"They might not catch her until she was real close in," Adam March persisted. "She wouldn't be using her drive until she got in real close and you probably wouldn't catch her until the drive was turned on. Let me know, will you, if you catch anything?" The last was said quickly as Craig Randall began to move away. "Sure thing, Adam, you'll be the first to know," Craig answered. Across the room, Mary Kirkham was trying to catch his eye, a needless effort in this case. If she was in sight, she always had his eye. She also had the eye of every other male in her vicinity, a quality which occasionally gave Craig the impulse to destroy half the unmarried men at the station. She was a bio-physicist, and a good one. She was assigned to the bio-physical research laboratories that were a part of the station. Mary pulled him down to the sofa beside her. "Craig, we're going to get a whole new bio-physics lab here." Excitement danced in her voice and glinted in her eyes. "That's fine," Craig said. He knew how much this meant to her. "How do you know?" "The chief just got the news from Mr. Nuoy," Mary Kirkham answered. * * * * * "Nuoy. Oh." Craig's voice dropped a notch as Nuoy's name came into the conversation. He felt his mood shift. "If Nuoy has approved it, of course it will go through. He's got enough pull to get special quarters constructed for him here, at the expense of Earth Government, so he can have the advantages of living under a light gravity. But he never considers that two billion humans scattered through the Solar System have kicked in with taxes so that he can enjoy life." Bitterness crept into his voice as he spoke. "What are you going to do in your new bio-physics lab--find a way to make Nuoy virile?" "Craig!" She was hurt at what he said. "You're spreading rumor!" "Of course," he agreed. What he had said was rumor, without substantiation and without proof. If anyone had been careless enough to try to prove such rumors, the results would have been unpleasant for the investigator. Officially there was no connection between Nuoy and Pluto Station, or between Nuoy and Earth Government. But at high official levels, in wire pulling that went on so far above the heads of the average man as to be beyond his comprehension, there was little doubt that Nuoy owned Pluto Station, and a big chunk of the Solar System as well. "I hope you're wrong, Craig," the girl said, seriously. "I would hate to think we have such monsters as that riding on the back of all of us." "I hope I'm wrong too. But I'm afraid I'm not." "Randall!" the public address system broke in. "Craig Randall. Come to the main observation dome at once, please." "The military calls," Craig said, rising. "Us lesser mortals must obey."