"Bring that dirty little space crawler in here!"
Captain Strong had never seen Commander Walters so angry. The cords stood out in his neck and his face was red with fury as he paced up and down the Solar Guard office in Venusport. "A spy," he roared. "A spy right in the heart of our organization!" He shook his head.
The door opened and two burly Solar Guardsmen entered, saluted, and turned to flank the doorway, hands on their paralo-ray pistols. The private secretary of E. Philips James shuffled in slowly, followed by two more guards. Walters stepped up to the thin, intense young man and glared at him. "If I had my way, I'd send you out to the deepest part of space and leave you there!"
"Where is your secret base?" demanded Walters.
"I don't know," replied the secretary nervously.
"Who told you to intercept this message from Mercury?" Walters tapped a paper on his desk. "Who gave you your orders?"
"I receive orders on an audioceiver in my home," answered the man, a slight quaver in his voice. "I have never seen my superior."
"And you followed the Nationalist movement blindly, doing whatever they told you, without question, is that it?"
"Who told you to forge those orders for priority seats on the _Venus Lark_?"
"How did you know Major Connel was coming here to investigate the Nationalists?"
"I read the decoded message sent to the Solar Delegate, Mr. James."
"Who told you to send men to bomb the _Polaris_?"
"Your superior--your superior!" Walters' voice was edged with contempt. "What else has your superior told you to do?"
"A great many things," said the young man simply.
Walters studied the thin face and then turned to Captain Strong. "There's only one thing to do, Steve. There's no telling how many of these rats are inside our organization. Relieve every civilian in any position of trust and put in our own man. I'll make a public teleceiver broadcast in half an hour. I'm declaring martial law."
"If you hadn't been in the code room when this message from Mercury came in, we would never have known the Nationalists were trying to get the Mercurians to join them in their attack on us until it was too late. It's the only break we've had, so far, learning that the Mercurians are still decent, loyal Solar citizens. I hate to think of what would have happened if they hadn't warned us."