Again, the woman reached out a pudgy hand to caress Ross. His teeth clicked together, as if with a sudden involuntary shiver. Catching the hand in his own, not too gently, he pushed it away. "There's something you need to understand, Astrell," he said in a tight, controlled voice. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do than milk you of all that money you've piled up. But I haven't got the catalyst, or the formula either. So you're wasting your time, mooning around me." "Don't worry, Thigpen. I understand." Astrell gave vent to a knowing, conspiratorial giggle. "You've got to be careful. Killing Tornelescu--that was dangerous; you can't afford to admit it, even to me. The same way with the catalyst: you've no intention of confessing you've so much as heard of it. But if a case of it were to turn up in my rooms, somehow, and a money-case were to vanish--" Ross said, "Get out." "'Get out'--?" The woman's head jerked back. She searched his eyes for a long, unsteady moment. Then a pallor came to her withered cheeks, for all their show of artificial color. Her breathing speeded. "Thigpen, you mean it! The catalyst--you're not going to sell it to me--" And then, in a rush, face thrust close: "Don't say it, Thigpen! Don't say it if you want to live! I can give you beauty. I can give you money. But if you won't take them, then I'll get the catalyst without you! They'll find you in an alley with your throat cut, Thigpen--the same way you left Tornelescu! And Thigpen--you'll call it a favor when they finish you, because first they'll make you tell the secret--" The woman's voice rose higher with every sentence, till she was half-screaming. Her face contorted into a wrinkled mask of hate. Her back bent, too, and her body seemed to pull together, till when she shook her fist at Ross she was hag, incarnate; the embodiment of every creaking crone. "Out!" Ross clipped. "Out!" Grimly, he pressed her back towards the door. For an instant it seemed she was going to resist, force him to back his commands with violence. Then, abruptly, she whirled and without another word fled the apartment. Gustily, Ross let out pent-up breath and, pivoting, turned once more to the other room. But now, on the threshold, he stopped short. For where the space-sack had lain brief minutes before, now there was only crumpled bedding. Momentarily, Ross stood as if paralyzed. Then, with a curse, he sprang forward--flinging aside furniture; clawing open the storage areas. No Veta. Ross whirled to the barred window. The bars weren't there any more. Stiff-faced, stumbling, Ross sank down onto the bed. Only then, seemingly out of nowhere, Cheng spoke to him: Cheng, the smuggler; Cheng, the slaver; Cheng, the black-browed, scar-faced killer from the Belt: "All right, Thigpen. Listen to me. This is the way we're going to play, and I don't mean to tell you more than once." Ross came up from his seat as if on springs. Wildly, he looked this way and that.