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Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, either sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishing process. "A set-up?" "A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer a little defensively. "I might as well tell the whole truth this didn't quite begin on the right side of the law.

The Starfall was a long way down scale from the pleasure houses of the upper town. Here strange vices were also merchandise, but not such exotics as Wass provided. This was strictly for crewmen of the star freighters who could be speedily and expertly separated from a voyage's pay in an evening.

He tried to protest, knew it was hopeless, and used both hands to get the mug to his lips, mouthing the stinging liquid in dull despair. Only, instead of bringing nausea with it, the stuff settled his stomach, cleared his head, with an after glow with which he managed to relax from the tense state of endurance which filled his hours in the Starfall.

This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected some reaction. "You may inspect my credentials if you wish." "I believe you," Vye found his voice. "I happen to need a gearman." But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall.

But the grip which had pulled Vye forward, swung him around and down on the other bench in the booth, was anything but slack. The Vorm-man glanced from the patron of the Starfall to its least important employee and then grinned, thrusting his fanged jaws close to Lansor's. "If the master wants to drink, you dirt-rat, you drink!"

You have nothing to return to on Nahuatl unless you liked the Starfall." His voice was icy with contempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." He paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing the desired answer out of his inferior. Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl a planet? a city?

But, though his tunic was shabby, dirty, his magnetic boots scuffed and badly worn, he was not like the others now enjoying the pleasures of the Starfall. "This one he makes trouble?" The vast bulk of the Vorm-man who was the Starfall's private law moved through the crowd with serene confidence in his own strength, which no one there, unless blind, deaf, and out-of-the-senses drunk, could dispute.

Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was, ruthless, powerful and thorough. A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage cabin, alerted him.

"Which could mean that what sends them here can't change its orders." "Good guess. I'd say that they were governed by something akin to our tapes. No provision made for any innovations." "So the guiding intelligence could be long gone." "I think it has been." Hume then changed the subject sharply. "How did you get into service at the Starfall?"

Vye reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could not tell why he was. "Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter." Lansor blinked.