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n his rights. We're outside the law now--but publicity might help again. How many earth-side people know of the unwritten law about open war on plague ships? How many who aren't spacemen know that we could be legally pushed into the sun and fried without any chance to prove we're innocent of carrying a new disease? If we could talk loud and clear to the people at large maybe we'd have a chance for a real hearing--"
"Right from the Terraport broadcast station, I suppose?" Ali taunted.
"Why not?"
There was silence in the cabin as the other two chewed upon that and he broke it again:
"We set down here when it had never been done before."
With one brown forefinger Rip traced some pattern known only to himself on the top of the table. Ali stared at the opposite wall as if it were a bank of machinery he must master.
"It just might be whirly enough to work--" Kamil commented softly. "Or maybe we've been spaced too long and the Whisperers have been chattering into our ears. What about it, Rip, could you set us down close enough to Center Block there?"
"We can try anything once. But we might crash the old girl bringing her in. There's that apron between the Companies' Launching cradles and the Center--. It's clear there and we could give an E signal coming down which would make them stay rid of it. But I won't try it except as a last resort."
Dane noticed that after that discouraging statement Rip made straight for Jellico's record tapes and routed out the one which dealt with Terraport and the landing instructions for that metropolis of the star ships. To land unbidden there would certainly bring them publicity--and to get the Video broadcast and tell their story would grant them not only world wide, but system wide hearing. News from Terraport was broadcast on every channel every hour of the day and night and not a single viewer could miss their appeal.
But first there was Hovan to be consulted. Would he be willing to back them with his professional knowledg
