And walked with jarring impact into the k.n.o.bby elbow of a ghost tree limb.

The sun was down and dusk was darkening the camp when they arrived back at her cabin.

"Thank you, Dale," she said. Her hand squeezed his arm. "I didn't know I had a friend ... but now we'll have to be strangers because--"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Gravel crunched loudly on one of the paths in the ghost trees and they looked back, to see Narf and Sonig coming, walking swiftly. Even at the distance, there was anger like a red aura about Narf.

"Well," Lyla said softly, "here comes my medicine."

Sonig stopped at his own cabin, to stand just within the doorway, watching. Narf strode on and stopped before Hunter and Lyla, his face twisted with savage hatred as he looked at Hunter. He spoke to Lyla with grating vehemence:

"You've done an excellent job of making an a.s.s of yourself--and of me--haven't you? Come on in the cabin!"

Narf seized her by the arm, towering over her as he jerked her around toward the door. Hunter stepped quickly forward, feeling the hot flash of his own anger, but there was the paleness of Lyla's face as she looked back, an appeal on it that said, _No!_ He stopped, realizing that Narf would not physically harm the woman who would make him king of Vesta, and that any interference on his part would only make everything the harder for her.

He watched the two go into the cabin--into Lyla's half--and Narf slammed the door shut behind them. There followed the quick bang of windows being closed, and then Narf's m.u.f.fled tirade began: "_... May think I'm a fool ... I'm going to tell you a few things...._"

Sonig was still standing within his doorway. Hunter knew, without seeing it, that the thin-lipped smile would be on Sonig's face.

He turned and walked back to his own cabin. There was nothing he could do but withdraw--and listen from a distance and be ready to act if it seemed she was in danger.

He sat on his doorstep in the darkness, hearing occasional phrases in Narf's unrelenting abuse. One was: "_So prim you had to countermand my order for a key to that lock--then you went out to play with that second lieutenant...._"

Alonzo materialized out of the darkness, coming as silently as a shadow.

He was no longer the b.u.mbling clown. The idiotic grin was gone and his eyes were green fire, slanted and catlike, his teeth flashing white in a snarl as he looked back toward the sound of Narf's voice.

"She are _my_ Princess Ryra," Alonzo said. "He are cursing her. If he ever hurt her, I wirr tear out his throat and his river."

"He won't hurt her, Alonzo," Hunter said, wishing he could be sure.

"He'll only use words on her."

"He never ask her _why_ she run away--he onry curse her and threaten her because she embarra.s.s him."

"Embarra.s.s him?"

"He and Sonig, they see you coming out of the forest with your arm around her. They watch with high-power gra.s.ses."

"But there was nothing wrong in that--"

"That are what Princess Ryra say. She say you onry put your arm around her because she are stirr scared of the tigers. And then he say, what about the other? And he cawr her awrful bad names."

"What other?"

"Oh, when you are bending down to kiss Princess Ryra and are wawrking into tree."

He gulped. "_They saw that?_"

"Oh, sure. Rord Narf are so mad he want to kirr you right then but Sonig say, 'Wait, I have a pran.' Then Sonig say, 'It are too bad we don't have a camera--we could have made that rootenant the raffing stock of forty worlds.'"

The thought made Hunter gulp again.

"What was Sonig's plan that Narf told Lyla about?" He asked.

"Oh, he not terr _her_. I hear Sonig terr Rord Narf when I spy. Sonig say, 'Tomorrow we be friendry and we ret those two go for another wawrk in the woods. And we have cameras with terescope rens and when they kiss and hug we take moving pictures.'"

"Why, the gutter-bred rat--"

"And Rord Narf say, 'That is what we wirr do. And then I wirr kirr him as soon as we have the pictures and she wirr have to toe the mark from then on because if I pubricry show the pictures of what she did, she wirr be ashamed to show her face anywhere on Vesta.'"

"Why, the--" He could not think of a suitable expression.

"And then Sonig say, 'To make sure she go out tomorrow, you bawr her out good so she wirr want to cry on the rootenant's shourder again.' And Rord Narf say, 'I wirr be very grad to terr the two-timing hussy what I think of her, don't worry.'"

"Why, she was only a scared girl and that rat thinks she--"

"_... Your promise to your dying father_," Narf's voice came in accusation. "_He's gone, now, and you can betray him, too! Why don't you go all the way in your deceptions ... your father will never know...._"

Alonzo said, "I think I go back and stay croser to her cabin, Rootenant."

It was an hour later, and Narf's voice had settled to a low, steady growling, when Hunter heard a helicopter settle down near the camp. A minute later, Val Boran was outlined momentarily in the doorway of the cabin he shared with Sonig. There followed the exchange of a few words--interrogation in Val's tone--and then the sound of Sonig's voice alone, which continued for minute after minute.

_Sonig is telling him all about it_, Hunter thought, _including my walking into that tree. But there won't be one word in sympathy with Lyla._

Sonig's story ended and Hunter saw Val leave the cabin. He came straight up the path toward Hunter, looming tall in the darkness as he stopped before him. There was the pale gleam of metal in Val's belt--a blaster.

His voice came cold and flat:

"I want to talk to you, Lieutenant."

Hunter sighed, thinking, _I suppose he wants to kill me, too_.

He got up and said, "We'll go inside. Shut the door behind you--I don't want your friend straining his ears to hear us."

Val sat tall even in the chair, his face like a carving in a dark granite and his eyes as bright and hard.

"I understand that you took Princess Lyla into the tiger forest today."

Val's hand was very near the blaster. "I understand you then played the role of affectionate rescuer."

"Do you believe that story?" Hunter asked.

"Do you have a different one?"