Duncan grinned. “I’m carrying out your orders. I just thought I’d like company.”

Olcott fingered his mustache. “You’re the first man who ever played a trick like that on me.”

For answer Duncan stood up and waved negligently at the controls. “Take over, if you like. Head the ship back to Earth.”

The irony was evident. In free space, almost anyone could pilot a cruiser. But emergencies and landings were different matters. Years of training in split-second, conditioned reactions were necessary to make a pilot—and only Duncan had had that training. Olcott could easily turn the ship around, but he probably could not control it in atmosphere, and he certainly could not make a safe landing. Olcott was in a prison, and Duncan held the only key.

“What do you want?”

“Not a thing. I’m going through with the job. I’ll get the radium-for you, and pick up Andrea. But if the Plutonians harm her, without a Helmet, she won’t die alone. We’re all in the same boat now.”

Olcott came to a decision. “All right. You’ve got aces. Later, we can settle things—not now.”

Duncan turned to the star-map. “Fair enough.”

In the mirror he watched Olcott kneel beside the unconscious Hartman and break an ammonia capsule under the scientist’s nose. Yes, fair enough. He had Olcott in a trap. Dangerous as the man was—and Duncan made no mistake about that—he would scarcely be fool enough to cause trouble till his own safety was assured.

It wouldn’t be assured till the cruiser was back on Earth. Meanwhile, they were in free space—without Varra Helmets. Duncan shivered a little. His eyes sought the enigmatic blackness where Pluto swung in its orbit, invisible and menacing. The Plutonian mind-vampires. Apparently Hartman’s trick had worked. The creatures had not yet discovered the blacked-out cruiser.

Not yet. But the scope of their powers was unknown. After all, the Plutonians were the reason why space was forbidden.

Instinctively Duncan’s teeth showed in a snarl of savage defiance.

There was hilarious excitement aboard the Maid of Mercury. The big passenger-cargo ship had just crossed the Line—Luna’s orbit—and that entailed a ceremony involving those who had never crossed before. An officer, grotesquely costumed as the Man 

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