"I'll say this for the old hermit," said Henree. "He had guts. When the pirates penetrated, he insisted on getting into a suit, grabbing up a blaster, and going up there with the militia."

"We weren't short on militia," said Lucky. "If he had stayed down here, he would have done us a much greater service. How is it you didn't stop him? Under the circumstances was he a person to be allowed to do such a thing?" Lucky Starr's usually even voice contained a repressed anger.

Conway said patiently, "We weren't with him. The guard we left in charge had to report for militia duty. Hansen insisted on joining him and the guard decided he could do both duties at once that way; fight the pirates and guard the hermit."

"But he didn't guard the hermit."

"Under the circumstances he can scarcely be blamed. The guard saw Hansen last charging a pirate. Next thing he knew there was no one in sight and the pirates were retreating. Hansen's body hasn't been recovered. The pirates must have him alive or dead."

"So they must," said Lucky. "Now let me tell you something. Let me tell you exactly what a bad mistake this was. I'm certain that the whole attack on Ceres was arranged simply to capture Hansen."

Henree reached for his pipe. "You know, Hector," he said to Conway, "I'm almost tempted to go along with Lucky on that. The attack on the Observatory was a miserable one, an obvious false alarm to draw off our defenses. Getting Hansen was the only thing they did accomplish."

Conway snorted. "One possible information leak like the hermit isn't worth risking thirty ships."

"That's the whole point," said Lucky vehemently. "Right now, it may be. I told you about the asteroid I was on, the kind of industrial plant it must have been. Suppose they're almost at the point where they're ready to make the big push? Suppose Hansen knows the exact date for when the push is scheduled? Suppose he knows the exact method?"

"Then why hasn't he told us?" demanded Conway.

"Maybe," said Henree, "he's waiting to use it as material with which to buy his own immunity. We never did have a chance really to discuss that question with him. You've got to admit, Hector, that if he had that kind of key information, any number of ships would have been worth the risk. And you've got to admit Lucky is probably right about their being ready for the big push."

Lucky looked sharply from one to the other. "Why do you say that, Uncle Gus? What's happened?"

"Tell him, Hector," said Henree.

"Why tell him anything," growled Conway. "I'm tired of his one-man trips. He'll be wanting to go to Ganymede."

"What's on Ganymede?" asked Lucky coldly. As far as he knew, there was little or nothing on Ganymede to interest anyone. It was Jupiter's largest moon, but the very nearness of Jupiter made it difficult to maneuver space-ships, so that space travel in its vicinity was unprofitable.

"Tell him," said Henree.

"Look," said Conway. "Here it is. We knew Hansen was important. The reason we didn't have him under tighter observation, the reason Gus and I weren't there ourselves, was that two hours before the pirate attack a report came in from the Council to the effect that there was evidence that Sirian forces had landed on Ganymede."

"What kind of evidence?"

"Tight-beam sub-etheric signals had been penetrated. It's a long story, but the nub of it was that, more by accident than by anything else, a few scraps of code were picked up. The experts say it's a Sirian code and certainly there isn't anything Terrestrial on Ganymede that's capable of putting out signals in a beam tliat tight. Gus and I were going to take Hansen and return to Earth when the pirates attacked, and that's it. Right now we've still got to return to Earth. With Sirius on the scene there may be war at any time."

Lucky said, "I see. Well, before we go to Earth, there's one thing I would like to check on. Do we have motion pictures of the pirate attack? I'm supposing the defenses of Ceres weren't so disorganized that pictures weren't taken?"

"They've been taken. How do you expect them to help?"

"I'll tell you after I've seen them."

Men in the uniform of the fleet, and wearing high-rank insignia, projected the top-secret motion pictures of what later became known in history as the "Ceres Raid."

"Twenty-seven ships attacked the Observatory. Is that right?" asked Lucky,

"Right," said a commander. "No more than that."

"Good. Now let's see if I have the rest of the facts straight. Two of the ships were accounted for during the fight and a third during the pursuit. The remaining twenty-four got away, but you have one or more shots of each of them in retreat."

The commander smiled. "If you're implying that any of them landed on Ceres and are still hidden here, you're quite wrong."

"As far as those twenty-seven ships are concerned, perhaps. But three more ships did land on Ceres and their crew attacked the Massey Air-lock. Where are the pictures of those?"

"Unfortunately we didn't get many of those," admitted the commander uncomfortably. "It was a case of complete surprise. But we have pictures of them in retreat, too, and we showed you those."

"Yes, you did, and there were only two ships in those pictures. Eyewitnesses reported three as having landed."

The commander said stiffly, "And three took off and retreated. There's eyewitness evidence of that also."

"But you have pictures of only two?"

"Well… yes."

"Thank you."

Back in the office Conway said, "Now what was that all about, Lucky?"

"I thought Captain Anton's ship might be in an interesting place. The motion pictures proved it was."

"Where was it?"

"Nowhere. That was what was interesting. His ship is the one pirate ship I would recognize, yet no ship faintly similar took part in the raid. This is strange because Anton must be one of their very best men or they wouldn't have sent him out after the Atlas. Or it would be strange if the truth wasn't that thirty ships attacked Ceres and we had pictures of only twenty-nine. The missing thirtieth was Anton!"

"I could figure that out too," said Conway. "What of it?"

Lucky said, "The attack on the Observatory was a feint. That's admitted even by the defending ships, now. It was the three ships that attacked the air-lock that were important and they were under Anton's command. Two of those ships joined the rest of the squadron in their retreat, a feint within a feint. The third ship, Anton's own, the only one we didn't see, continued on with the main business of the day. It left on an entirely different trajectory. People saw it lift into space but it veered off so radically that our own ships, chasing the main body of enemy with all its might, never even caught it on film."

Conway said unhappily, "You're going to say that it's going to Ganymede."

"Doesn't it follow? The pirates, however well organized, can't attack Earth and its dependencies on their own. But they can put up an excellent diversionary fight. They can keep enough Terrestrial ships patrolling the endless asteroid belt to allow Sirian fleets to defeat the remainder. On the other hand, Sirius can't safely conduct a war eight light years away from their own planet unless they can count on major help from the asteroids. After all, eight light years amounts to forty-five trillion miles. Anton's ship is speeding to Ganymede to assure them of that help and to give the word to begin the war. Without warning, of course."

"If only," muttered Conway, "we could have stumbled on their Ganymede base sooner."

"Even with the knowledge of Ganymede," said Henree, "we would not have known the seriousness of the situation without Lucky's two trips into asteroid territory."