"You know?" Haven gasped. He had never doubted it for a minute, but somehow the two words—here Tolliver—had nevertheless startled him.
"All Alpha City know," said the native, stepping aside as Haven peered down through the utterly clear ice.
The body seemed very small and lonely and far away. It was there as it had been there and as it always would be there and as it had haunted Haven's sleep for fifteen years.
Haven probed his mind for ideas. There had to be something....
A heat blaster, he thought. I can go back to town and get a heat blaster and melt it free again and then—
But the little native had to die. True, he was only one of millions who had apparently seen the body, but he had taken Haven here, and if ever he could be brought to a stellar confederacy court to testify, and if it could be proved that the site of the mine, fifteen years ago, had been galactic and not Centaurian territory, and if he could be made to testify because, after all, he was not on Centauri and not subject to the Centaurian mores, then Haven was finished.
Haven removed the hand-stunner from his furs and pointed it at the native's back.
"Hold it, George! Don't move!"