"You have weapons. I'll supply you with the necessary information. If you can get ten of them before they get you, you'll be all right." He drew forth a billfold and extracted a snapshot from it. "Here's your first one, now. Kill her and report back to me. You can find her at the Spaceways Hotel." Harris felt a jolt. "_I'm_ staying at that hotel." "Indeed? Here. Look at the picture." Harris took the photo from the other. It was a tridim in full color. It showed a blonde girl wearing a low-cut black sheath. Controlling his voice, he said, "This girl's too pretty to be a Medlin agent." "That's why she's so deadly," Carver said. "Kill her first. She goes under the name of Beth Baldwin." Harris stared at the photo a long while. Then he nodded. "Okay. I'll get in touch with you again when the job's done." * * * * * It was nearly two in the morning when he returned to the hotel. He had spent nearly an hour with the man who called himself John Carver. He felt tired, confused, faced with decisions that frightened him. Beth Baldwin a Medlin spy? How improbable that seemed! But yet Carver had had her photo. It was his job to kill her, now. He was a Servant of the Spirit. He could not betray his trust. _First I'll find out for certain, though._ He took the gravshaft to the 58th floor, but instead of going to his room he turned left and headed toward the room whose number she had given him--5820. He paused a moment, then nudged the door-signal. There was no immediate response, so he nudged it again. This time he heard the sound of a doorscanner humming just above him, telling him that she was awake and just within the door. He said, "It's me--Abner. I have to see you, Beth." "Hold on," came the sleepy reply from inside. "Let me get something on." A moment passed, and then the door slid open. Beth smiled at him. She had "put something on," but the something had not been much--a flimsy gown that concealed her body as if she were wearing so much gauze. But Harris was not interested in her body just now, attractive though it was. She held a tiny glittering weapon in her hand. Harris recognized the weapon. It was the Medlin version of the disruptor-pistol. "Come on in, Abner." Numbly he stepped forward, and the door shut behind him. Beth gestured with the disruptor. "Sit down over there." "How come the gun, Beth?" "You know that answer without my having to tell it to you. Now that you've seen Carver, you know who I am." He nodded. "A Medlin agent." It was hard to believe. He stared at the girl who stood ten feet from him, a disruptor trained at his skull. The Medlin surgeons evidently were as skillful as those of Darruu, it seemed, for the wiry pebble-skinned Medlins were even less humanoid than the Darruui--and yet he would swear that those breasts, the flaring hips, the long well-formed legs, were genuine.