And that's how MacDonald died, Hyrst thought--and so _I_ died. They said I forced the secret of his t.i.tanite find out of him, and then killed him.

Shearing asked swiftly, "MacDonald never gave you any hint of where he'd hidden the t.i.tanite?"

"No," said Hyrst. He paused, and then said, "It's the t.i.tanite you're after?"

Shearing answered carefully. "In a way, yes. But _we_ didn't kill MacDonald for it. Those who did kill him are the men who are after you now. They're afraid you might lead us to the stuff."

Hyrst swore, shaking with sudden anger. "d.a.m.n it, I won't be treated like a child. Not by you, by anyone. I want--"

"You want the men who killed MacDonald," said Shearing. "I know. I remember what was in your mind when you met your son."

A weakness took Hyrst and he leaned his forehead against the cold stone wall.

"I'm sorry," said Shearing. "But we want what you want--and more. So much more that you can't dream it. You must trust us."

"Us? That woman?"

Once again in Shearing's mind Hyrst saw the woman with her head against the stars, and the ship looming darkly. He saw the woman much more clearly, and she was like a fire, burning with anger, burning with a single-minded, dedicated purpose. She was beautiful, and frightening.

"She, and others," said Shearing. "Listen. We must go soon. We're to be picked up, secretly. Will you trust us--or would you rather trust yourself to those who are hunting you?"

Hyrst was silent. Shearing said, "Well?"

"I'll go with you," said Hyrst.

They went out into the cold darkness, and Hyrst heard Shearing say in his mind, "I wouldn't try to run--"

_But it wasn't Shearing speaking in his mind now, it was a third man._

"I wouldn't try to run--"

Frantically startled, Hyrst threw out his mental vision and saw the men who stood around them in the darkness, four men, three of them holding the wicked little weapons called bee-guns in their hands. The fourth man came closer, a dark slender man with a face like a fox, high-boned, narrow-eyed, smiling. It came to Hyrst that the three with weapons were only ordinary men, and that it was this fourth man whose mind had spoken.

He was speaking aloud now. "I want you alive, believe me--but there are endless gradations between alive and dead. My men are very accurate."

Shearing's face was suddenly drawn and exhausted. "Don't try anything,"

he warned Hyrst wearily. "He means it."

The dark man shook his head at Shearing. "This wasn't nice of you. You knew we had a particular interest in Mr. Hyrst." He turned to Hyrst and smiled. His teeth were small and very neat and white. "Did you know that Shearing has been keeping a shield over your mind as well as his? A little too large a task for him. When you jarred his mind open for an instant, it was all we needed to lead us here."

He went on. "Mr. Hyrst, my name is Vernon. We'd like you to come with us."

Vernon nodded to the three accurate men, and the whole little group began to walk in the direction of the s.p.a.ceport. Shearing seemed almost asleep on his feet now. It was as though he had expended all his energy on a task, and failed at it, and was now quiescent, like an empty well waiting to fill again.

"Where are we going?" Hyrst asked, and Vernon answered:

"To see a gentleman you've never heard of, in a place you've never been." He added, with easy friendliness, "Don't worry, Mr. Hyrst, we have nothing against _you_. You're new to this--ah--state of life. You shouldn't be asked to make decisions or agreements until you know both sides of the question. Mr. Shearing was taking an unfair advantage."

Remembering the dark hard purpose Shearing had let him see in his mind, Hyrst could not readily dispute that. But he put out an exploring probe in the direction of Vernon's mind.

It was shut tight.

They walked on, toward the s.p.a.ceport gates.

CHAPTER III

All s.p.a.ce was before him, hung with the many-colored lights of the stars, intensely brilliant in the black nothing. It was incredibly splendid, but it was too much like what he had looked at with his cold unseeing eyes for fifty years. He looked down--down being relative to where he was standing in the blister-window--and saw the whole Belt swarming by under him like a drift of fireflies. He quivered inwardly with a chill vertigo, and turned away.

Vernon was talking aloud. He had been talking for some time. He was stretched out on a soft, deep lounge, smoking, pretending to sip from a tall gla.s.s.

"So you see, Mr. Hyrst, we can help you a lot. It's not easy for a Lazarite--for one of us--to get a job. I know. People have a--well, a _feeling_. Now Mr. Bellaver--"

"Where is Shearing?" asked Hyrst. He came and stood in the center of the room, with the soft lights in his eyes and the soft carpets under his feet. His mind reached out, uneasy and restless, but it seemed to be surrounded by a zone of fog that tangled and confused and deflected it.

He could not find Shearing.

"We've been here for hours," he said. "Where is he?"

"Probably talking a deal with Mr. Bellaver. I wouldn't worry. As I was saying, Bellaver Incorporated is interested in men like you. We're the largest builders of s.p.a.cecraft in the System, and we can afford--"

"I know all about it," said Hyrst impatiently. "Old Quentin Bellaver was busy swallowing up his rivals when I went through the door."

"Then," said Vernon imperturbably, "you should realize how much we can do for you. Electronics is a vital branch--"

Hyrst moved erratically around the room, looking at things and not really seeing them, hearing Vernon's voice but not understanding what it said. He was growing more and more uneasy. It was as though someone was calling to him, urgently, but just out of earshot. He kept straining, with his ears and his mind, and Vernon's voice babbled on, and the barrier was like a wall around his thoughts.

They had been aboard this ship for a long time now, and he had not seen Shearing since they came through the hatch. It was not really a ship, of course. It had no power of its own, depending on powerful tugs to tow it. It was Walter Bellaver's floating pleasure-palace, and the d.a.m.nedest thing Hyrst had ever seen. Vernon said it could and often did accommodate three or four hundred guests in the utmost luxury. There was n.o.body aboard it now but Bellaver, Vernon, Hyrst and Shearing, the three very accurate men, and perhaps a dozen others including stewards and the crews of the tugs and Bellaver's yacht. It was named the _Happy Dream_, and it was presently drifting in an excessively lonely orbit high above the ecliptic, between nothing and nowhere.

Vernon had been with him almost constantly. He was getting tired of Vernon. Vernon talked too much.

"Listen," he said. "You can stop selling Bellaver. I'm not looking for a job. Where's Shearing?"

"Oh, forget Shearing," said Vernon, impatient in his turn. "You never heard of him until a few days ago."

"He helped me."

"For reasons of his own."

"What's _your_ reason? And Bellaver's?"

"Mr. Bellaver is interested in all social problems. And I'm a Lazarite myself, so naturally I have a sympathy for others like me." Vernon sat up, putting his gla.s.s aside on a low table. He had drunk hardly any of the contents.

"Shearing," he said, "is a member of a gang who some time ago stole a particular property of Bellaver Incorporated. You're not involved in the quarrel, Mr. Hyrst. I'd advise you, as a friend, to stay not involved."