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"Funny that he should pass out like that," commented Strong, sniffing the air. "I still don't smell anything."

Kit looked up at Strong and grinned. "He's not gassed. He's asleep."

"Asleep!" exclaimed Walters.

The enlisted spaceman standing on guard at the door stepped forward and saluted smartly. "Captain Howard hasn't slept for the last five days," he said. "He's been working night and day."

Walters smiled. "All right, Sergeant, take him to his quarters." Then he held up his hand. "No, let him stay where he is." He turned to Steve. "Come on, Steve. You too, Kit. Let's see if we can't get a report from the electronics section before we speculate any further."

The three men left the control-tower office under the watchful eyes of a squad of Space Marines. Trouble had already started at the spaceport when a crowd of excited miners had charged a detachment of enlisted men guarding Solar Guard cruisers. The crowds were growing panicky as the deadly gas filled the city, unchecked.

Strong, Walters, and Kit Barnard climbed into a waiting jet car, amid the hoots and catcalls from the waiting miners, and hurtled away to the giant building housing the electronic "brain" that controlled the force-field screens.

Walters' face was grim. Beside him, Strong and Kit were silent as they raced through the empty streets. If there was no positive discovery by the electronics section of the huge screening operations, then it would have to be assumed that Commander Walters was right in his theory of overpopulation. To remedy that situation would require complete reconstruction of the satellite settlement and temporary abandonment of Titan. Millions of dollars would be lost and thousands of people thrown out of work. It would be a severe blow to the Solar Alliance.

The jet car slowed to a stop. They were in front of the electronics building and the three men climbed out wearily. They would know in a few minutes now.

CHAPTER 13

"You're afraid of your own shadow!" Miles snarled over his shoulder to Charley Brett who followed him out of the room. Brett was adjusting his oxygen mask with one hand and gripping a paralo-ray gun tightly with the other.

"Never mind the cracks," snapped Brett, his voice muffled by the mask. "I tell you I heard someone moving around in here."

Miles laughed again and walked straight to the middle of the room. With their backs pressed to the wall beside the door, Tom and Astro saw Miles bend over and lift a trap door in the middle of the floor.

The two men flashed a light down into the opening and climbed down, pulling the trap door closed after them.

No sooner was it shut than Tom and Astro jumped forward to examine it cautiously. Astro started to pull it open but Tom held out a warning hand. He turned and pointed toward the room that Miles and Brett had left. Astro nodded and they walked quickly back to the door. Sliding it open, they stepped inside.

"By the rings of Saturn!" cried Astro.

"Well, blast my jets!" Tom exclaimed.

The air in the room was clear, completely free of the misty whirling methane ammonia of death that swirled around them outside. Recovering from his surprise quickly, Astro closed the door and walked to the center of the room, looking around curiously. Tom had already slipped off his mask and was examining the equipment lying on the floor. Astro bent over an oddly shaped machine that looked somewhat like an ancient compressed-air drill, with a long bar protruding from one end. He examined the bar closely and then turned slowly to Tom.

"Do you know what this machine is?" he asked in almost a whisper.

Tom looked at it and then shook his head.

"I haven't seen one of these since I left Venus, and then only when I was a kid hanging around the spaceports where the space rats used to blast off for the asteroids looking for uranium."

"You mean you hunt uranium with that thing?" asked Tom.

"No, you dig it out with this."

Tom gazed at the machine thoughtfully. "Why would it be here?" he mused. "It's