wide-apart ribs of the cage.

And that's how MacDonald died, Hyrst thought—and so I died. They said I forced the secret of his Titanite find out of him, and then killed him.

Shearing asked swiftly, "MacDonald never gave you any hint of where he'd hidden the Titanite?"

"No," said Hyrst. He paused, and then said, "It's the Titanite you're after?"

Shearing answered carefully. "In a way, yes. But we didn't kill MacDonald for it. Those who did kill him are the men who are after you now. They're afraid you might lead us to the stuff."

Hyrst swore, shaking with sudden anger. "Damn it, I won't be treated like a child. Not by you, by anyone. I want—"

"You want the men who killed MacDonald," said Shearing. "I know. I remember what was in your mind when you met your son."

A weakness took Hyrst and he leaned his forehead against the cold stone wall.

"I'm sorry," said Shearing. "But we want what you want—and more. So much more that you can't dream it. You must trust us."

"Us? That woman?"

Once again in Shearing's mind Hyrst saw the woman with her head against the stars, and the ship looming darkly. He saw the woman much more clearly, and she was like a fire, burning with anger, burning with a single-minded, dedicated purpose. She was beautiful, and frightening.

"She, and others," said Shearing. "Listen. We must go soon. We're to be picked up, secretly. Will you trust us—or would you rather trust yourself to those who are hunting you?"

Hyrst was silent. Shearing said, "Well?"

"I'll go with you," said Hyrst.

They went out into the cold darkness, and Hyrst heard Shearing say in his mind, "I wouldn't try to run—"

But it wasn't Shearing speaking in his mind now, it was a third man.

"I wouldn't try to run—"

Frantically startled, Hyrst threw out his mental vision and saw the men who stood around them in the darkness, four men, three of them holding the wicked little weapons called bee-guns in their hands. The fourth man came closer, a dark slender man with a face like a fox, 

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