t telling himself that fifty
years had passed, but he could not believe it. It seemed only a few
months since MacDonald's death, months occupied by investigation and
trial and the raging, futile anguish of the unjustly accused. The long
interval of the pseudo-death was no more than a night's sleep, to a mind
unconscious of passing time. Now it seemed that Saul and Landers should
still be here, and there should be lights and warmth and movement.

There was nothing. He could not bring himself to stay in the living
quarters. He went into one of the storerooms and sat on a concrete
buttress and waited. It was a long and dreadful wait. During it all the
emotional storms occasioned by the murder and its aftermath passed
through his mind. Scenes with Saul and Landers. Scenes with the
investigators, with MacDonald's family, with lawyers and reporters.
Scenes with Elena. The whole terrible nightmare, leading inevitably to
that culminating moment when the door of the airlock opened and he
joined the sleepers on the plain. When it was all over Hyrst felt shaken
and exhausted, but calm. The face of Vernon burned brightly in his
mind's eye.

Without bothering to open the steel-shuttered windows, he watched the
two young men force their way out of the hoist tower. He watched them
run to their ship and chatter excitedly over their radio. By the time,
much later, that Bellaver's yacht came screaming down to the landing
field on a flaming burst of jets, he could watch it with almost the cool
detachment of a spectator. He was careful to keep his shields up tight
against Vernon, and he did not think the other Lazarite would be likely
to look for him. Vernon seemed to be fully occupied with Bellaver.

"_What else would they be stealing, you fool? You should have, killed
Hyrst before, when you had the chance._"

"_Somebody had to take the blame for MacDonald. Anyway, you had him
aboard the_ Happy Dream. _Why didn't you hang onto him?_"

"_Don't get insolent with me, Vernon. I can turn you over to the police
anytime, for any one of a hundred things._"

"_Not without tipping your hand, Bellaver._"

"_It would be worth it._" A string of foul names, delivered in a furious
scream. "_You couldn't locate the Titanite, but they did, just as soon
as they got hold of Hyrst._"

"_All right, Mr. God Almighty Bellaver, turn me in. But if it was the
Titanite they took, you haven't a chance of finding that starship
without me._"

"_You haven't