them the usual ten per cent,
then bring me an inventory of the remainder."

* * * * *

Musa stood, fists clenched, facing the recorder play-back. "The usual
ten per cent, he says! Why, I'd like to slaughter the lot of those
murdering thieves!"

Lanko snapped off the switch. "Don't blame them too much," he laughed.
"After all, they're only trying to make a living, and it's the only
trade they know."

As Musa nearly choked on his attempted reply, Banasel broke in.

"Sure," he chuckled. "Besides, it's guys like them that keep guys like
us in business."

Lanko noticed the horrified expression on Musa's face, and quickly
composed himself. He put his hand on the man's shoulder.

"Look," he explained seriously, "if we got so we took people like these
to heart, we'd spend half our time getting psyched to unsnarl our own
mental processes." He gestured to the reels of tape in a cabinet.

"Here, we have the records of hundreds of cases like this one. Some are
worse, some are not so bad. Every one of them had to be--and
was--cracked by members of our Corps. This is just another of those
minor, routine incidents that keep cropping up all over the galaxy. It's
our problem now, and we'll get to work on it." He turned.

"Where do you want to start, Banasel?"

"Well--competition's the life of trade."

"That comes later." Lanko shook his head. "There's an alien or so to be
taken care of first, you know."

"I know. It's fairly obvious."

"So, we've got to find him--or them."

Musa had regained his self-control. "What about these birds in hand?"

Banasel shrugged. "Small fry. We'll take care of them later." He walked
over to the workbench, picking up Lanko's sword.

"I wondered about this before," he said. "Now, I'm sure about it. It
simply doesn't match a normal technology for this period."

Musa looked at him curiously. "But there are a lot of those around
Norlar," he said. "They're a rarity in the Galankar, to be sure, but--"

"That's what we mean," Lanko told him. "Too many anachronisms. First, we
have this sword. Then, we meet these priests of Kondaro, who discuss
meteorology, navigation, and pilotage with considerable understanding.
We've had communicators planted on that ship for several days now, and I
still can't see how the technology was developed that allowed the
manufacture of some of their instruments. We should have noticed
something wrong a long time ago.

"The priests