Getting near now.

Mowry gazed absently at his fingers. They were steady but sweaty. There were queer electric thrills running up and down his spine. His knees felt weak and his stomach felt weaker. He prayed for enough resolution to land without spewing in plain sight of everybody. Hell of a hero he’d look if he did that.

Far away across the void was a planet with a fully comprehensive card-system and because of that he was about to have his pointed head shoved into the lion’s mouth. Mentally he damned card-systems, those who’d invented them, those who operated them. The cussing relieved his feelings somewhat but did not restore strength to his knees.

With the arrival so close the philosophic resignation that had sustained him had now evaporated. He fidgeted nervily around, occasionally grabbing the handhold heartily wishing the whole dirty business were done with and over.

By the time propulsion ceased and the ship stood silently upon its antigravs above the selected spot he had generated the fatalistic impatience of a man facing a major operation that no longer can be avoided. He half-ran, half-slid down the nylon ladder to ground. A dozen of the corvette’s crew followed, equally in a hurry but for different reasons. They worked like maniacs, all the time keeping a wary eye upon the sky.

CHAPTER II

The cliff was part of an upthrust plateau rising four hundred feet above the forest. At bottom were two caves, one wide and shallow, one narrow but deep. Before the caves stretched a beach of tiny pebbles at the edge of which a small stream swirled and bubbled.

Cylindrical duralumin containers, thirty in all, were lowered from the ship’s belly to the beach, seized and carried to the back of the deep cave, stacked so that the code numbers on their lids faced the light. That done, the twelve scrambled monkeylike up the ladder which was promptly reeled in. An officer waved a hand from the open lock, shouted a last word of encouragement.