In the dark cell, silent except for the steady throb of the ventilator, Crane wholeheartedly cursed the turn events had taken. Imprisoned here, he had no chance of securing the stolen brain before the Vulcan reached Earth.
It was plain now that Jurk Usk was the man he sought; that the squat surly Jovian was the shadowy figure who had stolen Doctor Alph's brain. Kin Nilga, an agent of Saturn, had been on the trail of the brain just as Crane was. Jurk Usk had killed Kin Nilga, and tried to kill Crane. Why, he asked himself, had his beams not affected the Jovian? And had it been Nilga or Usk who had killed the Doctor and his guardsmen?
Now, Crane thought hopelessly, the Jovian had a clear field. Kin Nilga of Saturn was dead and he, the agent of Earth, was in prison for the rest of the voyage. When the ship landed, Jurk Usk would go free with the brain and its doom-freighted secret.
That night passed slowly for the tormented TSS man. And after morning came — the morning of a space ship, marked only by the turning on of all the ship's lights — Crane's numbed brain fought frantically for a plan.
Gradually fierce resolve began repossessing him. The men of the TSS did not give up until they were dead! And this mission of his was the most important any man of the Terrestrial Secret Service had ever been assigned. He must not give up! He would not, while he was alive!
He stared around the cell with narrowed, desperate eyes. If he could just get out of this rat-trap, just get to the cabin of Jurk Usk…
He could get out! The inspiration came to Rab Crane's taut brain in a flash. It would be a desperate way of escape, and perilous. Yet it was the only way, and he would try it!
He was startled out of his quivering intentness by a light knock, a voice outside the locked door. Through the barred opening, Lalla Dee's soft face looked in at him.
The Venusian girl's dark eyes were troubled and anxious.
"They let me come down to see you for a few moments!" she said. "Oh, I know you're not guilty of these murders!"