tty nearly that," Bish said. "You'd be amazed at how
careless people who've had their own way for a long time can get. For
instance, I've known for some time that Ravick has spies among the
crews of a lot of hunter-ships. I tried, a few times, to warn some of
these captains, but except for Oscar Fujisawa and Corkscrew Finnegan,
none of them would listen to me. It wasn't that they had any doubt
that Ravick would do that; they just wouldn't believe that any of
their crew were traitors.

"I've suspected this Devis for a long time, and I've spoken to Ramon
Llewellyn about him, but he just let it go in one ear and out the
other. For one thing, Devis always has more money to spend than his
share of the _Javelin_ take would justify. He's the showoff type;
always buying drinks for everybody and playing the big shot. Claims to
win it gambling, but all the times I've ever seen him gambling, he's
been losing.

"I knew about this hoard of wax we saw the day Murell came in for some
time. I always thought it was being held out to squeeze a better price
out of Belsher and Ravick. Then this friend of mine with whom I was
talking aboard the _Peenemuende_ mentioned that Murell seemed to know
more about the tallow-wax business than about literary matters, and
after what happened at the meeting and afterward, I began putting two
and two together. When I crashed that party at Hunters' Hall, I heard
a few things, and they all added up.

"And then, about thirty hours after the Javelin left port, I was in
the Happy Haven, and who should I see, buying drinks for the house,
but Al Devis. I let him buy me one, and he told me he'd strained his
back hand-lifting a power-unit cartridge. A square dance got started a
little later, and he got into it. His back didn't look very strained
to me. And then I heard a couple of characters in One Eye Swanson's
betting that the _Javelin_ would never make port again."

I knew what had happened from then on. If it hadn't been for Bish
Ware, we'd still be squatting around a fire down on the coast of
Hermann Reuch's Land till it got too cold to cut wood, and then we'd
freeze. I mentioned that, but Bish just shrugged it off and suggested
we go on in and see what was happening inside.

"Where is Al Devis?" I asked. "A lot of people want to talk to him."

"I know they do. I want to get to him first, while he's still in
condition to do some talking of his own. But he just dropped out of
sight, about the time you