Lucky said to the robot, "My friend will have the same."
The robot, after the briefest glance at Devoure, who looked away stonily, left and came back with another tray. Nothing was said during the meal. Earthman and Martian ate and drank heartily.
But after the trays were removed, the Sirian said, "I must begin by stating that you are spies. You entered Sirian territory and were warned to leave. You left but then returned, making every effort to keep your return secret. Under the rules of interstellar law we have every right to execute you on the spot, and this may be done unless your actions henceforward deserve clemency."
"Actions such as what?" asked Lucky. "Let me have an example, sir."
"With pleasure, Councilman." The Sirian's dark eyes livened with interest. "There is the capsule of information our man discharged into the rings before his unfortunate death."
"Do you think I have it?"
The Sirian laughed. "Not a chance in all space. We never let you get near the rings at anything less than half light-speed. But come-you are a very clever Councilman. We have heard so much of you and your deeds, even on Sirius. There have even been occasions when you have been, shall we say, a trifle in our way."
Bigman broke in with a sudden, outraged squeak, "Just a trifle, like stopping your spy on Jupiter 9, like stopping your deal with the asteroid pirates, like push ing you off Ganymede, like… "
Sten Devoure said in a blaze of anger, "Will you quiet it, Councilman? I am irritated by the shrilling of what is with you."
"Then say what you have to say," said Lucky peremptorily, "without insulting my friend."
"What I want, then, is to have you help me find the capsule. Tell me, out of your great ingenuity, how you would go about it." Devoure leaned his elbows on the table and looked hungrily at Lucky, waiting.
Lucky said, "What information do you have to begin with?"
"Only what I imagine you picked up. The last sentences of our man."
"Yes, we picked that up. Not all of it, but enough to know he did not give the co-ordinates of the orbit in which he launched the capsule, and enough to know that he did launch it."
"Well?"
"Since the man evaded our own agents for a long time and nearly got away with a successful mission, I assume he is intelligent."
"He was a Sirian."
"That," said Lucky with grave courtesy, "is not necessarily the same thing. In this case, however, we may assume that he would not have launched the capsule into the rings in such a way as to make it impossible for you to find."
"And your further reasoning, Earthman?"
"And if he placed the capsule in the rings themselves, it would be impossible to find."
"You think so?"
"I do. And the only alternative is that he sent it into orbit within Cassini's division."
Sten Devoure leaned his head back and laughed ringingly. He said, "It is refreshing to hear Lucky Starr, the great Councilman, expend his ingenuity on a problem. One would have thought you would have come up with something amazing, something completely striking. Instead, just this. Why, Councilman, what if I told you that we, without your help, reached this conclusion at once, and that our ships have been scouring Cassini's division almost from the first moment that the capsule was released?"
Lucky nodded. (If most of the human complement of the Titan base were in the rings, supervising the search, that would account in part for the dearth of humanity on the base itself.) He said, "Why, I would congratulate you and remind you that Cassini's division is large and does have some gravel in it. Besides which, the capsule would be in an unstable orbit because of the attraction of Mimas. Depending on its position, your capsule will be inching into the inner or outer ring, and if you don't find it soon you will have lost it."
"Your attempt to frighten me is foolish and useless. Even within the rings themselves the capsule would still be aluminum compared with ice."
"The mass detectors could not distinguish aluminum from ice."
"Not the mass detectors of your planet, Earthman. Have you asked yourself how we tracked you down despite your clumsy trick with Hidalgo and your riskier one with Mimas?"
Lucky said stonily, "I have wondered."
Devoure laughed again. "You were right to wonder. Obviously Earth does not have the selective mass detector."
"Top-secret?" asked Lucky politely.
"Not in principle, no. Our detecting beam makes use of soft X rays, which are scattered differently by various materials, depending on the mass of its atoms.
Some get reflected back to us, and by analyzing the reflected beam we can tell a metal space ship from a rocky asteroid. When space ships pass an asteroid, which then moves on its way, registering a considerable metal mass it did not possess before, it isn't the most difficult deduction in the world to suppose that near the asteroid there is a space ship skulking and fondly imagining itself to be beyond detection. Eh, Councilman?"
"I see that."
"Do you see that, no matter how you tried to mask yourself by Saturn's rings or by Saturn itself, your metal mass gave you away each time? There is no metal at all in the rings or in the outer ten thousand miles of Saturn's surface. Even within Mimas you weren't hidden. For some hours we thought you were done with. We could detect metal under the ice of Mimas, and that might have been the remains of your splintered ship. But then the metal started moving and we knew you were still with us. We guessed your fusion trick and had only to wait."
Lucky nodded. "So far the game is yours." "And now do you think we won't find the capsule, even if it wanders into the rings or was placed in the rings in the first place?"
"Well, then, how is it you have not found it yet?" For a moment Devoure's face darkened, as though he suspected sarcasm, but before Lucky's appearance of polite curiosity he could only say with half a snarl, "We will. It is only a matter of time. And since you can't help us further in this, there is no reason to postpone your execution."
Lucky said, "I doubt that you really mean what you have just said. We would be very dangerous to you dead."
"If your danger alive is any measure, I can't believe you to be serious."
"We are members of Earth's Council of Science. If we are killed, the Council will not forget it or forgive. Nor would retaliation be directed so much against Sirius as against you, individually. Remember that."
Devoure said, "I think I know more about this than you think. That creature with you is not a member of your Council."
"Not officially, perhaps, but… "
"And you, yourself-if you will allow me to finish -are rather more than a mere member. You are the adopted son of Hector Conway, the Chief Councilman, and you are the pride of the Council. So perhaps you are right." Devoure's mustached lips stretched into a humorless smile. "Perhaps there are conditions, come to think of it, that would make it convenient for you to remain alive."
"What conditions?"
"In recent weeks Earth has called an interstellar conference of nations to consider what they choose to call our invasion of their territory. Perhaps you don't know that."
"I suggested such a conference when I was first made aware of the existence of this base."
"Good. Sirius has agreed to this conference, and the meeting will take place shortly on your asteroid, Vesta. Earth, it seems"-Devoure smiled more broadly-'"is in a hurry. And we will humor them, since we have no fears as to the outcome. The outer worlds, generally, have no love for Earth and ought to have none. Our own case is ironbound. Still, we could make it so much more dramatic if we could show the exact extent of Earth's hypocrisy. They call a conference; they say they wish to solve the matter by peaceful means; but at the same time they send a war vessel to Titan with instructions to destroy our base."