The adjudicator was shaking by the time he finished. Twin spots of color marked his cheek bones. His hands moved ceaselessly, without respite.
The silence echoed.
Mawson's hands stopped moving. He straightened in his seat.
"Mr. Ross," he said softly, "I'm afraid I judged you too well. You're indeed a man of honor—so much so that even a lie to save your life sticks in your craw. So I'll put our business on a different level." A pause, heavy with tension. "Mr. Ross, count on it: if you don't carry through to the letter the plan I've outlined, both you and Veta Hall will die, by the most unpleasant mode a fine creative imagination can devise."
Ross seemed to stand a trifle straighter. "I thought that was coming," he nodded slowly. And then: "Fair enough. I'll do all I can to locate Thigpen's things."
"I thought you'd see it my way," Adjudicator Mawson murmured smoothly. He gestured to the two men who still stood in the doorway. "Now that I'm a prisoner, gentlemen, you'd best get out of here. Take the girl with you. You know where to keep her."
The man with the paragun stepped back. But the other, the one called Corrack, didn't move.
Sharply, Mawson said, "Corrack! You heard me!"
"Sure, I heard you," the blaster-man agreed. He grinned, the same sadistic grin that had marked him when he first stepped into the doorway. "Only maybe there's something you don't know."
"Something I don't know—?" Mawson frowned. "Speak up, Corrack! What is it?"