"A minute, Straley!" Beecher held him from the door, his close-set eyes full of dislike. "Foshag told me Bigger Bailes is back there." He jerked a shoulder. "You're a man with many small tricks, Straley," he went on slowly. "Probably you're the most dangerous man I've ever encountered. I've been around." "I'll bet you have!" Beecher gestured with the cigar, turned on his grin, apparently to convince anybody watching that this was a friendly conversation. "But I'm not letting you get away with anything. We have to do something about Bailes. I don't intend to be hi-jacked. Truthfully, mister, I don't see why the settlers shouldn't be forewarned. They're a decent bunch. We're not. "In fact," his eyes were boring, "I've known from the first that you've been using these people." "As you have--and as you've attempted to use me!" "Yes." Beecher's lips moved hesitantly. "You and I and Fayette are all three getting a free ride to Titan, aren't we? No expenses. So now that we've _almost_ laid our cards on the table, why shouldn't we join forces?" Unterzuyder drew himself up disdainfully. "I work alone, Beecher." "Yeah." Beecher showed disgust. "You mean you're working for something no decent person would help you with." "And you mean by that?" Beecher's eyes simmered. He said nothing. Unterzuyder snapped. "I still work alone--unless forced to recruit help. That condition may occur. In the meantime, use some of those qualities of leadership an _explorer_ should have. Inform these people what's up. Tell them Bailes will probably attempt to loot the ship. Line the men up at the arsenal and load them down with weapons. Make arrangements so the women and children will keep to the cabins. Can you handle that?" Beecher flushed until his face was bright red. * * * * * Leaving him properly insulted, Unterzuyder went to the control turret where he cornered Foshag, drew him to the Solar Chart. Unterzuyder picked up a pencil, made an indentation at random. It was considerably to the east of the _Ares'_ present position. "Change course immediately. To that point." Foshag huffed rebelliously. "That won't help us outrun Bailes. The new course will but give him a hypotenuse to travel. He'll run us down quicker." Unterzuyder's lips turned thinner. Muttering, Foshag sat down to the computations. On the way out of the turret, Unterzuyder slipped a slide-rule out of an instrument case so deftly that nobody noticed. Another hour's work showed him that the two sets of figures, respectively, indicated X's _point of origin_ and _direction of travel_. _c_ stood for cosine, of course, _s_ for sine. X had been, when the map was made, some degrees below the plane of the ecliptic. Its orbit was at a steep slant to that plane. So what? So the point of origin was located in time 50,000 years ago? The map was a fake!