Montano said irritably, "We couldn't have done anything without a man on theSwiftwing, and you know it. We still can't. Bart, I suppose you know about Lharillis."

"Not by that name."

"Your next stop. The planetoid of the captive sun. That little hunk of bare rock out there is the first spot the Lhari visited in this galaxy—even before Mentor. It's an inferno of light from that little blue-white sun, so of course they love it—it's just like home to them. When they found that the inner planets of Antares were inhabited, they built their spaceport here, so they'd have a better chance at trade." Montano scowled fiercely.

"But they wanted that little worldlet. So we went all over it to be sure there were no rare minerals there, and finally leased it to them, a century at a time. They mine the place for some kind of powdered lubricant that's better than graphite—it's all done by robot machinery, no one's stationed there. Every time a Lhari ship comes through this system they stop there, even though there's nothing on Lharillis except a landing field and some concrete bunkers filled with robot mining machinery. They'll stop there on the way out of this system—and that's where you come in. We need you on board, to put the radiation counter out of commission."