“Ahead of schedule, too, by a little bit. All the companies pulled together and made the probes to Dr. Hoshino’s specifications. I like his design. His plan should work very well, very well indeed!” “It’s a wonderful design, Rick! Dr. Hoshino is a genius to a degree above everyone else of this generation. We ought to be able to locate any asteroid that Lurton Zimbardo throws at us. But stopping it is a different problem.” “If we find it in time, that shouldn’t be too hard, either.” The two friends talked for a little longer, then went out to watch the launch. Seven unmanned NME freighters were prepared to carry Earth’s hope into space. They would be accompanied by a dozen armed ships supplied by Space Command. The rendezvous of freighters and warships was only a half-hour’s flight time from the space station. Then they would proceed on the eight-day journey to the site of deployment. In a private office and laboratory below, Robert Nolan’s chief assistant Beowulf Denn finished making a voice recording of the details of the launch. He included the number of freighters, the number and type of Space Command warships appointed to guard them, their course, hour of departure, and timing of the deployment of the probes. When he had finished the recording, he inserted the disk into a computer independent of the NME computer system and speeded up its contents so that the entire message was less than 0.03 seconds long. He then encrypted it and transmitted the result on a tight beam communicator to coordinates in space which he kept only in his head. After the message had been sent, he destroyed the disk and removed all signs on his computer that the action had occurred. The message he sent could be read only one time and then would erase itself, leaving no trace at the receiving end that it had ever existed. * * * * * Seven ships had arrived at O344. The Starmen were outside, having sped through the airlock with the first news that the ships from Ceres were at hand. They stood on the edge of the landing zone and watched the ships come close to O344. Only the dark red _Star Ranger_ and one other ship touched down. Sim Sala Bim was the first to debark. “So pleased to see you young men are safe!” he spouted. “So much has happened in these three weeks! Here is your _Star Ranger_, ready for duty!” The Indian was excited. Zip had shaken off his own dark mood and was rising to the challenge. The other two Starmen were eager to lift off and get back into the battle against Lurton Zimbardo. “Nice to see you, Sim!” cried out Zip, as he and the man from Ceres shook hands through their spacesuits. “George and his men will be ready in a moment. They are wonderful people! Salt of the earth types, though I’ll bet none of them has been on Earth for years!” “We’ll get them back to Ceres safely, don’t worry about that!” advised Sim. “You just go on and stop this crazy fellow.”