Ross Floring coming here!" Marn panted. "I recognized his car coming up the hill!"

Harb uttered a fierce exclamation, but Jonny cut in quickly:

"He's only coming up here to look around. He suspects what we're up to, but he can't be sure. Don't show any excitement."

Harb gestured fiercely toward Carlin. "But if he says anything, Floring will know."

A pleasant voice hailed them. Ross Floring, lean in his gray uniform, drove up behind the house and climbed out of his ato-car.

"Hello, folks," he greeted. "Thought I'd come up and see you. Jonny, I haven't seen you for weeks. Every time you come down to the spaceport, you spend all your time buried in that ship."

Jonny smiled. "It's keeping us pretty busy, getting ready."

Laird Carlin sensed genuine liking between the Control Operations officer and the lame young engineer. Yet there was unspoken tension too. It showed behind Jonny's cool smile and Floring's pleasant eyes.

Floring was looking past them, through the open doors of the workshop at the towering magnetic dredge.

"Is that your new metal-finding dingus, Jonny? The thing you're going to use to locate copper on Mercury?"

He stepped toward it. Harb Land made a violent movement forward, but a flat look from his brother stopped him.

"Yes, that's it," Jonny said. "Want to look it over, Ross?"

Floring stood, cocking his head at the towering machine. He laughed at the question.

"Jonny, you know I'm no engineer. A thing like this is beyond me." He turned toward Carlin. "But Mr. Carlin, you're a CE. What do you think of this new metal-finding device of Jonny's?"

Breathless silence held the group for a moment. Floring's face was unmoved, pleasant, but his purpose was obvious now. Knowing that Carlin had come to Earth merely as an Earth-treatment case, he was counting on Carlin's unbiased truthfulness.

Carlin felt their eyes on him. Now was the time, he knew, to play the part of a good galactic citizen and inform Floring just what was going on. It was his duty to do it.

But he couldn't! He couldn't betray the last desperate hope of a gallant old planet's people in 

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