race,'" he quoted. "That's the law. If they can
prove in court that the Fuzzies are sapient beings...."

Then, some morning, a couple of deputy marshals would take Leonard Kellogg
out in the jail yard and put a bullet through the back of his head, which,
in itself, would be no loss. The trouble was, they would also be shooting
an irreparable hole in the Zarathustra Company's charter. Maybe Kellogg
could be kept out of court, at that. There wasn't a ship blasted off from
Darius without a couple of drunken spacemen being hustled aboard at the
last moment; with the job Holloway must have done, Kellogg should look
just right as a drunken spaceman. The twenty-five thousand sols' bond
could be written off; that was pennies to the Company. No, that would
still leave them stuck with the Holloway trial.

"You want me out of here when the others come, Victor?" Emmert asked,
popping another canape into his mouth.

"No, no; sit still. This will be the last chance we'll have to get
everybody together; after this, we'll have to avoid anything that'll look
like collusion."

"Well, anything I can do to help; you know that, Victor," Emmert said.

Yes, he knew that. If worst came to utter worst and the Company charter
were invalidated, he could still hang on here, doing what he could to
salvage something out of the wreckage--if not for the Company, then for
Victor Grego. But if Zarathustra were reclassified, Nick would be
finished. His title, his social position, his sinecure, his grafts and
perquisites, his alias-shrouded Company expense account--all out the
airlock. Nick would be counted upon to do anything he could--however much
that would be.

He looked across the room at the levitated globe, revolving imperceptibly
in the orange spotlight. It was full dark on Beta Continent now, where
Leonard Kellogg had killed a Fuzzy named Goldilocks and Jack Holloway had
killed a gunman named Kurt Borch. That angered him, too; hell of a gunman!
Clear shot at the broad of a man's back, and still got himself killed.
Borch hadn't been any better choice than Kellogg himself. What was the
matter with him; couldn't he pick men for jobs any more? And Ham O'Brien!
No, he didn't have to blame himself for O'Brien. O'Brien was one of Nick
Emmert's boys. And he hadn't picked Nick, either.

The squawk-box on the desk made a premonitory noise, and a feminine voice
advised him that Mr. Coombes and his party had arrived.

"All right; show them in."

C