"Right now. I want you to take me out to the desert to the same spot where you picked me up the other day. I want to visit again that Martian burrow located there."
"Waaait a minute. If this is a shooting job, are you visiting or invading?"
"I'm going in that hole again. Anyway I have to get there. We're on our own. Calvin knows nothing of it. If my hunch is wrong this will cost us our ranks, jobs, and probably land us in the pen. But I'm going and I need you badly. Are you with me?"
Shorty answered, "I'm with you, Roal. Your hunches have always been right with me."
V
The slim, torpedo shape of the patrol craft rose in a long slant over the glittering Heliopolis. From his logbook Shorty had checked the course taken on the previous trip to the desert. He reset the controls to the same course and carefully watched their speed.
"It won't be too easy to find this place in the dark," he said. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Roal rapidly outlined the situation to him. "There's not a tag end of a clue to hang onto except this burrow," he finished. "And I'm sure that Alayna has been captured for her attempted warning to me. If she's not already dead she hasn't much longer to live, I'm certain, unless we can find a clue to the mystery of Starhouse."
"I can't see how this desert burrow can lead anywhere."