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"You man, with horror

"You can put it that way," said Lucky coolly "You can also say that we&039;re safe, if you want to Certainly we&039;re safer here than anywhere on Venus Nobody can do anything to us physically with that enerators are repaired, we&039;ll just force our way out Bigenerators; and Evans, let&039;s pour ourselves soht not be another chance for a quiet chat"

Lucky welco to be done but talk and think

Evans, however, was upset His china-blue eyes crinkled at the corners

Lucky said, "You look worried?"

"I am worried What in space and time do we do?"

Lucky said, "I&039;ve been thinking about that It see story to someone who&039;s safe from any mental control by them"

"And who&039;s that?"

"No one on Venus That&039;s for sure"

Evans stared at his friend "Are you trying to tell me that everyone on Venus is under control?"

"No, but anyone ht be After all, there are different ways in which the human mind can be manipulated by these creatures" Lucky rested one ars "In the first place, complete control can be taken for a short period of ti that interval a hus contrary to his own nature, things that endanger his own life and others&039;: the pilots on the coaster, for instance, when Bigri hasn&039;t been my trouble"

"I know That&039;s what Morriss failed to realize He was sure you weren&039;t under control sins of amnesia But there&039;s a second type of control that you suffered from It&039;s less intense, so a person retains his memory However, just because it&039;s less intense, a person cannot be forced to do anything against his own nature; you couldn&039;t be forced to coer-days rather than hours The V-frogs make up in time what they lose in intensity Well, there must be still a third kind of control"

"And that is?"

"A control that is still less intense than the second type A control that is so h so that the victim&039;s mind can be rifled and picked of its information For instance, there&039;s Lyineer on Aphrodite?" "That&039;s right He&039;s a case in point Can you see that? Consider that there was a man at the dome lock yesterday who sat there with a lever in his hand, endangering the whole city, yet he was so tightly protected all around, so netted about with alarh a ventilator shaft Isn&039;t that odd?"

"No Why is it odd?"

"The man had only been on the job a ineer His as et the information to protect himself so? How could he possibly know the force and power systehly?"

Evans pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly "Hey, that is a point"

"The point didn&039;t strike Turner I interviewed hi on the Hilda I didn&039;t tell him what I was after, of course He himself told ruity of the matter never struck him Yet ould have the necessary inforineer? Who better than he?"

"Right Right"

"Well, then, suppose Turner was under very gentle control The inforently soothed into not seeing anything out of the way in the situation Do you see what I mean? And then Morriss"

"Morriss, too?" said Evans, shocked

"Possibly, He&039;s convinced it&039;s aelse Is that a legiti subtly persuaded? He was ready to suspect you, Lou-a little too ready; One councilht to be a little less prepared to suspect another"

"Space! Then who&039;s safe, Lucky?"

Lucky stared at his empty coffee cup and said, "No one on Venus That&039;s et the story and the truth somewhere else"

"And how can we?"

"A good point How can we?" Lucky Starr brooded over that

Evans said, "We can&039;t leave physically The Hilda is designed for nothing but ocean It can&039;t navigate the air, let alone space And if we go back to the city to get soain"

"I think you&039;re right," said Lucky, "but we don&039;t have to leave Venus in the flesh Our information is all that has to leave"

"If you mean ship&039;s radio," said Evans, "that&039;s out, too The set we&039;ve got on this tub is strictly intra-Venus It&039;s not a subetheric, so it can&039;t reach Earth Down here, as a matter of fact, the instrument won&039;t reach above the ocean Its carrier waves are designed to be reflected down froet distance Besides that, even if we could transht up, we couldn&039;t reach Earth"

"I don&039;t see that we have to," said Lucky "There&039;s so between here and Earth that would do just as well"

For a moment, Evans was mystified Then he said, "You mean the space stations?"

"Surely Two space stations circle Venus Earth may be anywhere from thirty to fifty million miles away, but the stations may be as close as two thousand s on the stations, I&039;en, and one could scarcely rig up special carbon-dioxide cha the econoet a e out to the stations for relay to central headquarters on Earth, we&039;d have it"

"That&039;s it, Lucky," said Evans, excitedly "It&039;s our way out Their mental powers can&039;t possibly reach two

thousand miles across space to" But then his face

turned glum once more "No, it won&039;t do The subship radio still can&039;t reach past the ocean surface"

"Maybe not froo up to the surface and transmit from there directly into the atmosphere"

"Up to the surface?"

"Well?"

"But they are there The V-frogs"