Huston spread his hands. "Possibly upon whether she is still alive."
"Alive!" roared Paul.
"Yes. Alive."
Paul shook his head. "If they killed Stacey, they would not stop at—"
There was a moment of silence. "Stacey was killed?"
Paul looked up. "Almost a year ago. Of course, it is barely possible that the news would be here by now. We took off very shortly afterwards in a fast ship, and the official news might be still on the way."
Huston hit his palm with his other fist. "We need something faster than ten months communication-time!" he cried. "Hell! We're no better off than the Pilgrims, hoping for some news from England. Grayson, what happened?"
Grayson started to explain, but half way through he stopped thoughtfully. "I've missed a point," he said. "I don't know that Stacey was killed. After all, the men that arrested me weren't officers. Just henchmen of that guy Hoagland."
"Quite! Now, while there is a school that seems to apply logic to human motives, or tries to, there is another school that claims that the way people do things are entirely dependent upon their point of view and no one can catalog human nature. Grayson, I've known Hoagland a long time and spent most of that time fighting him one way or another. He is as cold-blooded about murder as a snake. But he is a sort of 'string-saver' as well. Anyone who has a bare chance of chipping in something toward the furthering of Hoagland's plans he will keep alive—and it is no great problem to keep them sequestered off somewhere away from contact until he needs 'em.
"For instance, Hoagland would be disinclined to kill Nora Phillips because in some way she might be useful to him—if only as a hostage. John Stacey is another item; Stacey might be kept alive for some reason. This is a big-time game, Grayson."