The girl turned to him once more and began to speak--rather cautiously, it seemed to Pell.
"We have been looking for you for a long time, Pell," she said. "It was only by the purest accident that we found you in time to save your life tonight.
"Formerly you were a space pilot--in fact you owned a business. But you were crushed by the Drake Interstellar Corporation, even to the extent of losing your license. And now the DIC, taking no chances with you, is determined to kill you. Because you are a hunted enemy of the DIC _and_ a space pilot, we felt that you might be interested in our proposition."
"If you are to remain alive," she replied, "you must leave Earth. But you have no ship. I have the ship and also want to leave Earth, but cannot without a pilot."
"Then why don't you simply hire a licensed pilot and be done with it?" Pell asked, his eyes narrowed.
"No licensed pilot would accept the job."
"Have you followed in the daily papers the account of the Junta on Centauri V?" she countered.
Instantly Pell realized the fantastic truth. Indeed he had heard of the coup. Insurgents had successfully taken over the government and were keeping the DIC warships at bay with planet-mounted blast rifles. But speculation was rife in the daily papers as to how long they could hold out with their limited supply of U-235, for it was the colonial policy of the DIC-controlled Earth Government never to allow more than a meager amount of the universal fuel to be shipped at any one time to a colonial planet.
With growing amazement, Pell realized that the girl was an agent of old Matt Faradson, the leader of the revolt. And her purpose here on Earth was now obvious to him. He felt a quick rise in sympathy for her, but kept it out of his voice.
"In other words, you want me to pilot you and a load of U-235 to Centauri V?" he asked bluntly.
The girl nodded. "We have managed to secure secretly five kilos of U-235 and it is now stored in the ship's cadmium and graphite vaults. With it, Faradson will be able to stand off the constant skirmishing attacks of the DIC until he can build his own refining plants."
Pell whistled softly to himself, his mind busy on the train of thought the girl had presented. Of course, the Earth Government was little more than a semblance of democracy now; its short-sighted actions of more than two hundred years ago had brought it to its present situation where it was little more than a mouth-piece of huge economic empires like the Drake Interstellar Corporation, one of the largest.