dit softly, "are that help."

Sria asked: "What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't. I never had anything against the
outworlders. How could I? We're all progeny of outworlders who came here
almost five hundred years ago from a place called India on Earth. But
the gurus--"

"--have been deceived. You said so yourself."

Pandit was sweating, and it was more than the heat which made him sweat.
He paced up to the crates, then back again, then to the crates. Suddenly
he said, "All right. All right, I'll do it. Someone's got to find out
what the Denebians want here."

And Pandit began to pry at one of the boxes with a knife he carried in
his loin cloth. Sria said, "I'll keep watch. You call me when it's
opened."

"Maybe you ought to get out of here. In case anything happens, I don't
want to get you involved."

But Sria went up the ramp and crouched there, waiting, watching. The
desert was very quiet, entirely windless, and hot even at night. Stars
sprinkled the sky overhead and far off she thought she heard the distant
whine of a jet. "Hurry," she called. From below she heard the sound of
wood being pried away from wood. She heard, or imagined she heard, the
jet coming closer. "Hurry!" she called softly.

Finally three words drifted up to her. "Come here, Sria." She felt a
little relieved. Now that he'd finished.

* * * * *

She listened for the jet. Now she heard nothing. She went swiftly down
the ramp.

Pandit stood before one of the crates, perspiring freely. He had pried
loose one of the side walls and a smooth metal surface with stenciled
lettering on it was exposed.

He said: "I can't read that. It's a language I never saw before."

Sria bent closer and looked at the stenciled lettering. A voice, not
Pandit's, said:

"I thought it would be you two.... No, don't move!"

A big muscular figure silhouetted against the starlight, and a smaller,
puny, thin-legged figure. Raj Shiva and his co-pilot.

"A hundred credits each, Handus," Raj Shiva said as he ran down the
ramp. "Can you keep the girl from getting away?"

Handus rushed down at his heels.

Pandit met Raj Shiva at the foot of the ramp. Pandit was a big man by
Ophiuchan standards, but Raj Shiva was bigger. "Run, Sria!" Pandit
cried, and met the giant with his knife.

Raj Shiva parried the blow with his forearm, then his big hands moved
swiftly and the knife clattered to the floor. Sria