"Here or a million miles across the void, what makes you think I'd help you?" Shane slashed savagely. Beneath the jacket, his fingers caressed the hilt of the _Pervod_ knife. "For that matter, how _could_ I help you? Do you see the _Chonya_ chiefs as such fools that they'd follow me into your net, no matter what I said or did?" * * * * * The creature before him grinned hideously. "It won't be as hard as you tell it, Shane. The trick is to split the Federation--and there is where I need you." "The Federation--?" "Your acting falls short of your memory, Earthman. Your secret conference on the slave raids--I know about it. You should have been there by now; the meetings start tomorrow. When you don't appear, there'll be talk about the _Chonyas_ and _Malyas_, and how they always were slavers till the Federation beat them down." "You talk nonsense, Reggar," Shane said curtly. But of a sudden his mouth seemed a trifle dry. "Do I?" The alien voice rang with a note of dark triumph. "I have friends, Earthman ... friends so respectable, so high-placed, that they would not admit that they even so much as knew my name. But they have their price, and so they still play my game. They will be there, at the conference. They will cry out that the _Chonyas_ and _Malyas_ are behind these raids as in the days gone by." "And when we deny it--?" "You'll have no chance to deny it. Reports will come in--confirmed reports that say the Earthman, Shane, great _gar_ of the asteroids, has gone the _Chonya_ way. That he, himself, is leading raiders, sweeping the lesser moons for slaves." Bleakly, Shane stared at the creature. His fists clenched spasmodically, and knots of muscle stood out at the hinges of his jaws. Then that, too, passed. "A lie is a lie, Reggar," he said tonelessly. "Someplace, sometime, it always breaks down." "But there will be no lie, great _gar_," the other mocked. "The reports will speak the truth. For as you say, a lie breaks down, and this is one time I dare not chance a gamble. So you will be out there in the void, in a _Chonya_ raider ship. I myself shall supply it. A wild _Chonya_ crew will man it, drawn from the dregs that you cast out of the asteroids when the chiefs came in and named you _gar_. Shane the slaver, the worlds will call you." "And then?" clipped Shane. * * * * *