re you?"

"Where I can get the first shot at anybody coming out of the tower, and
where nobody from the yacht will ever reach me. Tell them all to stay
put. Go ahead, Bellaver, you want to hear me out, don't you?"

"What do you want to say?"

"I can find you that starship. Tell them, Bellaver."

He told them. And Vernon said to Bellaver, "If he's willing to betray
his friends, why would he get them the Titanite?" He laughed. "It isn't
even a good trick."

"Oh, yes, it is," said Hyrst softly. "It's a very good one. The best.
You see, I don't care about the starship or the Titanite. All I care
about is the man who killed MacDonald. They were sort of bound up
together. Ever hear of latent impressions, Vernon? I was unconscious,
but my ears heard and my eyes saw, and my brain remembered, when it was
shown how."

"That was fifty years ago," said Vernon. "People don't understand about
us. Nobody would believe you if you told them."

"They would if Bellaver told them. They would if Bellaver explained out
loud about the Lazarites, about what happens to men when they go through
the door. They'd listen to him. And there must be others who know, or at
least suspect." Hyrst paused, long enough to smile. "The beauty of that
is, Bellaver, that you're in the clear. You're not responsible for a
murder your grandfather had done. You could swear you didn't even know
about it until now."

Vernon said to Bellaver, "If you do this to me, I'll blast you wide
open."

"What can he do, Bellaver?" Hyrst shouted. "He can talk, but you have
the money, the position, the legal powers. You can talk louder. And when
they know the truth, will anybody take the word of a Lazarite against a
human man?"

His voice rose higher and louder, drowning out Vernon's cry.

"Are you afraid of him, Bellaver? Are you so afraid of him you'll let
the starship go?"

"Hold him." Bellaver said, and the crewmen held Vernon fast. "Wait a
minute, Hyrst," he said. "What's your angle? Is it just revenge? Are you
selling out your friends for something over and done half a century ago?
I don't believe it, Hyrst."

Hyrst said slowly, "I can answer that, so even you will understand. I
have children. They're getting old now. They've lived all their lives
thinking their father killed a man, not for love or for justice or in
self-defense, but for sheer cold-blooded greed. I want them to know it
wasn't so."

"Hold him!" Bellaver said. The crewmen struggled with Vern