"Not too much. I thought of something." Quillan indicated the outportal in the hall. "I had my back against that. A portal's space-break, not solid matter. It couldn't come at me from behind. And if it attacked from any other angle"--he tapped the holstered Miam Devil lightly, and the gun in Orca's hand jerked upward a fraction of an inch--"There aren't many animals that can swallow more than a bolt or two from that baby and keep coming." There was a moment's silence. Then Orca said thoughtfully, "That would work!" "Did it see you?" Ryter asked. "It couldn't have. First _I_ saw of it, it was sailing out from that corner over there. It slammed in after that chunk of sea beef so fast, it shook the cubicle. And that was that." He grinned. "Well, most of our troubles should be over now!" One of the men gave a brief, nervous laugh. Quillan looked at him curiously. "Something, chum?" Ryter shook his head. "Something is right! Come on downstairs again, Bad News. This time we have news for you--" The Brotherhood guards on the ground level had been taken by surprise and shot down almost without losses for the Star men. But the battle on the fourth level had cost more than the dead left up there. An additional number had returned with injures that were serious enough to make them useless for further work. "It's been expensive," Ryter admitted. "But one more attack by the Hlat would have left me with a panicked mob on my hands. If we'd realized it was going to trap itself--" "I wasn't so sure that would work either," Quillan said. "Did you get Kinmarten back?" "Not yet. The chances are he's locked up somewhere on the fourth level. Now the Hlat's out of the way, some of the men have gone back up there to look for him. If Cooms thought he was important enough to start a fight over, I want him back." "How about the crew on the Beldon ship?" Quillan asked, "Have they been cleaned up?" "No," Ryter said. "We'll have to do that now, of course." "How many of them?" "Supposedly twelve. And that's probably what it is." "If they know or suspect what's happened," Quillan said, "twelve men can give a boarding party in a lock a remarkable amount of trouble." Ryter shrugged irritably. "I know, but there isn't much choice. Lancion's bringing in the other group on the _Camelot_. We don't want to have to handle both of them at the same time." "How are you planning to take the freighter?" "When the search party comes back down, we'll put every man we can spare from guard duty here on the job. They'll be instructed to be careful about it ... if they can wind up the matter within the next several hours, that will be early enough. We can't afford too many additional losses now. But we should come out with enough men to take care of Lancion and handle the shipment of Hlats. And that's what counts." "Like me to take charge of the boarding party?" Quillan inquired. "That sort of thing's been a kind of specialty of mine."