No, that wouldn't do. Connies would know that Kevin O'Brine commanded the _Scorpius_, and if they had taken over the Planeteers on the asteroid, they would also have learned Rip's name. He had to say something that would immediately identify him beyond the shadow of a doubt. The snapper-boat was closing in slowly. Rip knew the pilot and gunner must be tense, frightened, ready to blast with their guns at the first wrong move on the asteroid. He groped with his good arm and turned up his helmet communicator to full volume. The fighting rocket drew closer, cut in its nose tube, and hovered only a few hundred feet above the Planeteers. Rip summoned enough strength to make his voice sharp and clear. His words sped through space into the bubble of the pilot, echoed in the helmet, were picked up by the pilot's microphone, and then were hurled through the snapper-boat circuit and through space to the cruiser's control room. O'Brine stiffened as the speaker threw Rip's voice at him, amplified and hollow-sounding from reverberations in the snapper-boat pilot's helmet. "_O'Brine is so ugly he won't look at his face in a clean blast tube! That no-good Irishman wouldn't know what to do with an asteroid if he had one!_" The commander turned purple with rage. He bellowed, "Foster!" A junior space officer hid a grin and murmured, "Looks like the Planeteers still have the asteroid." O'Brine bent over the communicator and yelled, "Deputy commander! Launch landing boats. Get those Planeteers and bring them here under armed guard. Ram it!" The snapper-boat pilot through whose circuit Rip had yelled turned to look wide-eyed at his gunner. "Did you hear that? Throw a light down on the asteroid. It must have come from there." The gunner threw a switch, and a searchlight port opened in the boat's belly. Its beam searched downward, swept past, then steadied on two space-suited figures. "It worked," Rip said tiredly. He closed his eyes to guard them against the brilliant glare, then waved his good arm. Santos called from the cave entrance. "Sir, landing boats are being launched!" "Bring out the prisoners," Rip ordered. "Line them up. Planeteers fall in behind them." The landing boats, with snapper-boats in watchful attendance, blasted down to the surface of the asteroid. Spacemen jumped out, awkward at first on the no-weight surface. An officer glided to meet Rip, and he had a pistol in his hand. "It's all right," Rip told him. "The Connies are our prisoners. You won't need guns." The spaceman snapped, "You're under arrest." Rip stared incredulously. "What for?" "The commander's orders. Don't give me any arguments. Just get aboard." "I can't argue with a loaded gun," Rip said wearily. He called to his men. "We're under arrest. I don't know why. Don't try to resist. Do as the spacemen order." Rip got aboard the nearest landing boat, his head spinning. O'Brine had made a mistake of some kind.