"What's this?" he asked, glancing at them in the light reflected from the hall, and then back to the serious face of the brilliant young physicist, Dr. Joan Dale, who, in spite of being a woman, had been placed in charge of the Academy laboratories, the largest and most complete in the entire Solar Alliance.
"Steve," she began, "I was in charge of the psychograph tests taken of all the workers at the projectile operation after the first mishap—"
"How did you know about the second?" Strong interrupted quickly, remembering Connel's admonition about keeping the incident quiet.
"I was ordered to go over the graphs again, to look for any possible clue in a worker's mental make-up that would lead him to a criminal act." She paused and looked up at him squarely. "Do you suspect me too?"
"I'm sorry, Joan," said the young captain. "But this whole business is getting me down. Tom, disappearing on Mars, Roger and Astro walking off guard duty and stealing a scout, and now this latest sabotage attempt." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm tired I guess."
She smiled. "I understand, Steve, and regardless of what Major Connel and Commander Walters have said, I'll bet my last credit there's a good reason for what the boys have done."
Strong looked down at the pretty physicist and smiled. "Thanks, Joan," he said. "Now, what about these papers?"
"It's about the report on Pat Troy," she replied. "When we asked him if he was working with anyone other than the professor, he lied."
She produced a sheet of paper from among those she held and handed it to Strong. The young captain took it and scanned it quickly. The paper was ordinary graph paper with a series of small, wavy lines on it in red ink. Near the bottom of the paper, there was a jagged peak in the wavy line. "What does this mean?" he asked, pointing to the peak.
"That was his reaction when he was asked if he worked for anyone else."