their interview. But instead the officer appeared to relax the
restraint of his official manner. He brought a viv-root case from an
inner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vye, who gave an instant
and suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one of
the small tubes, snapped off the protecto-nib, and set it between his
lips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabin
door pushed open, and Vye sat up with a jerk as Ras Hume, his head
banded with a skin-core covering, entered.

The officer waved his hand at Vye with the air of one turning over a
problem. "You were entirely right. And he's all yours, Hume."

Vye looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official hands
why wasn't the Hunter under restraint? Unless, because they were
aboard the Patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closer
confinement was necessary. Yet the Hunter wasn't acting the role of
prisoner very well. In fact he perched on a wall-flip seat with the
ease of one completely at home, accepted the viv-root Vye had refused.

"So you won't make a tape," he asked cheerfully.

"You act as if you want me to!" Vye was so completely baffled by this
odd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively.

"Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing you
in the position where you _could_ give us that tape, I must admit some
disappointment."

"Give _us_?" Vye echoed.

The officer removed the viv-root from between his lips. "Tell him the
whole sad story, Hume."

But Vye began to guess. Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, either
sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishing
process. "A set-up?"

"A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer a
little defensively. "I might as well tell the whole truth--this
didn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons for
wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the
credits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found that
L-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day
dreaming--I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as it
happens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the Masters and
told him the whole story--why I hadn't taped on the records my
discovery on Jumala.

"When he passed along the news of the L-B to the Patrol, he also
suggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I had
thought