“The gorp—­” Dane came back to the present and flushed.  He dreaded admitting to a nightmare—­especially to Ali whose poise he had always found disconcerting.

“No gorps here.  Nothing but—­”

Kamil’s words were lost in the escape of metal against metal as a panel slide back in the wall.  But no guard wearing the black and silver of the Patrol stepped through to summon them to trial.  Van Rycke stood in the opening, half smiling at them with his customary sleepy benevolence.

“Well, well, and here’s our missing ones,” his purring voice was the most beautiful sound Dane thought he had ever heard.

Chapter XVIII

BARGAIN CONCLUDED

“—­and so we landed here, sir,” Rip concluded his report in the matter-of-fact tone he might have used in describing a perfectly ordinary voyage, say between Terraport and Luna City, a run of no incident and dull cargo carrying.

The crew of the Solar Queen, save for Tau, were assembled in a room somewhere in the vastness of Patrol Headquarters.  Since the room seemed a comfortable conference chamber, Dane thought that their status must now be on a higher level than that of Patrol Posted outlaws.  But he was also sure that if they attempted to walk out of the building that effort would not be successful.

Van Rycke sat stolidly in his chosen seat, fingers of both hands laced across his substantial middle.  He had sat as impassively as the Captain while Rip had outlined their adventures since they had all been stricken.  Though the other listeners had betrayed interest in the story, the senior officers made no comments.  Now Jellico turned to his Cargo-master.

“How about it, Van?”

“What’s done is done—­”

Dane’s elation vanished as if ripped away by a Sargolian storm wind.  The Cargo-master didn’t approve.  So there must have been another way to achieve their ends—­one the younger members of the crew had been too inexperienced or too dense to see—­

“If we blasted off today we might just make cargo contract.”

Dane started.  That was it!  The point they had lost sight of during their struggles to get aid.  There was no possible chance of upping the ship today—­probably not for days to come—­or ever, if the case went against them.  So they had broken contract—­and the Board would be down on them for that.  Dane shivered inside.  He could try to fight back against the Patrol—­there had always been a slight feeling of rivalry between the Free Traders and the space police.  But you couldn’t buck the Board—­and keep your license and so have a means of staying in space.  A broken contract could cut one off from the stars forever.  Captain Jellico looked very bleak at that reminder.

“The Eysies will be all ready to step in.  I’d like to know why they were so sure we had the plague on board—­”