"Figger of speech, sweet. We mean a small portable relay tube that we can stick in series with this gawd-awful drain and use for a direction finder. I have no intention of trying to scour every storeroom in that area for that which I don't really believe is there." The main deterrent to swift action was the bitter, bitter cold that stabbed at their faces and hands which were not enclosed in the electrically heated suite--of which each one of them wore three against this ultraviolent chill. "There should be a door here," objected Don, reading a blueprint from the large roll he carried under his arm. "Fact is, this series of rooms seems to have been sealed off entirely though the blueprint calls for a door, about here!" "How could anybody re-seal a doorway?" asked Barney. "Duplicator," said Don thoughtfully. "And I smell rats!" "So. And how do we get in?" demanded Arden. "We break in," said Channing harshly. "Come on, gang. We're going back downstairs and get us a cutter!" The cutter consisted of a single-focus scanner beam that Don wielded like an acetylene torch. Clean and silently it cut through the metal wall and the section fell inward with a slight crash. They stepped in through the opening. "Someone has been homesteading," said Channing in a gritty voice. "Nice prefab home, hey? Let's add house-breaking to our other crimes. I'd like to singe the heels offa the character that did this. And I think I'll let the main one simmer." "Who?" asked Arden. Channing pointed to the huge energy tube at one end of the room. It bore the imprint of Terran Electric. "Kingman," he said drily. He applied his cutter to the wall of the cottage and burned his way through. "No one living here," he said. "Colder than Pluto in here, too. Look, Wes, here's your short circuit. Tubes from--" "And here," said Farrell quickly, "are your missing chums!" Channing came over to stand beside Farrell, looking down at the too-still forms. Baler looked at Channing with a puzzled glance, and Channing shook his head quietly. Then he said: "I may be wrong, but it strikes me that Walt and Christine interrupted skullduggery at work and were trapped as a consequence. No man, no matter how insane, would ever enter a trap like this willingly. This is neither a love nest nor a honeymoon cottage, Jim. This is a death trap!" Channing turned from the place and left on a dead run. He paused at the door to the huge room and yelled: "Don't touch 'em 'till I get Doc!" * * * * * By the clock, Christmas Day dawned bright and clear. The strip fluorescents came on in the corridors of Venus Equilateral and there began the inexorable flow of people towards the South End Landing Stage. Each carried a small bag. In this were the several _uniques_ he possessed and a complete set of recordings on the rest of his personal possessions. Moving was as easy as that--and once they reached Terra, everything they owned could be reproduced at will.