“One of the men who will be stopping over at this spaceport is carrying some of the altered Spaceoline on his person. Chemists in the Capellan system, which is outside the Federation, will analyze it and set up ways of synthesizing more. After that, it’s either fight the worst drug menace we’ve ever seen or suppress the matter by suppressing the source.”

“You mean Spaceoline.”

“Right. And if we suppress Spaceoline, we suppress space travel.”

I decided to put my finger on the point. “Which one of the three has it?”

Rog smiled nastily, “If we knew, would we need you? You’re to find out which of the three.”

“You’re calling on me for a lousy frisk job.”

“Touch the wrong one at the risk of a haircut down to the larynx. Every one of the three is a big man on his own planet. One is Edward Harponaster; one is Joaquin Lipsky; and one is Andiamo Ferrucci. Well?”

He was right. I’d heard of every one of them. Chances are you have, too; and not one was touchable without proof in advance, as you know. I said, “Would one of them touch a dirty deal like—”

“There are trillions involved,” said Rog, “which means any one of the three would. And one of them is, because Jack Hawk got that far before he was killed—”

“Jack Hawk’s dead?” For a minute, I forgot about the Galactic drug menace. For a minute, I nearly forgot about Flora.

“Right, and one of those guys arranged the killing. Now you find out which. You put the finger on the right one before 11:00 and there’s a promotion, a raise in pay, a pay-back for poor Jack Hawk, and a rescue of the Galaxy. You put the finger on the wrong one and there’ll be a nasty interstellar situation and you’ll be out on your ear and also on every black list from here to Antares and back.”

I said, “Suppose I don’t finger anybody?”

“That would be like fingering the wrong one as far as the Service is concerned.”