vincennes' glance sped to a lighted door at the far side of the hangar. "Looks that way," he said. "Shall I attend to Nolan first? He's tricky--" Woller laughed softly. "He's used up all his tricks. We'll take him with us, alive. He might come in handy. He's been out of sight for three years now. I'm just a bit curious where he's been. Perhaps it's somewhere we should know about." He groped for Vincennes' arm, found it. "Let's go," he said. "We can't keep the chief waiting." * * * * * Nolan was first through the door. He was in a small room where four or five ordinary-looking people were siting around at ease. One was in uniform, the others the perfect example of quite successful businessmen. "Is he here yet?" whispered Woller. The Martian looked around the room before he answered. "Not yet. Cafferty--Lieutenant Brie--Searle--Vremczyk. That's all." The dumpling-shaped soldier in the gray-green of Pluto's militia stared at Woller. "What the devil's the matter with your face?" he spluttered. Woller answered before Vincennes could. "I had an accident, Brie," he snapped. "Keep your fat nose out of it." The dumpling turned purple. But he said nothing, and Nolan realized Woller's importance in this gathering. This gathering of--what? Nolan looked around quickly, and the answer raced to his brain. An officer of Pluto's defense forces--two or three well-dressed men, apparently wealthy, with something about them that shrieked "politico"--and Woller, once overlord of the System's greatest news-dissemination agency, still a man of vast influence. It looked like the back room of a political convention--or the gathering of a cabal. _The Junta!_ It had to be the Junta. What they were saying began to make sense. A tall man in dove gray was speaking.