"Then it might be pirates?"
"It might be," admitted Channing. "It'd have to occur near beginning or end, of course, though. I can't think of anything safer than being shot at out of a gun of any kind while both crates are hitting it up at a couple of hundred miles per second and at a distance of a few miles apart. It would be all right if you were both running free, but at 2-G acceleration, you'd have to do quite a bit of ballistic gymnastics to score a hit."
"Or run in front of your quarry and sow a bouquet of mines."
"Except that the meteor detector would show the position of the pirate craft in the celestial globe and the interconnecting circuits would cause the treasure ship to veer off at a sharp angle. Shucks, Doug, this thing has got too many angles to it. I can't begin to run it off either way. No matter how difficult it may sound, there are still ways and means to do it. The one thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the fact that the Solar Queen has turned up missing. Since no inanimate agency could cause failure, piracy is the answer."
"You're sure of that?"
"Not positive. There are things that might cause the ship to founder. But what they are depend upon too many coincidences. It's like hitting a royal flush on the deal, or filling a full house from two pair."
"Well, thanks, Channing. I'm heading back to Canalopsis right now. Want to come along?"
Channing looked at Arden, who was coming from the dressing room carrying her coat and he nodded. "The gal says yes," he grinned. "Annoy her until I find my shoes, will you?"
Arden wrinkled her nose at Don. "I'll like that," she said to Doug.
The trip from Lincoln Head to Canalopsis was a fast one. Doug Thomas drove the little flier through the thin air of Mars at a breakneck speed and covered the twelve hundred miles in just shy of two hours. At the spaceport, Channing found that he was not denied the entrance as the reporter had been. He was ushered into the office of Keg Johnson in record time, and the manager of the Canalopsis Spaceport greeted Don with a worried expression on his face.