MacDonald grumbled, and went to a skeletal cage built over a round segment of the floor. Various tools were clipped to the ribs of the cage. MacDonald pulled an extra rayproof protectall over his vac-suit and stepped inside the cage, pressing a button. The cage dropped, into a circular shaft that paralleled the hoist right down to the feeder mechanism. Hyrst waited. Inside his helmet he could hear MacDonald breathing and grumbling as he worked away, repairing a break in the belt. He did not hear anything else. Then something happened, so swiftly that he had never had any memory of it, and some time later he came to and looked for MacDonald. The cage was way down at the bottom of the shaft and MacDonald was in it, with a very massive pedestal-block on top of him. The block had been unbolted from the floor and dragged to the edge of the shaft, and it could not possibly have been an accident that it tumbled in, between the wide-apart ribs of the cage. And that's how MacDonald died, Hyrst thought--and so _I_ died. They said I forced the secret of his Titanite find out of him, and then killed him. Shearing asked swiftly, "MacDonald never gave you any hint of where he'd hidden the Titanite?" "No," said Hyrst. He paused, and then said, "It's the Titanite you're after?" Shearing answered carefully. "In a way, yes. But _we_ didn't kill MacDonald for it. Those who did kill him are the men who are after you now. They're afraid you might lead us to the stuff." Hyrst swore, shaking with sudden anger. "Damn it, I won't be treated like a child. Not by you, by anyone. I want--" "You want the men who killed MacDonald," said Shearing. "I know. I remember what was in your mind when you met your son." A weakness took Hyrst and he leaned his forehead against the cold stone wall. "I'm sorry," said Shearing. "But we want what you want--and more. So much more that you can't dream it. You must trust us." "Us? That woman?" * * * * * Once again in Shearing's mind Hyrst saw the woman with her head against the stars, and the ship looming darkly. He saw the woman much more clearly, and she was like a fire, burning with anger, burning with a single-minded, dedicated purpose. She was beautiful, and frightening. "She, and others," said Shearing. "Listen. We must go soon. We're to be picked up, secretly. Will you trust us--or would you rather trust yourself to those who are hunting you?" Hyrst was silent. Shearing said, "Well?" "I'll go with you," said Hyrst. They went out into the cold darkness, and Hyrst heard Shearing say in his mind, "I wouldn't try to run--" _But it wasn't Shearing speaking in his mind now, it was a third man._ "I wouldn't try to run--"