," Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from the
captive, "I remember!"

Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man's eyes. He asked
quietly:

"What do you remember, Brodie?"

"Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on the
L-B, did not build that camp."

He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay
behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced,
he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.

"You have no cup this time."

"So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. That
need not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to on
Nahuatl--unless you _liked_ the Starfall." His voice was icy with
contempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." He
paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing
the desired answer out of his inferior.

Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl--a planet?
a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everything
clearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did....

"You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makes
Rynch Brodie so important?"

"Close to a billion credits!" The man from the spacer leaned well back
in the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his body
from sinking deeper. "A billion credits," he repeated softly.

Rynch laughed. "You'll have to think of a better one than that,
fly-boy."

"The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to all
this staging? You've been conditioned, Brodie, illegally
brain-channeled!"

To Rynch the words meant nothing. If they ever had, that was gone,
lost in the maze of other things which had been blotted out of his
mind by the Brodie past. But he would not give the other the advantage
of knowing his uncertainty.

"You need a Brodie for a billion credits. But you don't have a Brodie
now!"

To his surprise the prisoner in the earth trap laughed. "I'll have a
Brodie when he's needed. Think about a good share of a billion
credits, boy, keep thinking of that hard."

"I will."

"Thoughts alone won't work it, you know." For the first time there was
a hint of some emotion in the man's voice.

"You mean I need you? I don't think so. I've stopped being a plaque
for someone to play across the board." That expression brought another
momentary flash of hazy memory--a smoky, crowded roo