toy the child had and broke them one by one,
smashed them into powder, every toy the child had--"

"Juli, please, please," Magnusson pleaded, shaken. "If we're dealing
with a maniac--"

"I don't dare think he'd harm her! He warned me not to come here, or I'd
never see her again, but if it meant war against Terra I had to come.
But Mack, please, don't do anything against him, please, please. He's
got my baby, he's got my little girl...." Her voice failed and she
buried her face in her hands.

Mack picked up the solidopic cube of his five-year-old son, and turned
it between his pudgy fingers, saying unhappily, "Juli, we'll take every
precaution. But can't you see, we've got to get him? If there's a
question of a matter transmitter, or anything like that, in the hands of
Terra's enemies--"

I could see that, too, but Juli's agonized face came between me and the
picture of disaster. I clenched my fist around the chair arm, not
surprised to see the fragile plastic buckle, crack and split under my
grip. _If it had been Rakhal's neck...._

"Mack, let me handle this. Juli, shall I find Rindy for you?"

A hope was born in her ravaged face, and died, while I looked. "Race,
he'd kill you. Or have you killed."

"He'd try," I admitted. The moment Rakhal knew I was outside the Terran
zone, I'd walk with death. I had accepted the code during my years in
Shainsa. But now I was an Earthman and felt only contempt.

"Can't you see? Once he knows I'm at large, that very code of his will
force him to abandon any intrigue, whatever you call it, conspiracy, and
come after me first. That way we do two things: we get him out of
hiding, and we get him out of the conspiracy, if there is one."

I looked at the shaking Juli and something snapped. I stooped and lifted
her, not gently, my hands biting her shoulders. "And I won't kill him,
do you hear? He may wish I had; by the time I get through with him--I'll
beat the living hell out of him; I'll cram my fists down his throat. But
I'll settle it with him like an Earthman. I won't kill him. _Hear me,
Juli?_ Because that's the worst thing I could do to him--catch him and
let him live afterward!"

Magnusson stepped toward me and pried my crushing hands off her arms.
Juli rubbed the bruises mechanically, not knowing she was doing it. Mack
said, "You can't do it, Cargill. You wouldn't get as far as Daillon. You
haven't been out of the zone in six years. Besides--"

His eyes rested full on m