n."

Quillan glanced around. The Duke was lounging in the doorway. He
grinned slightly, said, "Velladon's still sore at us. But he'll talk
to Quillan. Kinmarten here ... did he tell you his wife's on the
Star?"

Brock Kinmarten went utterly white. Cooms looked at him, said softly,
"No, that must have slipped his mind."

Fluel said, "Yeah, Well, she is. And Ryter says they'll have her
picked up inside half an hour. When they bring her in, we really
should check on how candid Kinmarten's been about everything."

The rest warden said in a voice that shook uncontrollably, "Gentlemen,
my wife knows absolutely nothing about these matters! I swear it!
She--"

Quillan stood up. "Well, I'll go see if I can't get Velladon in a
better mood. Are you keeping that Hlat-talker, Cooms?"

Cooms smiled. "I am."

"Marras figures," the Duke's flat voice explained, "that if the thing
comes into the room and he squeaks at it a few times, he won't get
hurt."

"That's possible," Cooms said, unruffled. "At any rate, I intend to
hang on to it."

"Well, I wouldn't play around with those buttons too much," Quillan
observed.

"Why not?"

"You might get lucky and tap out some pattern that spells 'Come to
chow' in the Hlat's vocabulary."

* * * * *

There were considerably more men in evidence on Level Two than on the
fourth, and fewer signs of nervousness. The Star men had been told of
the Hlat's escape from its cubicle, but weren't taking it too
seriously. Quillan was conducted to the commodore and favored with an
alarmingly toothy grin. Ryter, the security chief, joined them a few
seconds later. Apparently, Velladon had summoned him.

Velladon said, "Ryter here's made a few transmitter calls. We hear
Pappy Boltan pulled his outfit out of the Orado area about a month
ago. Present whereabouts unknown. Hagready went off on some hush-hush
job at around the same time."

Quillan smiled. "Uh-huh! So he did."

"We also," said Ryter, "learned a number of things about you
personally." He produced a thin smile. "You lead a busy
and--apparently--profitable life."

"Business is fair," Quillan agreed. "But it can always be improved."

The commodore turned on the toothy grin. "So all right," he growled,
"you're clear. We rather liked what we learned. Eh, Ryter?"

Ryter nodded.

"This Brotherhood of Beldon, now--" The commodore shook his head
heavily.

Quillan was silent a moment. "They might be gettin