Terl walked up on the side of Numph that held the gun. He raised the assassin gun quickly.

Numph's eyes shot wide, his mouth opened in incredulity.

Terl pushed the muzzle of the silent weapon against Numph's head and pulled the firing catch.

The jolt knocked Numph sideways. Green blood began to pour from a wound that went all the way through his head.

A calm, completely in charge, cool Terl steadied the body and then tipped it forward so that it fell across the desk. He arranged the still twitching arm so that it might have fired the shot. The twitches stopped. Numph was dead.

Working with precision and care, he put a remote-controlled blast cap in the barrel frump’s gun.

Terl produced a new weapon from his boot. He went over to Jayed's body and put the stiffening paw around the butt on it.

Into the muzzle of Jayed's gun, he put the second remote-control cap.

He looked around. It was all in order.

Walking casually but very silently, he went out to the nearly empty recreation hall, entering as though just coming in from outside, even taking his breathe-mask off. He ordered a saucepan of kerbango from the attendant. It was Terl's usual routine. He was a little surprised to notice he needed it.

After a few minutes, when the yawning attendant was hinting he wanted to close up and was letting down a blind in preparation for the morrow, Terl casually put his hand in his pocket.

He pressed the first remote. Far off there was a muzzled explosion. The attendant looked up, listening, looking toward the other end of the compound.

Terl pressed the second remote. There was another explosion.

“That sounded like gunfire,” said the attendant.

A door slammed somewhere. Somebody else had heard it.

“It did, didn't it,” said Terl.

He stood up. “Sounded like it was in the compound! Let's see if we can find it.”

With the attendant in his wake, Terl started running through the berthing areas, opening doors. “Did a shot go off in here?” he was barking at startled, just-awakened Psychlos. Some of them had heard the shots, too.

“Where did it sound like it came from?” Terl was demanding of people out in the halls.

Some pointed toward the administration building. Terl thanked them and efficiently went plowing in that direction, followed by a crowd of Psychlos.

He industriously searched through the offices, turning on lights. The crowd was also searching.

Somebody yelled from Numph's corridor, “They're in here. They're in here!”

Terl let a lot of fellows get there first.

Then he went plowing through them. “Who is it? Where?”

They babbled at him, pointing in through the open door. The two bodies were in view.

Char was regarding them sourly from just inside the door. He made as if to walk forward. Terl swept him back.

“Don't touch anything!” commanded Terl. “As security chief, I am in charge here. Back!”

He bent over the bodies one after the other. “Anybody recognize this one?” he said, pointing to Jayed's body.

After a moment and craning necks, “I think his name's Snit," from a personnel officer. “I really don't know.”

“They're both dead,” said Terl. “Call for some stretchers. I’ll record this.” There was a picto-recorder on Numph's desk, as always. Terl whirred it at the room and each body. "I’ll want statements from all of you.”

Somebody had called the medical staff. They had heard the shots and were prompt. They loaded the bodies on the stretchers.

“Take them directly to the morgue unless you want to examine them first,” said Terl.

“They're both dead,” said the medical chief. “Blast gun wounds.”

“Move along,” said Terl efficiently to the crowd. “It’s all over.”

Tomorrow morning he would write his report, all backed by witnessed statements: An agent of the I.B.I., recognized by the keen eye of Terl, had not seen fit to announce himself to the planet's security chief but, proceeding alone, had apparently visited Numph late in the evening and possibly had attempted a foolhardy, single-handed arrest. Numph had shot him with a hidden gun and then committed suicide. Terl had now followed through, seeing whether Numph were guilty of some crime, had continued an investigation begun long since, and had found a pay swindle, papers, and evidence to hand. Meanwhile, Terl respectfully submitted all was under control; a competent, experienced deputy

Numph had earlier appointed was now on the job; etc. Bodies en route at next semiannual firing, Day 92.

Tomorrow afternoon, as soon as he had verified the animals were still there, he would launch the drone and obliterate “the foolish experiment Numph had been engaged upon.” All evidence would be covered, all tracks obliterated. Whatever Jayed had been after, it made no difference now.

Terl felt very calm, very cool, very masterful. He had brought off the perfect crime.

It was odd that he couldn't sleep and kept twitching.

It was the consensus of opinion at the mountain site that they all should be very visible and look busy for the flyover of the drone today.

Jonnie was very concerned. It was absolutely vital that Terl continue with his gold scheme. All their own plans depended on it utterly.

They had weighed various alternates to their own strategy but none of them was good. They could fly into the old defense base now– Angus had gotten the heliport door to work– but they only used it for supplies. It was a long way from ready. The parson's idea that they should bury the dead there was shelved due to the magnitude of the task and their own few numbers. The parson had decided the place was really a tomb anyway. Later, perhaps, when they had freed the planet– if they succeeded in that– they could bury the dead. Now their energies must be devoted to the living and a possible future. So they really couldn't withdraw into the old primary defense base. It wasn't ready and they were not defeated. Not yet anyway.

Keeping Terl going on with his plan was their single hope. But Jonnie was very concerned. In that last interview he realized Terl was no longer sane, if he ever had been.

Gold was the bait in the trap for Terl. So Jonnie added to their plans.

They worked in a rush from the last passing of the drone yesterday to prepare for its passing today.

The lode core he had blasted out had hit the opposite side of the canyon and rebounded back in shattered pieces to lie upon the top of the new rockfall at the canyon bottom.

Jonnie fashioned a remote-control box for a blade scraper machine they could afford to lose.

Robert the Fox fashioned a lifelike dummy to strap into the seat. The dummy's hands in mittens were rigged to move back and forth when the machine ran. Knowing the macabre was Terl's favorite dish, he also wadded up scraps of discarded clothing and patterned it with steer blood.

They rigged an ore net to the end of a crane cable and filled it with white quartz from the upper tunnel. Taking what wire gold they had, they encrusted the top of the lode with the specimens.

In the black, brief period of no wind at dawn, they cabled the blade scraper down to the top of the rockfall.

An operator hidden in a cleft at the top of the cliff on the opposite side of the canyon, from which perch the blade scraper could be seen, made the scraper make a flat place (at risk of its toppling into the river) and dig into the pile.

The ore net, with its carefully prepared load, was craned down to the side of the blade scraper.

It was ready long before the drone came, so Jonnie gathered them at the top of the shaft.

“Wire gold goes in pockets,” he told them. “It says so in the old man-manuals on mining. There is a possibility that there is another pocket in this vein. It could be two hundred, five hundred feet up the vein from the cliff. It could have little gold, it could have much.