. Certain." Don glanced at his watch, then frowned.

"We've lost a lot of time." His voice sharpened.

"Come on," he snapped. "My sportster will carry three people. Let's get
out of here while we can still make it." He made shooing motions.

Waern moved toward the door, then turned.

"To the Morek?"

"That's right. Up to the Morek. We're going to start a feud."

* * * * *

Andrew Masterson looked at the handset approvingly. Little Mike was
getting the idea. He was still just as fast as he'd ever been. He made
a little noise in his throat, then spoke.

"Well, if you have any questions, Mr. Michaels, feel free to call us
here. Thank you, and good-by."

He dropped the handset to its cradle and leaned back again.

So that was set up. Little Mike would be on his way out to the hills by
the time he'd completed this next call. And he'd have the clans ready
for talks with the Waernu. Now, the next step would be to alert Jahns,
down in the Resident Commissioner's office.

He looked at the surface of his desk, considering, then reached for the
phone again. He'd have to be careful on this one.

The door opened and two men came through. One of them held out a card.

"Masterson?"

"That's right."

"Like to have you come with us. People investigating Rayson's accident
have some questions they'd like to ask you."

"Oh?" Masterson's eyebrows went up. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be much help
on that. I saw him go down, of course, but the view from this window
isn't the best. I really----"

The other shook his head. "Look, don't tell me about it. They just told
us to come out and get you. Got a lot of experts down there. They'll
ask the questions."

Masterson looked at the man appraisingly, then glanced at his partner,
who stood by the door, leaning against the wall.

These two, he thought, would be no great problem. Nothing here but arms
and legs. But----

[Illustration]

He smiled to himself.

_It would be you or the whole tribe_, he thought.

He might still be able to remain under cover, and he'd be a lot more
effective that way.

So maybe they were a little suspicious. He glanced down at the desk.
The little control box was safely destroyed and its operation had left
no evidence. Even if they did suspect the cause of Rayson's crash, they
couldn't prove a thing. No, his best bet was to go along with these two
and hope the questioning would be short enough to allow him t