"What are you going to do now, Johnny?" she asked as she flexed her wrists.
Stern looked bleakly at the mangled figure on the floor.
"I'd like to kill him. It's because of him that you and I have been condemned to die here." Then he stopped and grinned. "On the other hand, if we could find the ship he's been using to get from here to the stars, we could find a little world of our own; we could—"
She stood up then, and smiled at him. "Yorkan Varr, we know you're innocent. There's no need for you to run."
"We?" he asked. "Who's we? I simply did my duty; I only—"
"Shhhh!" she interrupted. "The Council of Judges has known for a long time that this planet needed correction. But, according to the law, the Judges couldn't interrupt. They sent me first, and then you. It took both of us to do the job."
Stern heard a slight hum outside the window of the eighteenth floor suite. When he looked out, he saw the vague outline of an interstellar patrol ship. A man in a Patrol uniform stuck his head in the window.
"I understand we have a prisoner to pick up," he said.
Stern put one arm around the girl and gestured with his free hand. "There he is, chum. Pick him up."