"That would make a difference to you?" "Can I say it any plainer?" The girl's lips trembled. She caught Dane's hand between hers. "I won't let them get you, Clark! I won't! That's why I'm telling you these things; why I've tried to help you. We'll find some place to hide you, somehow, where even Security can't find you--" "Sorry, Nelva." Dane shook his head. "I'm not fool enough to think I can hide from Security, even if I wanted to. And as for what you say about the computer--well, this is my day to see things for myself." Nelva drew back. Her nostrils were flaring, yet she seemed closer to tears than anger. "You don't trust me!" "That's right. I don't." Dane made it flat and brutal. "But I--I've helped you...." "Right again. But the way things stack up, I'm not sure why. So till I know for sure, I'll play it my way." Dane bit down hard, fighting down all impulses to warmth and tenderness. "We'll have a look at that computer now." "Clark, wait--!" "Well?" "You won't have to go to the computer. I--I'll tell you--" Nelva broke off raggedly. She was breathing too fast, and her eyes held a strange, wild look. Dane stared. "You'll tell me what?" "About the silver shaft, the needle. That's the only one of your questions I know anything about." The girl came up against him; clung to him, her face an anguished mask. "I wasn't lying about the computer, either, Clark. It is guarded by those awful creatures Jessup's biochemists have bred in the Mercury labs. You wouldn't stand a chance against them. That's why I couldn't let you go there. They're completely ruthless--all duty conditioning, not a trace of human feeling in any of them--" "Forget about that!" Dane gripped her arms. "Tell me about the shaft. That's what I want to know!" "It's--it's on Callisto...." "Callisto--?" Dane stared. "That's Kalquoi territory, isn't it?" "Yes, of course. They occupied it when they took over the outer planets thirty years ago." "Then the shaft--" "--is a relic of the days just before the occupation," Nelva finished for Dane. "It was a weapon, Clark--a weapon set up at Sandoz, the chief human city on Callisto. The Sandoz Shaft, they called it. Only then it didn't work, so people ended up saying it was the Sandoz Tombstone. It's mentioned in all the Kalquoi Invasion knowledge tapes. That's how I know about it." * * * * * Prickles of excitement ran up and down Dane's spine. For the first time he began to feel as if he were making progress, coming to grips with the mysteries which seemed ever to surround him. "Do you know any more about the thing?" he demanded of Nelva. "How was it supposed to work? What went wrong?" The girl's smooth brow furrowed in concentration. "As I recall, the shaft was nothing but a gigantic Udellian transmitter." "A Udellian transmitter--?"