"You tell me you heard of us Missouris way out in your mountains, that you wanted to bring your plane to us—why?"
Price floundered. "Why, I wanted to help you—"
"To help us do what?" A garnet light was in the old man's eyes now. "What did you hear we were doing that you wanted to help on?"
Price sensed from the other's fierceness that he was in imminent danger, that something he had said had deepened suspicion.
He almost welcomed the interruption that saved him from answering now, though it was a sound that raised the short hairs on his neck.
The sound of shrieking power across the sky, the sound of the sky-hunters from the Citadel....
"That's the damned star-spawn coming down here again!" said one of the men behind Sawyer.
The old man got to his feet with amazing alacrity. He rapped an order to Twist and Burr, pointing to Price.
"Take him upstairs. If he makes a peep, cut his throat—but do it quiet."
Little more than a minute later, Price was in a hot, dusty little room. It had gun-slots in its heavy wooden shutters, and they let level bars of golden light into the room.