"Not on your life, Ran Auldin. Because I figured, after studying the set-up, that you were about ready to take over in his place one of these days, probably soon, and that would put me closer to the real power ... and the big money."

"Hmmm, I see." Auldin was silent for some time, digesting all this in his mind. He was pleased at the compliment, but somewhat startled at two pieces of information Hanlon had so carelessly tossed out. One, that apparently Auldin was not Yandor's chief or only "second in command" and, two, that this stranger had so quickly and easily divined his secret ambition.

Hanlon, reading his mind, could discern and understand all this. Also, he knew when Auldin began trying to figure out whether this newcomer was legitimately on the make, or whether he was a spy sent by someone—perhaps even Yandor—to check up on him. That last statement of Hanlon's really upset him more than the first, which he had sometimes suspected. He worried about the latter now. It was the truth, all right, but he had not thought anyone else knew it or even suspected it. Did Yandor suspect it? If so, Auldin knew he was in for trouble ... bad trouble.

Hanlon decided it was time for him to do a little steering. "Look, Auldin," he interrupted the other's somewhat frightened thinking. "Why not take me to Yandor and introduce me? Let him decide whether he wants to let me in or not?"

For a long moment Auldin stared again at Hanlon, but when he finally answered there was a note of relief in his voice he tried to conceal. Yet he was not entirely convinced that this might not be all part of an espionage trick formed in the fertile but hellishly devious mind of his superior, Ino Yandor. But Auldin was one who preferred to meet his dangers face to face ... when they could not be avoided.

"That might not be a bad idea," he said as calmly as he could. "But look, my friend. Don't try to play me for an easy fool. I'd do things about it if you did."

"Sure, I know that," Hanlon's voice was bland and ingenuous. "I'm not figuring on your job—being a yunner I know I've got to begin low and work up. A chance to get started is all I want ... for now."

Auldin rose, took some of the five-sided silver pentas from his pocket and dropped them on the table. "Fair enough. Come on."

The two were mostly silent as they walked along the narrow, unpaved, crooked streets, past the not-too-tall, five-sided buildings of the mercantile establishments of this district. After a few blocks of the winding, twisted streets—"didn't these folks ever learn anything about surveying?" Hanlon often wondered—they turned down a tree-shaded residential street. They walked past increasingly pretentious houses, which Hanlon knew were of the ubiquitous pentagonal construction so general on this planet. It was this unusual type of buildings that Hanlon found it hard to adjust to. The first day or two on this planet and in this city the odd shapes and crooked streets had so distracted him he had trouble concentrating on his job.

Now he looked interestedly at the almost-universal green-tiled roofs, and also at the gardens of beautiful but strangely-unearthly flowers. He saw, too, the thick-trunked, low but wide-spreading flowertrees that lined the streets and were heavily planted in most of the yards surrounding the houses.