Dowland considered her reflectively. "You understand, I believe, that unless I can somehow get word to the Solar Police Authority within the next few hours, Miguel's injuries may very well kill him? And that if I could get word out, an SPA jet would have him in the nearest hospital ten minutes later?" "I understand both those things, Dowland," she said. "But I also know that Miguel would not choose to have his life saved at the cost of exposing our plans." Dowland shrugged. "Very well.... Now, were the things that happened before I got here as you've described them?" "Yes." "You know of no way to get into that laboratory at present?" "Not unless you can find the key to the door." "That key should be around this immediate area?" "It should be," she said, "but I haven't been able to find it." "No further ideas about that?" "None." Dowland was silent a moment. "Miss Trelawney, is there anything else that might be of importance here that you still have not told me?" Her eyes studied him coldly. "Perhaps one thing...." "And what's that?" "If you had been willing to be bribed," Jill Trelawney said, "I should have asked the Troopers to shoot you." * * * * * There was a lady, Dowland was thinking a few minutes later, who was likely to be something of a problem to any man. However, she wouldn't be his problem for a considerable number of hours now. She had swallowed the sleep tablet he had given her without any trouble. After the drug wore off, the tablet would keep her quiet till around dawn. He stood looking about the wind-swept darkened slopes of the ranch area. Clouds were moving past in the sky, but there would be intermittent moonlight. The conditions weren't too bad for the search he had in mind. There had to be a concealed storeroom about the place somewhere, in which the Trelawneys would keep assorted stuff connected with their secret work which they didn't want to have cluttering up the lab. Including, very likely, any spare keys to the lab. At a guess, neither of the brothers would have wanted Jill at Lion Mesa during this crucial and dangerous stage of the project. But they probably were used to letting their beautiful and headstrong niece do as she wanted. But they needn't have mentioned things like the storeroom to her. If he could keep his mind slightly off the fact that within a hundred yards or so of him there were sixty-eight kilograms of Ym-400--with an unspecified amount of it at present in its horrendous radioactive state--he should stand a fairly good chance of finding the storeroom. And in that case, the half-inch atomic key Jill Trelawney had showed him, and which was at the moment weighing down his coat pocket, probably would turn out to be exactly what he needed to get into it.