heading of destroying the evidence."

* * * * *

She locked the door behind them, said, "Just a moment," went over to
the paneled wall, turned down a tiny silver switch. "Room portal," she
said, nodding at the wall. "It might come in handy. I keep it turned
off most of the time."

"Why are you turning it on now?" Quillan asked.

"One of the Star's stewards is working on this with me. He'll be along
as soon as he can get away. Now I'll give you the whole thing as
briefly as I can. The old acquaintances I mentioned are some boys of
the Brotherhood of Beldon. Movaine's here; he's got Marras Cooms and
Fluel with him, and around thirty of the Brotherhood's top guns. Nome
Lancion's coming in on the _Camelot_ in person tonight to take charge.
Obviously, with all that brass on the job, they're after something
very big. Just what it is, I don't yet know. I've got one clue, but a
rather puzzling one. Tell you about that later. Do you know Velladon?"

"The commodore here?" Quillan nodded. "I've never met him but I know
who he is."

Reetal said, "He's been manager of the Seventh Star Hotel for the past
nine years. He's involved in the Beldon outfit's operation. So is the
chief of the Star's private security force--his name's Ryter--and half
a dozen other Star executives. They've got plenty of firepower, too;
close to half the entire security force, I understand, including all
the officers. That would come to nearly seventy men. There's reason to
believe the rest of the force was disarmed and murdered by them in the
subspace section of the Star about twelve hours ago. They haven't been
seen since then.

"Now, Velladon, aside from his share in whatever they're after, has
another reason for wanting to wipe out the Star in an unexplained
blowup. There I have definite information. Did you know the Mooley
brothers owned the Star?"

"Yes."

"I've been working for the Mooleys the past eight months," Reetal
said, "checking up on employees at Velladon's level for indications of
graft. And it appears the commodore had been robbing them blind here
for at least several years."

"Sort of risky thing to try with the Mooleys, from what I hear,"
Quillan remarked.

"Yes. Very. Velladon had reason to be getting a little desperate about
that. Two men were planted here a month ago. One of them is Sher
Heraga, the steward I told you about. The other man came in as a
bookkeeper. Two weeks ago, Heraga got word