"Oh, no! Nothing's lost--nothing at all. Just that that idiot Markham let his antidote capsule be stolen and he swears he doesn't know where it could have been pinched. Oh, why aren't there brains--??" Commander Calvin finished weakly. "Perhaps this theft explains a part of the events in connection with my own troubles," Roal said. "Put your troubles in a report and file them!" "Perhaps you'd be interested to know that they started in the Starhouse, that I've sat at a table with the Queen of the Silver Stars." Calvin's mouth dropped open and then clamped tightly. "So they got even you," he muttered. "What do you mean?" "Your rational mind is of course aware, my boy, that the Starhouse and the Queen are only myths of drugged minds. They do not exist in reality." "The Starhouse is right here in Heliopolis, on Transite Street, the 800 Block." "Where is your antidote?" Calvin roared suddenly. "I ate it." "You what?" "I told you I was in the Starhouse. I found the drug, _harmeena_, and the manner in which it is used. I tried the antidote against it. It was only partially successful." "Partially--a generous term." "I have something else, too. The first sample of _harmeena_ to fall into the hands of the SBI." Calvin's eyes lighted in spite of himself. "If you're telling the truth--" Roal fumbled in the secret pocket where he had hidden the sphere. His fingers roamed up and down. The pellet was not there. In sudden anxiety he whipped out a knife and methodically ripped the coat to shreds. The _harmeena_ was gone. His mind went back over the intervening hours. He had felt the sphere when he had awakened on the desert. He couldn't have lost it in the meantime. Nothing could possibly get out of that secret pocket. Except by-- He sat down weakly as he remembered the Martians. He remembered their crowding in the dark burrow, their strange behavior and their fumbling fingers that touched him. The withered Martians in the desert had stolen the _harmeena_. Somehow they had known he had it and had been ordered to get it. But how and by whom? III "You swear you cannot account for the antidote?" said Commander Calvin. His seriousness had overridden his rage now. "If that gets into the hands of the dope ring and they know we have it, we'll never catch up to them. It's possible that they don't have Markham's." "I'm serious, Chief," said Roal. "I found the Starhouse last night. I ate the antidote and submitted to a dose of the drug. It finally knocked me out, but I know the antidote was a great help. Why I was dumped in the desert, I don't know. But come with me right now and I'll show you where Starhouse is. Why it should ever have become known as the phantom tavern, I don't know. It's right down on Transite Street."