And that's how MacDonald died, Hyrst thought--and so _I_ died. They said
I forced the secret of his Titanite find out of him, and then killed
him.

Shearing asked swiftly, "MacDonald never gave you any hint of where he'd
hidden the Titanite?"

"No," said Hyrst. He paused, and then said, "It's the Titanite you're
after?"

Shearing answered carefully. "In a way, yes. But _we_ didn't kill
MacDonald for it. Those who did kill him are the men who are after you
now. They're afraid you might lead us to the stuff."

Hyrst swore, shaking with sudden anger. "Damn it, I won't be treated
like a child. Not by you, by anyone. I want--"

"You want the men who killed MacDonald," said Shearing. "I know. I
remember what was in your mind when you met your son."

A weakness took Hyrst and he leaned his forehead against the cold stone
wall.

"I'm sorry," said Shearing. "But we want what you want--and more. So
much more that you can't dream it. You must trust us."

"Us? That woman?"

* * * * *

Once again in Shearing's mind Hyrst saw the woman with her head against
the stars, and the ship looming darkly. He saw the woman much more
clearly, and she was like a fire, burning with anger, burning with a
single-minded, dedicated purpose. She was beautiful, and frightening.

"She, and others," said Shearing. "Listen. We must go soon. We're to be
picked up, secretly. Will you trust us--or would you rather trust
yourself to those who are hunting you?"

Hyrst was silent. Shearing said, "Well?"

"I'll go with you," said Hyrst.

They went out into the cold darkness, and Hyrst heard Shearing say in
his mind, "I wouldn't try to run--"

_But it wasn't Shearing speaking in his mind now, it was a third man._

"I wouldn't try to run--"

Frantically startled, Hyrst threw out his mental vision and saw the men
who stood around them in the darkness, four men, three of them
holding the wicked little weapons called bee-guns in their hands. The
fourth man came closer, a dark slender man with a face like a fox,
high-boned, narrow-eyed, smiling. It came to Hyrst that the three with
weapons were only ordinary men, and that it was this fourth man whose
mind had spoken.

He was speaking aloud now. "I want you alive, believe me--but there are
endless gradations between alive and dead. My men are very accurate."

Shearing's face was suddenly drawn and exhausted. "Don't try anything,"
he warned Hyrst wearily. "He means