nks of sea beef, an' not around me."

Quillan punched him encouragingly in the shoulder. "Baldy," he said,
"in your own way, you _have_ had an idea! But we won't leave the meat
box open. When Kinmarten wakes up, I want him to show me how to bait
this cubicle with a piece of sea beef, so it'll snap shut if the Hlat
goes inside. Meanwhile it won't hurt if it gets a little hungry."

"That," said Baldy, "isn't the way _I_ feel about it."

"There must be around a hundred and fifty people in the Executive
Block at present," Quillan said. "Look at it that way! Even if the
thing keeps stuffing away, your odds are pretty good, Baldy."

Baldy shuddered.

* * * * *

Aside from a dark bruise high on his forehead, Brock Kinmarten showed
no direct effects of having been knocked out. However, his face was
strained and his voice not entirely steady. It was obvious that the
young rest warden had never been in a similarly unnerving situation
before. But he was making a valiant effort not to appear frightened
and, at the same time, to indicate that he would co-operate to the
best of his ability with his captors.

He'd regained consciousness by the time Quillan and Perk returned to
the fourth level, and Quillan suggested bringing him to Marras Cooms'
private quarters for questioning. The Brotherhood chief agreed; he was
primarily interested in finding out how the Hlat-control device
functioned.

Kinmarten shook his head. He knew nothing about the instrument, he
said, except that it was called a Hlat-talker. It was very unfortunate
that Eltak had been shot, because Eltak undoubtedly could have told
them all they wanted to know about it. If what he had told Kinmarten
was true, Eltak had been directly involved in the development of the
device.

"Was he some Federation scientist?" Cooms asked, fiddling absently
with the mysterious cylindrical object.

"No, sir," the young man said. "But--again if what he told me was the
truth--he was the man who actually discovered these Hlats. At least,
he was the first man to discover them who wasn't immediately killed by
them."

Cooms glanced thoughtfully at Quillan, then asked, "And where was
that?"

Kinmarten shook his head again. "He didn't tell me. And I didn't
really want to know. I was anxious to get our convoy to its
destination, and then to be relieved of the assignment. I ... well,
I've been trained to act as Rest Warden to human beings, after all,
no