"Lar Tantril!" A man with suspicious eyes caught the attention of the one who had spoken first. "Space-suit, he says! A flying space-suit! Only Ku Sui has space-suits that fly; or only Ku Sui _had_ them, rather. You know what that must mean!" He paused, peering at his lord. The coarse yellowy skin of Tantril's brow wrinkled with the thought, then his tusk-like Venusian teeth showed as his lips drew apart in speech. "Yes!" Lar Tantril said. "It's _Carse_!" And he ordered the now silent men around him: "Circle my house, all of you, your guns ready. You, Esret"--to his second in command--"out gun and come with me." * * * * * Even as Lar Tantril spoke, a giant shape was passing clumsily through the kitchen of his house. Carse had entered from the rear, unseen. With gun in hand and eyes sharp he crossed the deserted kitchen with its foul odors of Venusian cookery. Quickly, his metal-shod feet creating an unavoidable racket, he was through a connecting door and into the well-furnished dining room. All was brightly lit; he could easily have been seen through the window-ports rimming each wall; but he counted on the confusion outside to keep the Venusians engaged for several minutes more. Then he went shuffling into the front room of the house, and saw at once the most likely place. It was in one corner--a large flat desk, and by it the broad panel of a radio. Scattered over the desk were a number of papers. In seconds Carse was bending over them, scanning and discarding with eyes and hands. Reports of various quantities of isuan ... orders for stores ... a list that seemed an inventory of weapons--and then the top page of a sheaf covered with familiar, neat, small writing. Yes! Plans and calculations dealing with a laboratory! And, down in the margin of the first page, the revealing, all-important figure--5,576.34! He had them--and before Ku Sui! Now, only to get away; out the front door, and up--up from this trap he was in--up into clean and empty space, and then to Leithgow and Friday at Ban Wilson's! But, as the Hawk turned to go, his eye took in a little slip on the desk, a radio memo, with the name of Ku Sui at its top. Almost without volition he glanced over it, hoping to discover useful information about Ku Sui's asteroid--and with the passing of those few extra seconds his chance for escaping out the door passed too. Carse's back was partly toward the front door when a voice, hard and deadly, spoke from it: "Your hands up!" * * * * * The adventurer's nerves twanged; he wheeled; and even as he did so another voice bit out from the rear door: "Yes, up! One move and you're dead!"