"What kept you?" The officer demanded angrily.
Reilly looked at his superior reproachfully. "I made it from Crypto in forty seconds flat, sir. Couldn't come any faster!"
"Dammit! Now we'll have to put this on tight beam and scramble it. Intelligence suspects the Cats have cracked our cipher!"
He sat down at the scrambler and began to type.
"COMMODORE CLARE HARTNETT: ABOARD TRS DARKSIDE FLOTILLA BLUE THREE. PRIORITY MISSION. REPEAT. PRIORITY MISSION. SPATIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORTS LARGE QUANTITY ISOTOPE X-R REFERENCE 6589-3 CODE BOOK IN DANGER OF CAPTURE AT METALLURGICAL STATION 9 CHART REFERENCE A-5. PREVENT AT ALL COSTS. LARGE CONCENTRATION MARTIAN PHOBOS CLASS CRUISERS AND POSSIBLE SUPERDREADNAUGHT ARMED WITH CYCLOTRONICS IN VICINITY SEARCHING FOR STATION 9. REPEAT. X-R MUST NOT FALL INTO MARTIAN HANDS. DESTROY IF NECESSARY. FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE INTELLIGENCE SUSPECTS CIPHER TWO HAS BEEN CRACKED BY MARTIAN CRYPTO. LUCK. DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE. SIGNED: TORAN LONG, CAPTAIN, SENIOR CONTROL, LUNA BASE. END MESSAGE."
Rising, he detached the roll of perforated tape from the scrambler and fed it into the tight beam transmitter. When the roll was consumed, Long dropped sullenly into a chair. His relief arrived, but all desire to partake of the joys of Ley City was gone. Like most of the old timers he admired Hartnett immensely, and he could not rid himself of the feeling that he was in some way responsible for sending the fabulous spaceman into sure destruction.
Against the ten known cruisers and the suspected superdreadnaught that were searching that quadrant for the illusive Station 9, the strength of Flotilla Blue Three was sadly inadequate.
If the message had arrived earlier, a dreadnaught or at least a couple of cruisers could have been despatched with Hartnett's force. But the impossibility of a rendezvous in space made it strictly the Commodore's baby now. Besides, Terra had no ships to spare. Hartnett would have to rescue the three technicians at the Station and destroy the Isotope X-R with no help.
The Cats didn't know what X-R was, but they wanted to find out awfully badly if their concentration of strength in the Uranus quadrant was any indication. And it wouldn't be very long before they found that the mysterious Station 9 was on Oberon, either. With more than eleven ships prowling around, they wouldn't miss such an obvious bet for very much longer. All Hartnett had to do now was sneak through their screen, land a ship on Oberon, take the technicians off, destroy the X-R, and get away again without being seen because the Artemis couldn't fight! Long groaned. That's all!
Oh, why, he wondered, wouldn't Terrans learn? An ancient leader of Terra's nationalist era had said it perfectly for them. Speak softly, he had said, but carry a big stick! Why wouldn't they listen?