Wrightwood sat back in his chair. "Steve, I hate to do this to you, but your answers have confirmed my suspicions. This order and its impossible fulfillment is more like an attempt to have you resign. This smacks of unfair tactic, and upon that fact I am making my final bid." "What final bid?" "Since the Guardians have proven themselves unable to operate as a completely impersonalized agency, they fail in the one thing they claim--which is to operate for good or bad, for rich or poor alike. As such, I can prove the ability to operate the Guardians as a more efficient agency, and I shall do it!" "Not if I can help it." "Tell me, Steve, what can you do?" "I can--" "There was a faulty generator on the _Astarte_. How did it get there? Would you maliciously try to wreck my ship?" "What do you think?" "Of course you wouldn't, knowing that the lives of a hundred people were in the balance. Would I try to wreck my own ship to get you discredited?" "Hardly, since you'd lose too much." "Might the Guardians try?" "No." "But there are your three possibilities, Steve. One of them is it!" "So--" "So it must be your little friends, who knew they could set a fire, then put it out without harm to anybody but the man they want to be rid of." "That's not my fault," snapped Steve. "No," smiled Wrightwood, "it's all mine. Remember--I told you that no matter what you did it would ultimately work toward my success? Why don't you try aiding me instead of bucking me?" Steve found himself answering slowly, instead of snapping out a reply. "Just what do you hope to gain from this?" "I've gained it," smiled Wrightwood. "I've recordings of this entire meeting, and the tone of your voice during what you have to say is sufficient evidence to prove my point: that the Guardians have been wasting the taxpayers' money by ordering an impossible investigation by a valued man for the spite they hold against his father." "I might have expected something like this. You've got no news of the _Astarte_." "Yes--I have. Play along with me until I control the Guardians and I'll see to it that your position is granted back to you. There's no need of investigating the _Astarte_ anyway; and your Commissioner Morehouse is going to eat crow before he's finished." "Bah!" growled Steve. Once more he turned and left his father's presence abruptly. * * * * * He was whisked back to his waiting ship and he took off as fast as he could. It was no more than a fifty minute run across the star trails to Base One, and Steve was going to make it as fast as he could. But ten minutes out of Sanaron, the alarm whispered and then broke into full clamor. No danger alarm, this. This was the real thing! Steve swapped his ship around in space and headed for the spacial co-ordinates given in the alarm. In his mind's eye he could see the men tumbling out of their quarters and into the waiting Guardian ships and hurtling into the black.