"But you've got to admit it hit us," Weeks protested.

"Yes, and the Eysie ship was able to foresee it--report us before we snapped out of Hyper. Sounds almost as if they expected us to carry plague, doesn't it?" Shannon wanted to know.

"Planted?" Ali frowned at the banks of controls. "But how--no Eysie came on board--no Salarik either, except for the cub who showed us what they thought of catnip."

Rip shrugged. "How would I know how they did--" he was beginning when Dane cut in:

"If they didn't know about our immunity the Queen might stay in Hyper and never come out--there wouldn't be anyone to set the snap-out."

"Right enough. But on the chance that somebody did keep on his feet and bring her home, they were ready with a cover. If no one raises a howl Sargol will be written off the charts as infected, I-S sits on her tail fins a year or so and then she promotes an investigation before the Board. The Survey records are trotted out--no infection recorded. So they send in a Patrol Probe. Everything is all right--so it wasn't the planet after all--it was that dirty old Free Trader. And she's out of the way.

I-S gets the Koros trade all square and legal and we're no longer around to worry about! Neat as a Salariki net-cast--and right around our collective throats, my friends!"

"So what do we do now?" Weeks wanted to know.

"We keep on the Old Man's course, get lost in the asteroids until we can do some heavy thinking and see a way out. But if I-S gave us this prize package, some trace of its origin is still aboard. And if we can find that--why, then we have something to start from."

"Mura went down first--and then Karl. Nothing in common," the old problem faced Dane for the hundredth time.

"No. But," Ali arose from his place at the com-unit. "I'd suggest a real search of first Frank's and then Karl's quarters. A regular turn out down to the bare walls of their cabins. Are you with me?"

"Fly boy, we're ahead of you!" Rip contributed, already at the door panel. "Down to the bare walls it is."

Chapter X

E-STAT LANDING

Since Mura was in the isolation of ship sick bay the stripping of his cabin was a relatively simple job. But, though Rip and Dane went over it literally by inches, they found nothing unusual--in fact nothing from Sargol except a small twig of the red wood which lay on the steward's worktable where he had been fashioning something to incorporate in one of his miniature fairy landscapes, to be imprisoned for all time in a plasta-bubble. Dane turned this around in his fingers. Because it was the only link with the perfumed planet he couldn't help but feel that it had some importance.

But Kosti had not shown any interest in the wood. And he, himself, and Weeks had handled it freely _before_ they had tasted Graft's friendship cup and had no ill effects--so it couldn't be the wood. Dane put the twig back on the work table and snapped the protecting cover over the delicate tools--never realizing until days later how very close he had been in that moment to the solution of their problem.

After two hours of shifting every one of the steward's belongings, of crawling on hands and knees about the deck and climbing to inspect perfectly bare walls, they had found exactly nothing. Rip sat down on the end of the denuded bunk.

"There's the hydro--Frank spent a lot of time in there--and the storeroom," he told the places off on his fingers. "The galley and the mess cabin."

Those had been the extent of Mura's world. They could search the storeroom, the galley and the mess cabin--but to interfere with the hydro would endanger their air supply. It was for that very reason that they now looked at each other in startled surmise.

"The perfect place to plant something!" Dane spoke first.

Rip's teeth caught his underlip. The hydro--something planted there could not be routed out unless they made a landing on a port field and had the whole section stripped.

"Devilish--" Rip's mobile lips drew tight. "But how could they do it?"

Dane didn't see how it could have been done either. No one but the Queen's own crew had been on board the ship during their entire stay on Sargol, except for the young Salarik. Could that cub have brought something? But he and Mura had been with the youngster every minute that he had been in the hydro. To the best of Dane's memory the cub had touched nothing and had been there only for a few moments. That had been before the feast also--

Rip got to his feet. "We can't strip the hydro in s.p.a.ce," he pointed out the obvious quietly.

Dane had the answer. "Then we've got to earth!"

"You heard that warn-off. If we try it--"

"What about an Emergency station?"

Rip stood very still, his big hands locked about the buckle of his arms belt. Then, without another word, he went out of the cabin and at a pounding pace up the ladder, bound for the Captain's cabin and the records Jellico kept there. It was such a slim chance--but it was better than none at all.

Dane shouldered into the small s.p.a.ce in his wake to find Rip making a selection from the astrogation tapes. There were E-Stats among the asteroids--points prospectors or small traders in sudden difficulties might contact for supplies or repairs. The big Companies maintained their own--the Patrol had several for independents.

"No Patrol one--"

Rip managed a smile. "I haven't gone s.p.a.ce whirly yet," was his comment.

He was feeding a tape into the reader on the Captain's desk. In the cage over his head the blue Hoobat squatted watching him intently--for the first time since Dane could remember showing no sign of resentment by weird screams or wild spitting.

"Patrol E-Stat A-54--" the reader squeaked. Rip hit a key and the wire clicked to the next entry. "Combine E-Stat--" Another punch and click.

"Patrol E-Stat A-55--" punch-click. "Inter-Solar--" this time Rip's hand did not hit the key and the squeak continued--"Co-ordinates--" Rip reached for a steelo and jotted down the list of figures.

"Got to compare this with our present course--"

"But that's an I-S Stat," began Dane and then he laughed as the justice of such a move struck him. They did not dare set the Queen down at any Patrol Station. But a Company one which would be manned by only two or three men and not expecting any but their own people--and I-S owed them help now!

"There may be trouble," he said, not that he would have any regrets if there was. If the Eysies were responsible for the present plight of the Queen he would welcome trouble, the kind which would plant his fists on some sneering Eysie face.

"We'll see about that when we come to it," Rip went on to the control cabin with his figures. Carefully he punched the combination on the plotter and watched it be compared with the course Jellico had set before his collapse.

"Good enough," he commented as the result flashed on. "We can make it without using too much fuel--"

"Make what?" That was Ali up from the search of Kosti's quarters.

"Nothing," he gave his report of what he had found there and then returned to the earlier question. "Make what?"

Swiftly Dane outlined their suspicions--that the seat of the trouble lay in the hydro and that they should clean out that section, drawing upon emergency materials at the I-S E-Stat.

"Sounds all right. But you know what they do to pirates?" inquired the Engineer-apprentice.

s.p.a.ce law came into Dane's field, he needed no prompting. "Any ship in emergency," he recited automatically, "may claim supplies from the nearest E-Stat--paying for them when the voyage is completed."

"That means any Patrol E-Stat. The Companies' are private property."

"But," Dane pointed out triumphantly, "the law doesn't say so--there is nothing about any difference between Company and Patrol E-Stat in the law--"

"He's right," Rip agreed. "That law was framed when only the Patrol had such stations. Companies put them in later to save tax--remember? Legally we're all right."

"Unless the agents on duty raise a howl," Ali amended. "Oh, don't give me that look, Rip. I'm not sounding any warn-off on this, but I just want you to be prepared to find a cruiser riding our fins and giving us the hot flash as bandits. If you want to spoil the Eysies, I'm all for it.

Got a stat of theirs pinpointed?"

Rip pointed to the figures on the computer. "There she is. We can set down in about five hours' ship time. How long will it take to strip the hydro and re-install?"