"Why do you think they brought the Lancaster?"
"Probably to fit her out as a bona fide hellflower runner."
"Okay. We'll hide out in my cubby until they run her back."
"You go hide out," said Norma. "If they find me missing, they'll know something smells bad."
Farradyne chuckled. "From what I know of them, they're as arrogantly secure as the Gods of Olympus. Some part of their gang is still expecting me to turn up near Terra on an escape course, and the only smart thing I have done is to be where they didn't plan me to be. So we'll be where they don't expect us to be and maybe we'll get away with it. Come on, let's hide out."
The hitch in their plans came when Farradyne led Norma down the stairs to the last deck below and stopped, holding up a warning hand.
"What's the matter?" she whispered.
He pointed. The hatch he had used was lying to one side and a beam of diffuse light was coming up from below. There came also the triple-tongued voices of two men.
Farradyne led Norma one deck above where he could speak without attracting the attention of the men below. "They've installed the space drive in the inspection cubby," he said. "That's probably what all the work was about. It's been taken from the bottom deck and permanently installed down in the cubby where it wouldn't attract attention on a casual tour. Maybe a different unit, I wouldn't know; the temporary job might have been only a harness-job to be used until they could haul the Lanc' to base for a real tear-down and rebuild."
"I didn't see any work-wagon," said Norma.