She was still smiling. _We've got a few spies in the UN now_, she told him. _I got the information before you did._ _You knew before you left New York?_ he asked incredulously. _That's right_, she thought. _The decision was made last night. Why?_ _Nothing_, he told her. _I was just surprised, that's all._ But deep behind the telepathic barrier he had erected against her probing mind, he was thinking something else. He had been assigned to London to capture the Controller--then unknown--who was said to be active in England. But his recall order had been decided upon _before_ Harris was caught--or even suspected. Someone in the UN Psychodeviant Police Supreme Headquarters in New York must have known that Harris would be caught that day! _Something's bothering you_, Dorrine stated flatly. _I was thinking about leaving London_, he replied evasively. _I haven't seen you for six months, and now I have to leave again._ _I'll be back in New York within three weeks_, the girl thought warmly. _I'll be--_ Her thoughts were cut off suddenly by a strident voice in Houston's ear. "Attention; all-band notice. Robert Bentley Harris, arraigned this evening on a charge of illegal use of psychodeviant powers for the purpose of compounding a felony, has been found guilty as charged. He was therefore sentenced by the Lord Justice of Her Majesty's Court of Star Chamber to be banished from Earth forever, such banishment to be carried out by the United Nations Penology Service at the Queen's pleasure." The words that were running through Houston's brain, had been transmitted easily to Dorrine. For a moment, neither of them made any comment. Then Houston glanced at his watch. _Twenty-one minutes_, he thought bitterly. _What took them so long?_ * * * * * High in the thin ionosphere, seventy miles above the surface of the Earth, a fifteen-hundred-mile-an-hour rocket airliner winged its way westward across the Atlantic, pushing herself forward on the thin, whispering, white-hot jets of her atomic engine. Behind her, the outdistanced sun sank slowly below the eastern horizon. David Houston wasn't watching the sunrise-in-reverse; he was sitting quietly in his seat, still trying to puzzle out his queer recall to New York. When Hamilton had told him about it over the phone, he'd assumed that New York, having been notified that Harris had been captured, had decided to send for Houston, now that his job was over. But now he knew that the order had come through nearly twenty-four hours before Harris was captured. Did someone at UN Headquarters know that Harris was going to be captured? Or did someone there suspect that there was something odd about Police Operative David Houston? Or both? Whatever it was, Houston would have to take his chances; to act suspiciously would be a deadly mistake.