"He hasn't said anything. But I saw one of the emigrants in his private lab! I shouldn't have been there, and he didn't know I was. But I saw him with one on his desk." "Sure about it?" "Absolutely certain. It looked like one of the men with a beard we sent through about a month ago. Do you remember?" "But how did he get hold of him?" "I can't think. The stellar-reporters are going off all right. I thought they were coming back empty. I've had to let the rest of my class know, so that we could keep the records faked. We can't account for two hundred stellar-reporters all to the same planet, Morry, so I had to." I sent the next bunch of emigrants back with a message to John Thay. He came the next afternoon and we met on the edge of the desert. I explained what had happened. "Is Dimples certain?" he asked. "The man had a beard and was still in his crystal, the way we sent him off." John shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Morry, it can't be helped. There's only one course now. We must get hold of any crystals in the hands of David Adam Smith and send them off again--unless you and Dimples and all of us want to end up in a satellite penitentiary. I expect he's preparing a case against us now. With his influence he can make it stick. No doubt about that." Illegal emigration, criminal use of the Institute property--oh, from that angle there was enough to have us all put away in space all right. I had no doubt that David Adam Smith would do it, too. * * * * * "Now, his weakest point," John said, "is his vanity. That, as we know, is immense. Who else would run an Institute for three hundred students with himself as the sole Director? So, if we can arrange something to keep him occupied for a day or two, we may be able to break up into his private labs through the floor. I know for a fact the walls and ceilings are studded with alarms. But we thought of booby-trapping him when we were expelled, and the floor seemed the best way in." "And the diversion?" "You'd better take me in now in your pocket. I want to have a word with Dimples' class." He stepped on the maxima plate. I converted him down, buried the plates as usual and went back to the Institute. I gave the crystal to Dimples. "Meet me here in an hour," she said. An hour later, she was back. "Here, Morry. This is the power slicer from a shovel. There's one in every stellar-reporter for cutting rock specimens. John says you can come up from the cellar with that. Do you know what he means?" "Yes. What's he doing with you?" "You'll see. Just come to our class area tomorrow as if you're delivering specimens. Put the crystal with John in it in your pocket and go and report to the Director exactly what you found in our area--apart from the crystal, of course. You are to release John from that when you get to the cellar, immediately after David Adam Smith goes hurrying out to see what happened to us." She would not tell me any more than that.