But fanciful imaginings did not cushion or veil cold, hard fact. Dr. Gordon Ashe, one of the four men peering unhappily at the display, shook his head slightly as if to free his mind of such cobwebs.
His neighbor to the right, Colonel Kelgarries, leaned forward to ask harshly: "No chance of a mistake?"
"You saw the detector." The thin gray string of a man behind the desk answered with chill precision. "No, no possible mistake. These five have definitely been snooped."
"And two choices among them," Ashe murmured. That was the important point now.
"I thought these were under maximum security," Kelgarries challenged the gray man.
Florian Waldour's remote expression did not change. "Every possible precaution was in force. There was a sleeper—a hidden agent—planted——"
"Who?" Kelgarries demanded.
Ashe glanced around at his three companions—Kelgarries, colonel in command of one sector of Project Star, Florian Waldour, the security head on the station, Dr. James Ruthven....
"Camdon!" he said, hardly able to believe this answer to which logic had led him.
Waldour nodded.