"He _still_ must report, regardless of what he's doing!"
"I--uh--ah--yes, sir!" gulped Tom. Blast Roger anyway, he thought, forgetting the all-important quarter-hour check-in.
"I'd better go up and find out if anything's wrong," said Connel.
"Gosh, sir," suggested Tom, desperately seeking an excuse for his shipmate. "I'm sure Roger would have notified us if anything had happened."
"Knowing Manning as I do, I'm not so sure!" And the irascible officer thundered through the door like a jet-propelled tank!
"Come on, Mason. Hurry and put on that space suit," barked Loring.
"Take it easy," grumbled Mason. "I'm working as fast as I can!"
"Of all the rotten luck," growled Loring. "Who'd ever figure the _Annie Jones_ would blast off from Venus--and then stop at the space station!"
"Shows you ain't so smart," retorted Mason. "Lots of ships do that. They carry just enough fuel to get 'em off the surface, so they'll be light while they're blasting out of Venus' gravity. Then they stop at the space station to refuel for the long haul."
"All right," barked Loring, "lay off the lecture! Just get that space suit on in a hurry!"
"Listen, wise guy," challenged Mason, "just tell me one thing. If we bail out of this tub in space suits, who's going to pick us up?"
"We're not? Then what are we suiting up for?"
"Just in case," said Loring. "Now listen to me. In a few minutes the _Annie Jones_'ll make contact with traffic control. Only instead of talking to the pilot--they'll be talking to us. Because we'll have taken over."
"But unless we land they'll be suspicious. And if we land ..."
Loring interrupted. "Nobody's going to suspect a thing. I'll tell traffic control we've got an extra-heavy load. Then they won't let us land. We follow their orders and blast off into space--find an emergency fuel station--head for Tara--and nobody suspects anything."
Mason twisted his face into a scowl. "Sounds awful risky to me," he muttered.
"Sure it's risky," sneered Loring, "but you don't hit the jackpot without ever taking a _chance_!"
The two men, huddled against a jumble of packing cases in the cargo hold of the _Annie Jones_, made careful preparations. Checking their weapons, they opened their way toward the freighter's control deck. Just outside the hatch they stopped, paralo-ray guns ready, and listened.