Whiter than the fleshless bone displayed before him, Kurland thrust to the swinging door, welding it shut in one impulsive burst of his blaster. No man should see what lay beyond. Shaking with a terrible anger, Kurland strode furiously back the broken ship, gun in hand, and flung his curses on ahead. He opened nothing, but shot doors and panels from their hinges as he advanced, eyes glaring for the faintest sign of movement. Only the man who had planned and executed this horror could have survived it. * * * * * Midway in his stride the outlaw halted, gun lifted. The pilot light over the central chambers glowed softly. There was atmosphere within. Kurland snarled, closed his gloved hand on the twisted lever. He jerked and the battered door swung open, revealing a rough airlock improvised from the usual intercommunicating chamber. He darted in, snapping the door behind him. Air sighed into the chamber as he drew another rude lever down from the box nailed to the bulkhead. Removing his vitrine helmet, Kurland holstered his gun and thrust open the inner lock. The air was clean and fresh, Earth-crisp. The room was battered, but not structurally damaged, and the furnishings were neatly in place. There were signs that other chambers had been looted to furnish this one, and Kurland smiled mirthlessly. He silently moved across the thick blue rug. The room beyond was a sleeping cabin, with male attire in the slotted racks. The stamp of occupancy lay everywhere in the worn, neat articles stamped with a golden H. The other room of the suite had been fitted with heat tubes for warmth and cooking, and were piled high with salvaged foodstuffs. Continuing, Kurland found a broken passage beyond this kitchen, leading deeper into the shop's waist, but cut off from the first suite by locked doors. The outlaw grinned wickedly and, reversing the charge silently burned the doors from their slides. There was no sound, no vibration as he laid them against the wall. Gion had not hunted him for nothing. The room beyond was deep in rugs, the panelled walls well-hung with costly paintings. A recorder was singing beyond a brocaded drape, and Kurland could hear footsteps moving lightly across the padded floor. With one swift bound he was across the anteroom, ripping the drapery from its flimsy hangings, and stood upon the threshold of the inner room, a black, terrible figure looming in the warped doorway like the angel of Death. His voice rang softly through the sudden frozen silence as he faced the survivor. "My apologies. I underestimated Gion." Irene Francinet, whirling in anger at an intrusion she attributed to the hitherto circumspect Heywood, froze at the sight confronting her, a huge black-bearded stranger with the bronze face of a Japanese devil-mask. The gloved hands were gargoyle claws, hovering over the blasters slung at the intruder's steel-black hips, the blazing eyes lances piercing her to the heart. This was ... Death.