"Driven!" said Mia in a heated voice. "What makes you think he was driven? I'd say he was doing exactly as he pleased." Cosmo stood up, towering over the girl, took several short paces across the patio. "I don't think anyone would enjoy being constantly hunted. Everyman's hand against him. Always on guard against treachery, surprise. And no matter how careful he is, sooner or later he's bound to be caught. He can't even quit, now. I feel sorry for him." "Feel sorry for him! I'd like to see him shot!" * * * * * Cosmo looked startled. "You're a blood-thirsty little devil." He grinned suddenly. "What I've been saying must have buzzed in one ear and out the other." Mia said: "He murdered father." Cosmo regarded her in surprise. "Great guns, Mia, where did you get that idea?" "Hal Bemmelman told me. He found father down in the tara field where...." Her voice faltered, but she recovered herself, went on. "Where the serfs had hacked him to pieces with grass knives. They were the Renegade's men." "Did he? Did he indeed?" Cosmo's voice was grim. "What was Bemmelman doing there?" Mia frowned. "He was trailing a runaway serf. Why?" "Of course he was." Her gray eyes widened. She stared at him. "Surely you aren't accusing Bemmelman of murdering father. Why he's the most influential member of the Council of Land Owners. He's...." "Did you ever hear of the Blue Venus?" he interrupted. "The Blue Venus? What's that?" Cosmo's face was grim, his green eyes cold. "She's a cross between a Jovian Dawn Man and an Earth woman. She's supposed to be the most beautiful girl in the System. She belongs to Bemmelman. He forced her mother to mate with a Jovian primitive as an experiment. He's asking five thousand monad for her on the Slave Mart. Hal Bemmelman is a slave breeder." "I don't believe it!" Mia said in horror, then asked with feminine perversity: "How do you know?" Cosmo sat down in the hammock, grinned faintly. "I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone but your father, Mia. I think you ought to know, because you're in danger." His green eyes twinkled. "Quit chewing your fingernails." "Go on," said Mia. "Go on, for the Lord's sake, before I burst." He said: "Twenty-six years ago my father owned the Bemmelman plantation. He was murdered under almost the same circumstances as your father. So was my mother. My nurse escaped with me, hid me out in the mountains. I was only five." "Who did it?" "Jovian Dawn Men. Slaves imported from Jupiter. They run amok during their rutting season, you know, and they were supposed to be amok at the time." "But ..." began Mia. "Wait a moment. Bemmelman held notes on the plantation. He moved in. But before Bemmelman took over our plantation, he was a slave runner. He imported Dawn Men from Jupiter for the Venusian Slave Mart." "You--you think Hal Bemmelman was in back of it?" "Yes," he said flatly. "But why? Couldn't he buy land?"