rd not to shoot under any circumstances. If
you had been there, the results would have been the same. He would have
forbidden you to do anything at all. The time is not yet ripe for you to
face the Nipe. You would not have been able to protect him without
disobeying his orders."

"I might have done just that," said Stanton.

Yoritomo was suddenly angry. "Then it is better that you were in Denver,
young fool! Colonel Walther Mannheim believed that no single human life
is worth the loss of the knowledge in that alien's mind! He proved that
by sacrificing his own life when that became necessary. I like to think
that I would have done the same thing myself. I am certain Dr.
Farnsworth would. We would rather _all_ be dead than allow that fund of
data to be lost to the rest of humanity!"

"But--but who will carry on, with him dead?" Stanton asked. "He was the
one who co-ordinated everything. You and Farnsworth aren't cut out for
that sort of thing. Nor am I."

"No," Yoritomo said. "But that has already been taken care of. Mannheim
had a replacement ready. A message is being sent out in Mannheim's name,
since we are keeping the colonel's death secret for the time being.
_You_ are the only indispensable man, Stanton. The rest of us can easily
be replaced. The lives of dozens of human beings have been
sacrificed--five years of your own life have been sacrificed--to put you
in the right place at the right time. And the job you are to do does not
and never has included acting as bodyguard for Colonel Mannheim or
anyone else. Understand?"

Stanton nodded slowly. "I understand, George. I understand."

_[18]_

The detective pushed his way out of the crowded courtroom before the
rest of the crowd started to move. The members of the jury were still
filing in, and he knew that no one else would leave the room until the
verdict was in.

He didn't care. He knew what the verdict ought to be. He knew also that
juries had occasionally been swayed by histrionics on the part of the
defense counsel, and had been persuaded to free guilty men. He knew,
too, that prosecutors had railroaded innocent men. But such things as
that didn't happen often in the Belt. A man doesn't live too long in
the Belt unless he's capable of recognizing Truth when he sees it.

But even if the wrong verdict had been brought in, there would have been
nothing he could do about it now. He had done his part. He had done
everything he could. He had brough