The hooded man regarded her pityingly. She was only a kid, he realized. He said: "You can't get Bemmelman like that. He runs the government at Venusport. He'd never come to trial." He stopped, realizing that she wasn't listening. Nostrils flaring, head erect, the girl was looking through him blankly. A glimmer of fright flitted across her mobile features. Then she raised the dart gun, pointed it full at his chest. "Put your hands on top of your head, please!" His green eyes contracted angrily. He didn't move. "I mean it! Put your hands on top of your head, please." With a shrug, he obeyed. He saw the door to the corridor slide back. A heavy red-faced man in his late forties and a wrinkled snuff brown suit stared in at them. The red-faced man's sparse sandy hair was plastered to his skull, and he had little mobile brown eyes like a pig. "Is that you, Hal?" The blue girl didn't turn around, didn't take her eyes off the hooded man. "I've caught the Renegade!" The red-faced man's jaw dropped. "Yes sir," he said. "Yes sir, it's me, Sofi." A shrewd gleam flickered in his pig-like eyes. "I caught him trying to open the safe." "So I see! So I see!" Bemmelman rubbed his hands together, came into the room. He pulled a dart gun from the belly band of his trousers and leveled it at the Renegade. "Stand aside, Sofi." The hooded man felt his stomach turn slowly upside down. He considered hurling himself behind the glassite desk, snatching out his slug gun. Bemmelman said: "Did you get his gun, Sofi?" She shook her yellow head. Alarm stiffened the planter's features. "Get it, girl! No! No! Don't get between us! Get behind him!" The hooded man felt the girl's hands pat his chest, draw forth the heavy slug gun. The florid color crept back into Bemmelman's gross features. "You may go, Sofi. I want a word with the Renegade." * * * * * Sofi shot him a child-like pouting glance, but retreated obediently from the room, drawing the door shut behind her. The lean young man in the hood watched, weighing his chances. He didn't say anything. "You're surprised, eh, that I don't turn you in to the Security Patrol?" Bemmelman began. "They'd like to get their hands on the Renegade, they would. But the fact is I want you more than they do. Yes sir, this is a piece of luck for me. I've been trying to contact you for months." The hooded man said dryly: "I'm listening," and allowed his hands to sink to his side. "Put your hands back on your head!" Bemmelman's voice registered alarm. "No tricks. I can use you, lad, but no tricks." He glared speculatively at the Renegade, added: "Yes sir, that I can. And now, if you'll take off that hood we'll get down to business." "If it's business, I'll keep the hood on." "No sir," the planter blustered. "Off with the hood or I shoot. When I do business with a man, I like to know who he is."