But the girl ignored the crowd, still talking to him, "You didn't know I was an ice pistol expert, too, did you? You didn't know I was in the fur business because my father used to be a trapper on Venus. When I was twelve years old, I could bring down a tigodon at a half a mile."

The beefy-faced patrolman, his nose bandaged now, said, "If you'll get up, Miss Vaun, we'll take care of him now."

The others were staring at the space bat, flopping about feebly a short distance away, its awful strength spent.

"Leggett," the fur merchant said to the lawyer, "think what a rug that would make for the firm's front office!"

"Miss Vaun can also come into a nice bit of cash from that circus for it," one of the other patrolmen said. "This is her land—or soon will be—and the bat's on it. Where Flint's going, he won't be able to claim anything."

The big patrolman helped Karen up. Flint stumbled to his feet. The patrolman grabbed him by the collar, roughly. "Come along, kidnapper," he said.

Karen Vaun stared at the patrolman blankly. "Kidnapper?"

The patrolman frowned. "Certainly, Miss Vaun. Don't you know this guy engineered the whole business—having you taken off his plane? He and that Venusian were going to hold you for ransom."

Karen shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "Greeno was merely bringing me out to look at these planetoids while Mr. Flint went to get his big guns for the bat. Kidnapper? Preposterous! Mr. Flint and I are buying these planetoids together."

"What!" Leggett and Hudson said the word simultaneously. And they seemed the only ones in the crowd who could speak. "Together!" Leggett said weakly. "Why this area is a million dollar investment!"

"Two million," Karen said. She took Flint's hand, he standing there as dumbfounded as the rest. "Mr. Flint's going to contribute a million of his own from the sale of the bat. We're going to raise feather-deer here. It would be bad business to kill them all off." She paused, surveying the crowd as if daring anybody to disagree with her. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll get back to Saturn. We have business to discuss." Then she glanced toward the jungle. "Greeno!" she called. "Aren't you coming with us? If you're going to be foreman around our feather-deer ranch, you've got to be in on the conferences."

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