Her face grew a little pale, but she smiled and replied evenly, "I am the Lady Jansky of Torgandale on Valor--Sirius A IV--and you are now a commoner. Please remember that." "All the papers in the Galaxy won't change the fact that your grandfather was a dirt farmer on Valor." "He was an atomjack, and I'm proud of it. I suggest further that an aristocrat who has nothing to trade on but his pedigree is very ragged indeed. Now, enough of that." Her crisp tones snapped forth. "You've committed a serious offense, especially since this is still occupied territory. If you wish to cooperate with me, I can arrange for a pardon--also for your brawling friends. If not, the whole bunch of you can go to the mines." Donovan shook his head, trying to clear it of alcohol and weariness and the ringing left by the parabeam. "Go on," he said, a little thickly. "I'll listen, anyway." "What do you know of the Black Nebula?" She must have seen his muscles jerk. For an instant he sat fighting himself, grasping at rigidity with all the strength that was in him, and the memory was a blaze and a shout and a stab of pure fear. _Valduma, Valduma!_ The sudden thudding of his heart was loud in his ears, and he could feel the fine beads of sweat starting forth on his skin. He made a wrenching effort and pulled his mouth into a lopsided grin, but his voice wavered: "Which black nebula? There are a lot of them." "Don't try to bait me." Her eyes were narrowed on him, and the fingers of one hand drummed the desktop. "You know I mean _the_ Black Nebula. Nobody in this Galactic sector speaks of any other." "Why--well--" Donovan lowered his face to hide it till he could stiffen the mask, rubbing his temples with manacled hands. "It's just a nebula. A roughly spherical dustcloud, maybe a light-year in diameter, about ten parsecs from Ansa toward Sagittari. A few colonized stars on its fringes, nothing inside it as far as anyone knows. It has a bad name for some reason. The superstitious say it's haunted, and you hear stories of ships disappearing--Well, it gets a pretty wide berth. Not much out there anyway." His mind was racing, he thought he could almost hear it click and whirr as it spewed forth idea after idea, memory after memory. _Valduma and the blackness and they who laughed. The Nebula is pure poison, and now the Empire is getting interested. By God, it might poison them! Only would it stop there? This time they might decide to go on, to come out of the blackness._