Yancey's bitter, jealous remarks failed to touch her.

Under such care, Brian recovered quickly and he seemed to find in Selo a something for which he, too, had long sought. In the few days of his convalescence they achieved the sort of communion that Yancey had dreamed of when he had first brought Selo to the humidi-hut.

Yancey's conversations with Brian were brief and charged with hate. Daniels had been prospecting for quolla stones. He was on his way back to Athens and had lost his bearings. Only the humidi-hut had saved him from death. When he spoke to Yancey, he seemed always anxious to return to Selo, a preoccupation that only deepened the seething hatred Yancey had conceived for him.

More than once, Yancey ordered Selo to keep out of Brian's way but it was the same as if no words were spoken. In the unfaltering stare of those deep-set eyes, Yancey read her open defiance. So desperate was her need for Brian that nothing short of death could keep her from him.

Nothing short of death.

Yancey viewed that possibility. Murder in such a remote place would be easy but what was to be gained? Selo certainly wouldn't love him more if he killed the prospector. Another consideration was Daniels' build. He was a well-muscled man and, being fully recovered, was something less than the ideal murder victim.

And then Yancey found out about the quolla stones—quite by accident. He had gone out on a routine check of the vicinity and had turned back earlier than usual. As he stepped through the vac-lock he saw Selo and Brian huddled in earnest conversation. So engrossed were they, they failed to hear the asthmatic wheeze of the lock. Yancey stood a long time silently watching them.

On the table before the two was a glittering pile of the most beautiful quolla stones Yancey had ever seen. Dozens of them. A small fortune lying quietly on that table in the humidi-hut. Here were the black stones that Yancey had dreamed of finding. Here was the answer to all his hopes.

But the answer lay in another man's hands, the hands that now caressed Selo!

"I won't be long in Athens," Brian was saying. "There's at least sixty or seventy thousand credits worth of quolla stones there. I'll take what they'll offer me in the market, Selo, and then I'll come back for you."

The woman pressed closer to Daniels. "Don't 

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