found a substitute for a pair of clean sheets.Exactly seven hours later Captain Grimes stepped into the pilot's room and nodded seriously at the men gathered about the radio receiver. Aside from the operator there was Dr. Keith Johnson, the chief medical officer; Kai-Ling, the soft-spoken pilot; and Engineer Bill Manson.

"We're still dark, sir," the radio operator explained. "Just listening to land transmissions." Grimes noted the red light in the center of the ceiling, indicating that the service recorder was operating.

"What's the time to go?" he asked Manson. "Half-hour, sir," the engineer said, glancing at the radar scope for verification.

"Cruise between Nephele and Estival at a hundred thousand," Grimes told the pilot.

The man was still wearing part of his traditional garments and part of his service uniform. Grimes made signs at him, at the same time pointing to the red light. The pilot grinned broadly and began to shed the Oriental half of his garb on the spot.

"All right, Johnny," Grimes addressed the radio operator. "I want to talk with the Mayor of Estival and I don't want to be bypassed by any army or air force official or anybody else."

The boy's fingers flew over his controls and in a matter of seconds, he had the Estival Telephone Exchange. The first operator spoke no Terranian languages at all. The second one could only speak French and German. Then the chief operator took over and filled the room with the peculiar sing-song quality of a Priman speaking English.

Grimes reminded himself that the Primans had done a miraculous job in learning any Terranian tongues at all, considering the terrific strain under which the teaching had taken place. They had been taught from the air by Dr. Allen Russell, after the first Terranian exploration had ended in a hundred per cent fatalities. Then the famous doctor himself had landed and had never made it back to his ship. That had set off the clamor at home for direct action against the dark-skinned people of Primus. Mobs had actually stormed the UN building in Paris demanding blood.

Grimes aroused himself with a contemptuous shrug. Blood! The imbeciles! Most of them didn't know enough about Primans to know if they even had any blood; yet they were sure it was a case of wholesale murder. The Primans didn't want anybody to get their precious uranium ore--that was the popular belief. And he had to risk the lives of the 

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