"Of course he was." Her gray eyes widened. She stared at him. "Surely
you aren't accusing Bemmelman of murdering father. Why he's the most
influential member of the Council of Land Owners. He's...."
"Did you ever hear of the Blue Venus?" he interrupted.
"The Blue Venus? What's that?"
Cosmo's face was grim, his green eyes cold. "She's a cross between
a Jovian Dawn Man and an Earth woman. She's supposed to be the most
beautiful girl in the System. She belongs to Bemmelman. He forced her
mother to mate with a Jovian primitive as an experiment. He's asking
five thousand monad for her on the Slave Mart. Hal Bemmelman is a slave
breeder."
"I don't believe it!" Mia said in horror, then asked with feminine
perversity: "How do you know?"
Cosmo sat down in the hammock, grinned faintly. "I'm going to tell you
something I've never told anyone but your father, Mia. I think you
ought to know, because you're in danger." His green eyes twinkled.
"Quit chewing your fingernails."
"Go on," said Mia. "Go on, for the Lord's sake, before I burst."
He said: "Twenty-six years ago my father owned the Bemmelman
plantation. He was murdered under almost the same circumstances as your
father. So was my mother. My nurse escaped with me, hid me out in the
mountains. I was only five."
"Who did it?"
"Jovian Dawn Men. Slaves imported from Jupiter. They run amok during
their rutting season, you know, and they were supposed to be amok at
the time."
"But ..." began Mia.
"Wait a moment. Bemmelman held notes on the plantation. He moved in.
But before Bemmelman took over our plantation, he was a slave runner.
He imported Dawn Men from Jupiter for the Venusian Slave Mart."
"You--you think Hal Bemmelman was in back of it?"
"Yes," he said flatly.
"But why? Couldn't he buy land?"
"No," said Cosmo, "he couldn't. Land here is entailed. It stays in
the same family from generation to generation. Mu is one of the few
countries on Venus where Terrans have been able to settle at all.
Bemmelman's only chance was to have my people murdered and forge notes."
"Does he know who you are?"
Cosmo nodded. "He's tried to have me assassinated several times," he
said indifferently.