"That's Department of Litigation, sir. One moment." A female voice: "Department of Litigation, Adjudicator Mawson's office." "Let me talk to Mr. Mawson." More time out. Then: "Adjudicator Mawson speaking." "Thigpen here." "Thigpen, Lewis Thigpen?" The adjudicator's voice grew brusque and chill. "I'm afraid you have the wrong party, sir. I don't know anyone named Thigpen." "Listen, Mawson--" "Murderers are hardly to my taste, sir. Even if I did know Thigpen, it would be my greatest pleasure to turn him over to Security for immediate prosecution." Angrily, Ross slammed up the com-set and stalked forth from the booth. Outside, the street was empty, without even a transor in sight. Turning right, Ross strode grimly towards the nearest avenue. His face was set in bitter, deep-hewn lines, but no hesitation showed in his carriage or his manner. Rather, an air of hard, aggressive recklessness now marked him. Tension was in his stance, his movements--the sort of surging drive that calls for quick release in action. Only then, of a sudden, close behind him, a power-unit crescendoed from hum to thunder. Wheels screamed as they scraped a curb. Ross dived sidewise by reflex, not even glancing backward. Careening, a vanster hurtled across the spot where he'd stood, then rocked back into the street and raced out of sight. The man in the control-seat was the same one who'd appeared close by Zoltan Prenzz' apartment. Tight-lipped, Ross picked himself up and brushed the dust from his clothes, then continued warily on to the avenue. Here there were transors. In seconds, Ross was on his way to the old port quarter and Naraki's. The place was a kabat-dive, as Cheng had said; the clientele cold-eyed, hard-faced, seclusive. Ross started drinking. Three kabats later, a lounger with the dark, lethal look of Malya blood about him passed Ross' elbow. "Ramp 9-D, Thigpen." It was deftly done, with unmoving lips. To all outward appearances, the man hadn't even spoken. * * * * * The ramp held a freighter with a space-pocked, time-battered hull that hid a high-capacity neutron drive capable of powering a Grade IX cruiser. Ross boarded the ship in bleak silence, with questions neither asked nor answered on either side. Pausing at the galley, he gulped food till he could hold no more, then slumped down in a bunk to sleep out the trip in a state of something close to complete exhaustion. And then, seemingly in seconds or minutes rather than hours, the craft was ramping again, dropping down amid the cliffs and crags and craters of a bleak asteroidal landscape. Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, Ross stumbled through a cargo-shaft, into a vast, cave-concealed shelter. There were corridors, after that, and shaft-lifts; and, finally, a long, narrow, cell-like room with a barred door. The two men who'd guided Ross shoved him in; slammed shut the self-locking door behind him. Grim-faced, Ross turned.