Bleakly, now, Ross glanced at his new prisoners--first the woman, then the man, then back to the woman again. "So Pike Mawson wants to make a deal with me, does he?" His curt laugh held no mirth. "All right, I'll let him. Only the terms are going to be mine, not his--and by the time I'm through, Stera help him, he'll wish he'd never heard of me, or the catalyst, or old Tornelescu either!" CHAPTER II TROUBLE ON JAPETUS Time passed slowly, hovering there high above tiny Japetus, waiting for Saturn's shadow and a chance to slip in. Ross yawned and stretched. Then, taking out his writer, he doodled briefly on an astrogation pad. Only somehow, the doodles all seemed to end up resembling Veta Hall. Ross sighed and put away the writer. Sinking deeper into his seat, he stretched his legs at full length before him. His shoulders, his head, sagged forward just a fraction. But he still kept the blaster across his lap; and though his lids tended to droop, his grey eyes still followed the woman's every move. Incongruously, she wore a quilted space-suit liner. But even such failed to hide the youthfulness of her body and her movements. Her dark, curly hair--worn short--only accented the regularity of her features, the unblemished smoothness of her skin, the absence of all lines and wrinkles. Now, suddenly, she flushed under Ross' scrutiny. Turning away abruptly, she fumbled in her shoulder-bag and, after a moment, brought forth a Pallastan vocorn pipe. Ross' eyes widened. But he said nothing. Adjusting the pipe's mouthpiece, still ignoring Ross, the girl began to play. Weird minor melodies, developed in the unique contrapuntal manner of the pipe's fourteen-note polyphonic scale, welled and echoed through the cramped space of the cruiser's cabin. Wincing, Ross held his peace till the girl paused. "You're from Pallas, Veta?" he asked then, quickly. Wordless, she shook her head; began to play again. Another fragmentary pause. "Somewhere else in the Belt, maybe?" Ross persisted. "Vesta? Ceresta? H'sana?" Again, silent denial. Ross frowned. "I didn't know they played vocorn pipes anywhere outside the Belt." Veta Hall broke off her music for an instant. "They don't," she retorted succinctly, and plunged back into a Chonya dirge. Ross laughed. "All right, I'll put the question straight, then: where _are_ you from?" "Ganymede. Porforio." "And the pipe--?" "I had a Pallastan teacher, an enthusiast. He convinced me that all the inner and outer planets, and the satellites between, were holding their breath waiting for someone to come along and play a vocorn pipe for them." "You sound bitter." "I'm not, though. Not really." For the first time, the girl smiled and fully faced Ross. "You see, I like piping, just for its own sake. And now that it's past, it doesn't matter too much about the other, the disappointment." "The disappointment--?" Ross encouraged.