idea. For here on Centauri was the one mistake which could ruin Haven, here where there were no politicians to be bought. The thought of it had weighed on Haven for fifteen years. It seemed safely hid, his secret. Hadn't fifteen years elapsed? But still, there was no predicting the Centaurians. No predicting them at all.

The reunion was a necessity, assuming Haven had to come. For, if you couldn't buy Centaurians, you could at least buy Earthmen. And Haven might need help.

He chuckled. He hadn't seen anything of these men for fifteen years, but he'd been paying them off regularly, like clockwork. Blackmail? It was hardly blackmail. Haven knew what they knew. Haven had offered them money almost from the beginning, and all of them had accepted. Ruthless, Haven thought again. In their own small way, these half dozen men were ruthless, too. Failures in life, of course, except for the money Haven paid them every month. But ruthless.

"Ready, George?" Louise asked.

Haven looked her up and down slowly. She was ravishingly beautiful. She was George Haven's property. He had made her what she was. He didn't even know her background, had purposely not delved into it. Forget about the past, he'd told her on the eve of their marriage. It's the future which counts. The future....

"The future!" toasted Allen Vorhees, lifting his glass of Centaurian liquor. "To all our futures."

The six Earthmen who knew Haven's secret drank with secret smiles. The smiles were for Louise—Louise who apparently knew nothing, Louise who looked up to her husband with the blind faith of a naive young girl.

Haven raised his own glass. "May the future treat all of you as well as the past fifteen years have," he said, and drank. The smiles faded around the table. They'd drink to that, all right, Haven thought. But they didn't like the idea.

A Centaurian waiter shuffled in with the first dinner course. Haven felt a mounting impatience. He wished the banquet was over already. He wished he could start planning what he had to do. He'd come to Centauri with no specific plan. He only knew that Drexell Tolliver's fifteen-years-frozen corpse was still waiting here on Centauri VII, to ruin him someday if he wasn't careful. Yes, Haven thought. I killed him. I murdered Drexell Tolliver. But it was for the good of the whole galaxy, couldn't they see that? Tolliver was an idealist, had wanted to give the huge uranium lode as a 

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