rest. As Hume, his visible areas
of flesh were deeply browned, but by nature rather than exposure to
space, the pilot guessed. His features were harsh, with a prominent
nose, a back-slanting forehead, eyes dark, long and large, with heavy
lids.

"Now--" He spread both his hands, palm down and flat on the table, a
gesture Hume found himself for some unknown reason copying. "You have
a proposition?"

But the pilot was not to be hurried, any more than he was to be
influenced by Wass' stage-settings.

"I have an idea," he corrected.

"There are many ideas." Wass leaned back in his chair, but he did not
remove his hands from the table. "Perhaps one in a thousand is the
kernel of something useful. For the rest, there is no need to trouble
a man."

"Agreed," Hume returned evenly. "But that one idea in a thousand can
also pay off in odds of a million to one, when and if a man has it."

"And you have such a one?"

"I have such a one." It was Hume's role now to impress the other by
his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wass
was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wass
must not know that.

"On Jumala?" Wass returned.

If that stare and statement was intended to rattle Hume it was a
wasted shot. To discover that he had just returned from that frontier
planet required no ingenuity on the Veep's part.

"Perhaps."

"Come, Out-Hunter Hume. We are both busy men, this is no time to play
tricks with words and hints. Either you have made a find worth the
attention of my organization or you have not. Let me be the judge."

This was it--the corner of no return. But Wass had his own code. The
Veep had established his tight control of his lawless organization by
set rules, and one of them was, don't be greedy. Wass was never
greedy, which is why the patrol had never been able to pull him down,
and those who dealt with him did not talk. If you had a good thing,
and Wass accepted temporary partnership, he kept his side of the
bargain rigidly. You did the same--or regretted your stupidity.

"A claimant to the Kogan estate--that good enough for you?"

Wass showed no surprise. "And how would such a claimant be profitable
to us?"

Hume appreciated that "us"; he had an in now. "If you supply the
claimant, surely you can claim a reward, in more ways than one."

"True. But one does not produce a claimant out of a Krusha dream. The
investigation for any such claim now would be made