"That's enough," I grunted. "Look around. Start hunting for one who's hiding like you were behind the ridges."
"I—I don't understand...."
"You will." With slow deliberation, I fanned the walls with my cone of greenish light. I had no illusions that my grin was pleasant. "You see, Miss Stelpa, somewhere aboard this ship there's a Kel who doesn't want this beam to burn him. He doesn't want it so bad he'll even betray the rest of his kind in order to prevent it.
"Starting right now, we're going to find that traitor!"
CHAPTER VI
THRILL-MILLS, F.O.B.
The first three Kel Celeste rooted out were loyal to their species.
Unto death.
The fourth, it seemed, felt differently about it. Even life in the FedGov's interplanetary zoo, apparently, was acceptable, when weighed against no life at all.