The Virgin Queen made a quick flit from Cavenda to Vegia, arriving exactly on time; a proud, clean space-ship as high above suspicion as Calpurnia herself. Samms unloaded her cargo; replaced it with one for Earth. She was serviced. She made a fast, eventless run to Tellus. She docked at New York Spaceport. Virgil Samms walked unconcernedly into an ordinary-looking rest-room; George Olmstead, fully informed, walked unconcernedly out.
As soon as he could, Samms Lensed Northrop and Jack Kinnison.
"We lined up a thousand and one signals, sir," Northrop reported for the pair, "but only one of them carried a message, and it didn't make sense."
"Why not?" Samms asked, sharply. "With a Lens, any kind of a message, however garbled, coded, or interrupted, makes sense."
"Oh, we understood what it said," Jack came in, "but it didn't say enough. Just 'READY—READY—READY'; over and over."
"What!" Samms exclaimed, and the boys could feel his mind work. "Did that signal, by any chance, originate anywhere near seventeen hours and plus ten degrees?"
"Very near. Why? How did you know?"
"Then it does make sense!" Samms exclaimed, and called a general conference of Lensmen.
"Keep working along these same lines," Samms directed, finally. "Keep Ray Olmstead in the Hill in my place. I am going to Pluto, and—I hope—to Palain Seven."
Roderick Kinnison of course protested; but, equally of course, his protests were over-ruled.