There was a brief, dreamlike return to consciousness. He was in a Royal Guard helicopter and Alonzo was beside him, grinning, and saying, "You be O.K.-I grad! And my Princess Ryra-rook at her now, Rootenant!"

He saw Lyla, her hand in Val's, and her face was glowing and beautiful in its new- found happiness. Then she was bending down, kissing him, and saying, "Dale . . . Dale . .

. how can we ever thank you for what you did?"

When the blackness lifted the second time he was lying, bandaged, on a cot in the meeting hall and the voice of Rockford was saying, " . . . Ready to go in just a minute."

The hall was filled with members of the royal court who had come for the wedding.

He saw the white robes of the Church of Vesta dignitaries who had come to officiate at the wedding. Then he saw the seven grim old men seated at the far end of the table.

The Royal Council-with the judicial power to give even death sentences in crimes committed against royalty.

Sonig, his face white and staring, was being half led, half carried, away from them.

Narf, in the grip of another Guardsman, was standing before the Council and saying in a tone both incredulous and sneering: "Is that my sentence?"

"There is a qualification to it," one of the Council said. "It seems only just, in view of your crime, that you be tortured until death-"

The rest of the words were lost as the blackness swept back. But before unconsciousness was complete, when all else in the hall was gone from him, he heard Narf's cry; an animal-like bawl of protest, raw and hoa.r.s.e with anguish . . .

"Ah . . . you're coming out of it, my boy."

Rockford was standing over him. "They gave you a Restoration shot on Vesta forty- eight hours ago. It will be wearing off in a minute and your head will clear." He sat up, and the dizziness faded swiftly away. He saw that he was in the compartment of an interstellar ship and he knew that it was Earthbound.

And that Vesta, and brown-eyed Lyla, were now part of the past . . .

"Don't look so sad, my boy," Rockford said. "You'll get due credit and promotion for the invaluable part you played in my plan."

"But-"

"I know. But she was never yours. You'll find life is full of heartbreaks like that, son.

"And we accomplished our mission. Narf's crime neatly invalidated the proxy marriage. Then Lyla set a new precedent by marrying Val that very day. Earth has never had two such loyal and grateful friends as Val and Lyla."

"You knew all about them, didn't you?" he asked.

"Strategic Service has to know everything. And I knew they were still in love even though each was too proud to admit it. That's why I had to insist on Val coming to Vesta.

After that, it was only a matter of using you to awaken Val to the fact that she did not love Narf. And of taking care of various little details, such as faking an official request for the helicopters to come out two hours ahead of time, getting Val off to find her at the proper time, and so on."

Rockford smiled at him, "And you learned that an old man's mind can be mightier than the s.p.a.ce fleets of the Verdam empire-and that the line of duty that produces the best results can sometimes be very devious."

He thought of the white-faced Sonig, and the anguished bawl he had heard from Narf.

"I suppose they were going to hang Narf and Sonig at once."

"The Council would have, no doubt. But Lyla was so happy that she begged the Council to give them very light sentences-or just let them go free. So I suggested a compromise. The Royal Council regarded it as very fitting."

"What was it?"

"For Sonig, no punishment. The murder attempt, being news of public interest, will be broadcast upon Vesta and other worlds, including a factual, unbiased account of Sonig's partic.i.p.ation in it. Shortly afterward, Sonig will be taken to Verdam and turned over to his own benevolent government. Vesta will file no charges."

"But Sonig lost Jardeen for his government. They'll execute him for that!"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Shall we call it poetic justice?"

"What about Narf?"

"His sentence was life-long exile on his Sea Island estate. He will be provided with all the luxuries to which he has been accustomed, including a full staff of servants. He will continue to enjoy all his possessions there, including his gallery of nude paintings, his risque films, his p.o.r.nographic library, and so on. In fact, since he is so fascinated by p.o.r.nography and such a collector thereof, any p.o.r.nographic material which might become available on Vesta in the future will be sent to him."

"That's not right . . . I mean, they were going to torture him to death."

"Not 'to death.' It was 'until death.' There's a difference."

"But that bawling noise he made-" "Ah . . . that was due to the one restrictive qualification to the benign terms of his exile. Every woman on his estate was to be removed before he reached there, leaving men servants only. Patrol boats will see to it that for so long as he lives no woman shall ever set foot on the Sea Islands."

Rockford smiled again. "Lord Narf succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in keeping his boyhood vow of being always a man among men."

EMPATHY.

The crisis with the natives was at hand and still the ERB showed no sign of permitting a Frontier Corps officer to make any suggestions.

For the fifth time that day Captain Harold Rider walked up the single dusty street of what had been his Frontier Corps outpost on Deneb Five until the unexpected arrival forty-eight hours before of General Beeling and his Extraterrestrial Relations Board unit.

He came to the huge ERB Headquarters prefab at the end of the street. There, still on duty at the door, was the ferret-faced guard who had turned him back twice before.

The guard lounged indolently against the wall, seemed not to see Rider. But when Rider reached out to open the door he came to life with a quick sidestep that barred the way, straightening to attention with his hands brushing his holstered blaster and club.

"No admittance!" he snapped, with the crisp intonation of those who enjoy authority.

"General Beeling and the others must not be disturbed, as I told you before."

He added, with deliberate delay, "-sir."

Rider withdrew his reaching hand and considered the pleasure of smashing the pointed chin and walking into the building across the man's stomach. He regretfully dismissed it as wishful dreaming. The feud between the old Frontier Corps and the politically powerful and young ERB was approaching its decisive climax and reached even to Deneb. He was a despised and unwanted superfluity in what had been his own camp and they would like nothing better than an excuse to arrest and confine him.

Quick footsteps sounded inside and the door swung open. It was Colonel Primmer, Beeling's aide, turning with his hand still on the doork.n.o.b and almost bowing in the obsequious manner characteristic of him as he said, "You are so right, General Beeling.

Yes, sir. At once, sir."

He turned again and shut the door behind him. The fawning expression vanished from his red face at the sight of Rider and a cold, fishy look replaced it.

"General Beeling is far too busy to see you," he said, "if that's what you're still waiting for."

"It is," he answered. "Surely he can spare a few minutes. Right now we're two shakes away from a ma.s.s attack by the natives and if the chief isn't handled just right when he comes for the last talk this camp will be turned into a slaughter pen. Let me tell-" "I think," Primmer said, "that the Extraterrestrial Relations Board can successfully cope with a barbarian chieftain without first consulting a layman. As for that other matter with which you've been trying to annoy the general all day: he requested me to inform you that the helicopter will not be available to you, that there are issues before him of a great deal more importance than the life of your talking dog."

Primmer turned to the guard, pointedly dismissing Rider. "Go tell Mantingly and Johnson that I want them here on the double. Tell Myers to bring his laborers here-"

Rider turned away and went back down the street, wondering again how he could show Beeling the deadly danger of the situation. It was a h.e.l.l of a problem-how could you convince a man who wouldn't let you talk to him?

He detoured around a mound of crates-part of the huge ma.s.s of ERB equipment and supplies that had been hastily unloaded from the special Missions cruiser before it hurried back Earthward-and was met by a gust of wind that whipped the fine, poisonous sand against his face. Deneb, almost to the horizon, was going down with a purple halo around it and the desert to the southeast was a smoky azure. He could not tell for sure through the haze but the sky above the distant Sea Cliffs seemed to have turned black.

If a storm was in progress there it would already be too late to take the helicopter more than part way to rescue Laughing Girl, the Altairian. But that made little difference-he had virtually no hope of altering Beeling's disdainful regard for what he called "the talking dogs." The helicopter would remain unavailable and he would have to find some other way of saving her.

Beeling's entire force of laborers and other non-ERB-commissioned personnel was at work along the street, erecting more prefabricated buildings to shelter the supplies. He noticed again the way they spoke to one another in lowered voices and glanced often toward the ragged hills that surrounded the valley. One of them, a red-haired boy, stepped out and spoke to him: "Sir-could I ask you a question?"

He appraised the boy automatically: Nineteen, a long way from home, and trying not to show that he was scared.

"Of course," he answered. "What is it?"

"Is it true that the natives have been waiting for weeks for this ERB unit to come, so they could kill us all?"

"They didn't even know you existed until you landed here," he said. "Who told you that?"

"Why-" The boy looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I don't remember, sir."

He did not press the question. It would have been something that came down from Beeling or Primmer.

The others had stopped to listen, all of them showing to some degree the same uncertainty that was on the freckled face of the red-haired boy. They were young; the mechanically logical ERB had selected seventeen to twenty-two as the preferred aged for its performers of manual labor since men of that age were the hardiest and made the most efficient workers on worlds not suited to human life. The ERB encouraged laborer enlistments with colorful posters that promised: GOOD PAY AND HIGH ADVENTURE AWAIT YOU BEYOND THE STARS. The boys had thought, when they landed two days and nights before, that they had stepped across the threshold of the promised high adventure and they had been as excited as children. Now they were solemn and hushed as they tried to adjust themselves to the realization that there would be no adventure, no allure, in quick and violent death . . .

"There may be trouble over your coming," he said, "but it won't be anything that was premeditated. There's a likely chance it won't happen at all. We'll know in a few minutes."

He turned and walked off, feeling them silent and very thoughtful behind him.

At the end of the street was the little building that had been his office until Beeling's arrival with the special order that had changed the Frontier Corps outpost to an ERB Primary Contact Field Installation. It was there that he and the natives had met and talked so many times in the past and it was there that old Chief Selsin would soon come to what might be the last meeting.

He went inside and saw that his few remaining possessions had been piled in a corner pending further disposal. He walked on to the desk where the hypers.p.a.ce communicator, borrowed from the Frontier ship, stood locked and silent. One of Beeling's first demands, as new commander of the outpost, had been for the hypers.p.a.ce communicator's key.

Beeling did not need the communicator-he had a similar model in his headquarters building-but a locked communicator could not be used by a displaced Frontier Corpsman to send unauthorized reports to Earth.

The camp-to-ship radio was inside the communicator. He switched it on, to try again to reach his Frontier ship on Deneb One. The result was the same as before; a shrieking, roaring, ear-splitting blast of static. The sun was squarely between the two worlds and, since it was a white sun, its electronic emission was tremendous. Contact with the ship was utterly impossible.

He changed the wave length to that of the little shortwave radio under the Sea Cliffs and signaled with the Beep b.u.t.ton. There was no response, other than a harsh grinding of static from the storm he thought he had seen, which meant that Laughing Girl must still be out tending to the mineral detector.

He switched the radio off, wondering what he could have told her if she had answered him.

"Captain-rook!"

Loper, the other s.h.a.ggy, dog-like Altairian, came running through the door, his eyes bright with excitement.

"Are coming now-oh, hundreds and hundreds. Rook, Captain!"

He looked, where a wide, low pa.s.s to the northeast led to the higher country beyond, and saw the natives coming down it. There were perhaps five hundred of them, coming with their dragon-beast mounts in a run, their long rifles across their saddles and their bronze battle helmets gleaming brightly in the late sunlight.

There were nine columns and a different pennant fluttered at the head of each. Which meant that the Nine Tribes were solidly allied under the leadership of old Selsin until the business with the humans was settled.

"Are stirr more coming farther back," Loper said. "Pretty soon awr around us wirr be the big rif'res that can kirr us. Why, Captain?" There was puzzled question in his dark eyes. "We not hurt any of them."

"They're afraid we might," he said. "We're getting this one last chance to prove we won't."

"If they not berieve us, how soon wirr they kirr us?"

"I think they'll give us a chance to leave, first."

"But we can't reave-our ship is gone."

"That, Loper, is the big, repulsive fly that's in everybody's soup today."

The columns of armed natives split as they reached the bottom of the pa.s.s, and raced to north and south along the valley's rim.

"They going to surround us," Loper said. "If they say, 'You not pa.s.s,' we have to have the hericopter." He looked away from the natives and toward the Sea Cliffs. "She die there if we not come and n.o.body care. I not understand."

To Loper it was still incomprehensible that there could be humans who did not like Altairians. He had known only the men of the Frontier ship, who regarded Altairians with the same affection they would have had for loyal and cheerful-and sometimes blundering-twelve-year-old children. Except when it was time to meet the natives of a new world, when the Altairians' highly developed sense of empathy changed their role to that of invaluable coaches and advisors.

Frontier ships were always undermanned-each year the increasingly huge expenditures of the ERB forced the s.p.a.ce Board to cut the Frontier Corps budget to make up the difference-and the Altairians diligently performed all tasks of which they were capable. When the order came through to have Deneb One surveyed immediately he had needed to send his entire crew and had used Laughing Girl to replace the man tending the electronic mineral detector that had been set up under the Sea Cliffs. It was a job she could manage, since the detector was near-enough automatic in its operation that its supervision required no technical knowledge. This had enabled him to send a full crew to Deneb One, while he remained at camp with Loper to help him and continued the meetings with the natives.

He had intended to take the helicopter to the Sea Cliffs a safe twenty hours in advance of the Big Tide and bring back Laughing Girl and the portable mineral detector. But Beeling had ordered: "Our only means of transportation will not be permitted to leave this camp until this trouble with the natives is fully settled."

By then it would be too late. The three moons of Deneb Five possessed complex orbits that brought the Big Tide every ten days; a t.i.tanic bulge in the waters of the oceans that raced around the world at a speed of five hundred miles per hour. The three moons were already on the opposite side of the world, swinging close around it and bringing the Big Tide with them. It would strike the high, unscalable Sea Cliffs at sunrise and Laughing Girl, still faithfully tending the detector down under them and waiting for him to come for her, would be killed instantly.

To the few of the ERB staff he had managed to talk to, his persistent requests for the helicopter had seemed ridiculous. "Really, Captain," one natty young lieutenant he had cornered outside Headquarters had said, "you're taking the loss of your mascot far too seriously. After all, you can pick up a dozen of the beasts the next time you pa.s.s Altair." .

"We not got much time, Captain. Are we have to wait much ronger?"

"Not much longer, Loper. Only until the talk with Selsin is over."

"I think he come now."

The long columns were still coming down the pa.s.s and parting at the bottom but one native was coming straight toward the camp in a slow trot. It was Selsin.