* * * * * Campbell drew a long, unsteady breath. The woman's voice throbbed in him, and his throat was tight. He said "_Tredrick?_" Marah nodded. "Tredrick. But it's more than that. If it were only Tredrick, it wouldn't be so bad." He ran the curve of his hook over his scarred chin, and his eyes burned like candle flames. "Romany is growing old, and soft. That's the real trouble. Decay. Otherwise, Tredrick would have been kicked into space long ago. There are old men in the Council, Campbell. They think more of comfort than they do of--well...." "Yeah. I know. What's Tredrick's angle?" "I don't know. He's a strange man--you can't get a grip on him. Sometimes I think he's working for the Coalition." Campbell scowled. "Could be. You gypsies have a lot of wild talents and some unique skills--I've met some of 'em. The man that controlled them would be sitting pretty. The Coalition would like it, too." The woman said bitterly, "And they could always exhibit us. Tours, at so much a head. So quaint--a cross-section of a lost world!" "Tredrick's the strong man," Marah went on. "Eran Mak is Chief Councillor, but he does as Tredrick tells him. The idea is that if Romany settled down and stops getting into trouble with the Planetary Coalitions, we can have regular orbits, regular trade, and so on." "In other words," said Campbell dryly, "stop being Romany." "You understand. A pet freak, a tourist attraction, a fat source of revenue." Again the savage flash of the hook. "A damned circus!" "And Tredrick, I take it, has decided that you're endangering the future of Romany by rebellion, and put the finger on you." "Exactly." Marah's yellow eyes were bright and hard, meeting Campbell's. Campbell thought about the Fitts-Sothern outside, and all the lonely reaches of space where he could go. There were lots of Coalition ships to rob, a few plague-spots left to spend the loot in. All he had to do was walk out. But there was a woman's voice, with a note in it like a singing, angry drum. There was an old man's voice, murmuring, "Little people like you, my son?" It was funny, how a guy could be alone and not know he minded it, and then suddenly walk in on perfect strangers and not be alone any more--alone inside, that is--and know that he _had_ minded it like hell. It had been that way with the Kraylens. It was that way now. Campbell shrugged. "I'll stick around." He added irritably, "Sister, will you for Pete's sake get that light out of my eyes?" She moved it, shining it down. "The name's Moore. Stella Moore." He grinned. "Sorry. So you do have a face, after all." It wasn't beautiful. It was pale and heart-shaped, framed in a mass of unruly red-gold hair. There were long, grey eyes under dark-gold brows that had never been plucked, and a red, sullen mouth.