therhood if I started dragging a few Star guards around
with me at this point."

Ryter shrugged. "Suit yourself. It's your funeral if you've guessed
wrong."

* * * * *

"There was nothing," Quillan told Marras Cooms, "that you could
actually put a finger on. It was just that the commodore and Ryter may
have something up their sleeves. Velladon's looking too self-satisfied
to suit me."

The Brotherhood chief gnawed his lower lip reflectively. He seemed
thoughtful, not too disturbed. Cooms might be thoroughly afraid of the
escaped Hlat, but he wouldn't have reached his present position in
Nome Lancion's organization if he had been easily frightened by what
other men were planning.

He said, "I warned Movaine that if Velladon learned we'd checked out
the Hlat, he wasn't going to like it."

"He doesn't," Quillan said. "He regards it as something pretty close
to an attempted double cross."

Cooms grinned briefly. "It was."

"Of course. The question is, what can he do about it? He's got you
outgunned two to one, but if he's thinking of jumping you before
Lancion gets here, he stands to lose more men than he can afford to
without endangering the entire operation for himself."

[Illustration]

Cooms was silent a few seconds. "There's an unpleasant possibility
which didn't occur to me until a short while ago," he said then. "The
fact is that Velladon actually may have us outgunned here by something
like four to one. If that's the case, he can afford to lose quite a
few men. In fact, he'd prefer to."

Quillan frowned. "_Four_ to one? How's that?"

Cooms said, "The commodore told us he intended to let only around half
of the Seventh Star's security force in on the Hlat deal. The other
half was supposed to have been dumped out of one of the subspace
section's locks early today, without benefit of suits. We had no
reason to disbelieve him. Velladon naturally would want to cut down
the number of men who got in on the split with him to as many as he
actually needed. But if he's been thinking about eliminating us from
the game, those other men may still be alive and armed."

Quillan grunted. "I see. You know, that could explain something that
looked a little odd to me."

"What was that?" Cooms asked.

Quillan said, "After they discovered down there that two of their
guards were missing and decided the Hlat must have been on their
level, I tried to get hold of the commodore again. Ryte