"I am not loved, here on Jupiter," said Gion. "I usurp the authority of greater men. I intrigue, I plot. I conquer and steal, if you will. It requires gold. A fortune." He paused, watching the outlaw. "An agent on Venus flashed me word that the Jewels of Orion, crown jewels of a vanished race on some forgotten planet beyond the stars, were to be shipped once more to Betelgoran. A hundred fortunes, Kurland. I gave orders and he shipped as passenger, with the consigned jewels."
"And then?" Kurland's eyes burned through the gloom.
"The Plutonian crashed somewhere ten million miles out in space," said Gion slowly. "My agent. He died with her, and with her people. But he sent the coordinates through even as she went down on some uncharted asteroid. I know where the hulk lies piled, an iron coffin for the Orion jewels."
Kurland's glare was deadly. "Make your offer, vulture."
"Go and bring me the jewels."
Kurland flung back his head, a sudden roar of laughter in his muscled throat. The chains clashed on wrist and ankle as he flung derision in the other's paling face.
"You send a wolf on a jackal's errand, Marward! You think I would return, or venture one lean hungry mile on such a rat's voyage to help you on your way, you whom I have fought these many months, you who broke and exiled me, you who made me outlaw and today must hang me for it?" His scorn rasped bitingly in the prison cell, but Gion of Jupiter was not moved by the love or hate of men. He nodded to the tiny barred window.
"Look from the window."
Kurland looked, seeing in the growing pearl of dawn the black and ugly shapes athwart the sky were six gibbets stood ranged along the ramparts of Gion's northern fortress in the Montral foothills.