"Not as good as your memory. It's been a good twenty-two years." Smoky stood behind the two seats, in the airlock space, and grinned at the windshield reflection of the two men. There wasn't room to do much else. "How the hell are you, Garner? Why don't you turn around and shake hands with an old buddy?"

"I can't, Smoky. We've been ordered not to move by a BEM that doesn't take no for an answer. Maybe a good hypnotherapist could get us out of this fix, but we'll have to wait 'til then. By the way, meet Leroy Anderson."

"Hi."

"Now give us a couple of cigarettes, Smoky, and put them in the corners of our mouths so we can talk. Are your boys chasing Greenberg and the BEM?"

"Yeah." Smoky fumbled with cigarettes and a lighter. "Just what is this game of musical chairs?"

"What do you mean?"

Old Smoky put their cigarettes where they belonged. He said, "That honeymoon special took off for Pluto. Why?"

"Pluto!"

"Surprised?"

"It wasn't here," said Anderson.

"Right," said Garner. "We know what they're after, and we know now they didn't find it here. But I can't imagine why they think it's on Pluto. Oops! Hold it" Garner puffed furiously at his cigarette: good honest tobacco with the tars and nicotine still in it. He didn't seem to have any trouble moving his face. "Pluto may have been a moon of Neptune once. Maybe that has something to do with it. How about Greenberg's ship? Is it going in the same direction?"

"Uh uh. Wherever it is, its drive is off. We lost sight of it four hours ago."

Anderson spoke up. "If your friend is still aboard he could be in trouble."

"Right," said Garner. "Smoky, that ship could be falling into Neptune with Lloyd Masney aboard. You remember him? A big, stocky guy with a mustache."

"I think so. Is he paralyzed too?"

"He's hypnotized. Plain old garden-variety hypnotized, and if he hasn't been told to save himself, he won't. Will you?"

"Sure. I'll bring him back here." Smoky turned to the airlock.

"Hey!" Garner yelped. 'Take the butts out of our mouths before our faces catch fire!"

From his own ship Smoky called Woody Atwood in Number Six, the radar proof, and told his story. "It looks like the truth, Woody," he finished. "But there's no point in taking chances. You get in here and stick close to Garner's ship; if he makes a single move he's a bloody liar, so keep an eye open. He's been known to be tricky. I'll see if Masney is really in trouble. He shouldn't be hard to find."

"Pluto's a week and a half away at one gravity," said Anderson, who could do simple computations in his head. "But we couldn't follow that gang even if we could move. We don't have the fuel."

"We could refuel on Titan, couldn't we? Where the hell is Smoky?"

"Better not expect him back today."

Garner growled at him. Space, free fall, paralysis, and defeat were all wearing away at his self-control.

"Hey," he whispered suddenly.

"What?" The word came in an exaggerated stage whisper.

"I can wiggle my index fingers," Garner snapped. "This hex may be wearing off. And mind your manners."

Smoky was back late the next day. He had inserted the pointed nose of his ship into Masney's drive tube to push Masney's ship. When he turned off his own drive the two ships tumbled freely. Smoky moved between ships with a jet pack in the small of his back. By this time Atwood had joined the little group, and was helping Smoky, for it would have been foolish to suspect trickery after finding Masney.

Not because Masney was still hypnotized. He wasn't. Kzanol had freed him from hypnosis in the process of taking him over, and had, kindly or thoughtlessly, left him with no orders when he departed for Pluto. But Masney was near starvation. His face bore deep wrinkles of excess skin, and the skin of his torso was a loose, floppy, folded tent over his ribcage. Kzanol/Greenberg had repeatedly forgotten to feed him, remembering only when hunger seemed about to break him out of hypnosis. Kzanol would never have treated a slave that way; but Kzanol, the real Kzanol, was far more telepathic than the false. And Kzanol/Greenberg hadn't learned to think of daily food intake as a necessity. So much food was a luxury, and a foolish one.

Masney had started an eating spree as soon as the Golden Circle was gone, but it would be some time before he was «stocky» again. His ship's fuel was gone, and he was found drifting in a highly eccentric orbit about Triton, an orbit which was gradually narrowing.

"Couldn't possibly be faked," Smoky said when he called the Belt fleet. "A little bit better fakery, and Masney would be dead. As it is, he's only very sick."

Now the four ships fell near Nereid.

"We've got to refuel all these ships," said Garner. "And there's a way to do it." He began to tell them.

Smoky howled. "I won't leave my ship!"

"Sorry, Smoky. See if you can follow this. We've got three pilots, right? You, Woody, Masney. Me and Anderson can't move. But we've got four ships to pilot. We have to leave one."

"Sure, but why mine?"

"Five men to carry in three ships. That means we keep both two-man ships. Right?"

"Right."

"We give up your ship, or we give up a radar proof ship. Which would you leave?"

"You don't think we'll get to Pluto in time for the war?"

"We might as well try. Want to go home?"

"All right, all right."

The fleet moved to Triton without Number Four, and with half of Number Four's fuel transferred to Masney's ship, the Iwo Jima. Garner was Masney's passenger, and Smoky was in the Heinlein with Anderson. The three ships hovered over the big moon's icy surface while their drives melted through layer after layer of frozen gases, nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide, until they reached the thick water ice layer. They landed on water ice, each in its own shallow cone. Then Woody and Smoky went after Number Four.

Smoky brought the singleship down with its tank nearly empty. They drained what was left into the Iwo Jima, and followed it with the Heinlein's supply. Woody turned off the cooling unit in the singleship's hydrogen tank, dismantled the heater in the cabin and moved it into the tank. He had to cut a hole in the wall to get in.

The next few hours were spent cutting blocks of water ice. Masney was still convalescing, so the Belters had to do all the work. When they broke off they were exhausted, and two laser cutting tools were near death; but Number Four's fuel tank was filled with warm, not very clean water.

They hooked up the battery from Number Six to electrolyze the melted ice. Hydrogen and oxygen, mixed, poured into the Heinlein's tank. They set the thermostat above the condensation point of hydrogen; but the oxygen fell as snow, and Smoky and Woody alternated positions in the bottom of the tank, shoveling the snow out. Once they had to take Number Six up and fly her around to recharge her batteries. Always there was the flavor of time passing, of the «war» leaving them further behind with each passing minute.

In two days they had fueled all three ships. The tanks were not full, but they would carry the little secondary fleet to Pluto, driving all the way, with fuel to spare. Number Four was useless, her tank clogged with dirt.

"We'll be three days late for whatever happens," Woody said glumly. "Why go at all?"

"We can stay close enough for radio contact," Smoky argued. "I'd like to have Garner close enough to tell the fleet what to do. He knows more about these Bug Eyed Monsters than any of us."

Luke said, "Main argument is that it may take the fleet three days to lose. Then we get there and save the day. Or we don't. Let's go."

Woody Atwood masered the fleet immediately, knowing that the others could not intercept the conversation. If they had moved into the maser beam their radio would have blown sky high.