"Easily. They were there three or more days, loafing on solid ground, letting themselves go on the poor devils of the little colony. When the Patrol came in answer to a stolen radio signal, they had time only to fight and run, leaving everything. Two of his trusted lieutenants, known men, Revere and Pahboard, were found dead after the long-range firing when we seized the domes. We can pin it on him with a deadly certainty, Bannerman. We'll tar him with the blackest truth the System has ever seen. Sir Galahad will ride for a little time, perhaps, but he'll ride the calculating fiend we've known him and not the gallant adventurer these cheap telecasts make him out to be. And we'll fling the certain truth in Iris Chanler's painted face to do it!" Bannerman was gravely sober. "Have you considered the consequences, sir? The girl has been carefully reared. She's wealthy, spoiled, but only a girl. In her revulsion from the ghastly sight you plan to thrust on her, might she not turn on us in reaction? Fling the blame on us for letting him commit the horrors she couldn't deny?" General Wheelwright lifted an admiring forefinger. "Now that's the way I like to hear my officers talk, Bannerman. Consider all the angles, all the consequences. Follow no set plan blindly." He nodded in stern commendation. "Knowing the woman, I anticipated your thought. The Patrol will not lead her blindly by the hand into Banya Tor, Bannerman. She will be steered there purely by chance, by a man not known to be of our force. A man above suspicion, above reproach, perhaps I might say above the law itself. Thorne." He grinned wolfishly. "Call him in, Bannerman. You know his private line." Bannerman shook his head. "With your permission, sir, I'd rather not. Even those men out there know him only as the richest man alive. That is his value." Wheelwright was not impressed. "You know best, then I know him as a sot who stumbled on a Vadirrian cache and came out of the desert with more wealth than any man from here to the outer rings. The whole System knows him as no more, but for us it is sufficient that he secretly is a captain in the Patrol and ready to do our bidding. The Chanler woman and a party of her chattering friends are not an hour behind me on the incoming Martian liner for Vulhan City. Take me to Thorne and we shall spread our nets for the magpie if we have to use half his new-found wealth to do it!" * * * * * "My first assignment!" snorted in Geoffrey Thorne as he stood watching the dancers twirling about the huge white ballroom in the Government House. "Escorting some snaggletoothed bandylegs to a desolate little asteroid just to quease her fat little stomach. It's enough to turn my own." "Patience, Thorne," smiled Bannerman, leaning quietly against a pillar at his side. "She's not bandy-legged." Thorne stared, then laughed abruptly. "I needn't take your word on that, Bannerman. The General comes."