A new tremor ran through Sais' smooth, perfect body. Of a sudden she reached out and once more gripped his clenched fist in the darkness. "Jarl, believe me...." "Believe you--?" "The trap was my fault, not his. He sent me a message that came too late. You'd gone before I found it...." She choked. "Now I must tell you all--" "All--?" "Yes, no matter what I promised." Sais broke off, still trembling; then hurried on. "The projector ... it was a gamble...." Again she fumbled, halted. Jarl waited in taut silence. She said: "It draws its power from cosmic dust." "I know." "But that was only half my father's secret!" Sais' voice took on a new raw edge. "Did you ever ask yourself how my father learned to utilize that power, Jarl Corvett? Did you ever wonder why it was he who mastered its principle, after the finest scientists of every planet had striven for a thousand years and failed?" Jarl frowned in the darkness. "You mean--?" "I mean that it was not he who solved the problem!" Sais' nails bit into his hand. Her voice lost its edge in an eager rush of words. "Jarl, the secret came from another race--from a people who voyaged across the void ... perhaps from even beyond the stars! Eons ago, they lived and died. But one of their ships had crashed on Vesta. That was why my father built his workshop there--so that he could better study what little they'd left behind them. There was a book with metal pages; he found it deep in the buried wreckage. From it, he worked out the plans for this new projector." * * * * * It made Jarl's breath quicken, that picture--the picture of Wassreck, twisted genius, digging through dead ruins in spite of a torture, pain-racked body. The endless hours, the weary years, the lightning mind and infinite patience--all were part of an old, familiar pattern. Wassreck's pattern. But it still was not enough to still the doubts that plagued him. With an effort, he held his voice flat and clipped, emotionless. "So ... he gave this master secret to _rey_ Gundre.... "He doomed the outlaw worlds. He left us to die here, at Ceresta." "No! He did not!" Bitter vehemence rang in her denial. "You fool, the projector itself was nothing! He had to break through the Federation fleet's blockade in order to reach Venus' orbit, and then Womar--" "Womar--!" Jarl went rigid. He strained his eyes to see the woman in the darkness. "Yes, Womar, the satellite that hides behind the mother planet!" Sais writhed upright. Again her words came fast and eager. "There was another ship, Jarl Corvett--another craft built by that same ancient master race somewhere across the void! If my father can find it, it will mean the end of the Federation! It will buy the outlaw worlds their freedom!" "But Womar..." Choking, Jarl came up beside her. His thin-stretched mask of bleakness fell away. "Sais, it's madness!"