Roger flipped off the teleceiver. He stared at the darkened screen and began estimating the chances of success for a plan he had in mind. Deciding that, regardless of what happened, he had to take over the ship, he got up and turned toward the hatch and the gun locker. He stopped cold. Loring stood framed in the doorway, a paralo-ray gun in each hand.
"Just stand right where you are, spaceboy!" snapped Loring. "You want ten minutes, huh? Ten minutes for what? I thought there was something funny going on when we missed the Polaris with that bomb!"
"You knew all along I didn't have anything to do with that crash back on the station, didn't you?" shouted Roger. His eyes blazed angrily.
"Yeah. So what?" growled Loring. "Hey, Mason," he yelled over his shoulder, "get up here in a hurry! We gotta work fast!"
"What are you going to do?" asked Roger.
"You're still valuable to us, Manning," said Loring with a crooked grin. "You're going to ensure our getting what we came after!"
Mason stepped through the door. "Yeah, Loring?"
Loring quickly told him of Roger's attempt to work with Connel.
"Take our spaceboy down below and lock him in a storage compartment." He handed over one of the paralo-ray guns, and Mason shoved the muzzle into Roger's stomach.
"Get moving, Manning!" he snarled. "I'd like nothing better than to let you have it right now!"