Kurland stirred, sat up. Irene just looked at him, not troubling to lift her head from the quay. He pulled off his torn jacket, his massive chest and powerful arms strangely white in the brilliant atomic overhead. The tangled black beard dripped upon the floor, the faint drops loud in the silence. He shook himself, getting to his feet, a wild, ragged, outlandish figure. The heavy gun swinging low on his hip gleamed blackly. She sat up, the water running from the rags of her once-dainty gown. She ran her hands through her black hair, watching him. His face was flinty, shadowed in the brilliance. "What now, Kurland?" His hand stroked the gleaming butt of his gun. He looked at her, unseeing. "Gion." "No." Her voice was oddly flat, accented. "We made a good bargain, Gion and I," he replied, his eyes accepting her. "The jewels for my men's lives. Now, I collect." She came to her feet, lithe and graceful even in her ragged tatters. "Not with guns, Kurland! I can free your men. I can ruin Gion, smash his rotten empire. I'm a Recorder. My word could break him in any court from here to Pluto. The law can handle him." "Our law is here," replied Kurland, gravely. His hand patted the black leather holster sheathing Heywood's gun. "Outlaw guns!" she flared. "Is that your justice, here on Jupiter?" "You have tasted Gion's!" he grimly reminded her. "Courts! Laws! And who will serve the Marward with the warrant, girl? He feeds a thousand men within this single fortress city. He rules the rest through fear." She looked up the passage where the Marward had vanished and there was a strange and haunting look upon her lovely face. "It will not hold them now," she said, her voice unsteady. "Gion is dead." His face blanked. She nodded. "Your reason?" His eyes bored into hers. Only the sibilant gurgle of the river glancing past disturbed the quiet of the ancient dungeon. "Why did Gion send across the System to wreck the _Plutonian_?" she replied. "Perhaps to avert suspicion, yes. But I can tell you why. He had to, because the _Plutonian_ would never come to Jupiter. Because the Jewels of Orion were slipping beyond his grasp forever." "You mean ..." Kurland began, slowly. "They did not dare. They were exhibited on all the inner worlds, but not on Saturn, nor on Jupiter. They're unstable, crystallized gas from a galaxy a million miles beyond the belt of Orion." "We handled them," he urged. "In Terran atmosphere, yes. The Council dare not risk them free in anything less. Let the Cranford elements touch those jewels ..." Her shrug was expressive. "The jewel boxes were upon his desk when I awoke," he rejoined, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. "He had not opened them," she replied, positively. "They were his bait, to dull his jackal Heywood's wits, to speed him into carelessness. You saw his impatience to be done, to divide the spoil. He was in haste for his reward."