Efficiently Herndon ripped away the suitcase lining and found the packet of starstones. He opened it. They were wrapped in shielding tissue that protected any accidental viewer. He counted through them; there were thirty-nine, as Brennt had said. "Are any of these defective?" he asked. Mardlin looked up from the floor with eyes yellow with pain and hatred. "Look through them and see." Instead of answering, Herndon shifted the control switch past _six_ again. Mardlin doubled up, clutching his head with clawlike hands. "Yes! Yes! Six defectives!" "Which means you sold six good ones for forty-eight thousand stellors, less the three thousand you kicked back to Brennt to keep quiet. So there should be forty-five thousand stellors here that you owe us. Where are they?" "Dresser drawer ... top...." Herndon found the money, neatly stacked. A second time he shut off the control device, and Mardlin relaxed. "Okay," Herndon said. "I have the cash and I have the stones. But there must be thousands of stellors that you've previously stolen from us." "You can have that too! Only don't turn that thing on again, please!" Shrugging, Herndon said, "There isn't time for me to hunt down the other money you stole from us. But we can ensure against your doing it again." He fulfilled the final part of Benjin's instructions by turning the control switch to _ten_, the limit of sentient endurance. Every molecule of Mardlin's wiry body felt unbearable pain; he screamed and danced on the floor, but only for a moment. Nerve cells unable to handle the overload of pain stimuli short-circuited. In seconds, his brain was paralyzed. In less than a minute he was dead, though his tortured limbs still quivered with convulsive post-mortuary jerks. Herndon shut the device off. He had done his job. He felt neither revulsion nor glee. All this was merely the preamble to what he regarded as his ultimate destiny. He gathered up jewels and money and walked out. CHAPTER V A month later, he arrived on Borlaam via the freighter _Dawnlight_, as scheduled, and passed through customs without difficulty despite the fact that he was concealing more than three hundred thousand stellors' worth of proscribed starstones on his person. His first stop was the Avenue of Bronze, where he sought out Benjin and the Heitman Oversk. He explained crisply and briefly his activities since leaving Borlaam, neglecting to mention the matter of the shipboard romance with the Lady Moaris. While he spoke, both Benjin and Oversk stared eagerly at him, and when he told of intimidating Brennt and killing the treacherous Mardlin they beamed. Herndon drew the packet of starstones from his cloak and laid them on the wooden table. "There," he said. "The starstones. There were some defectives, as you know, and I've brought back cash for them." He added forty-five thousand stellors to the pile.