Tarleton shook his head. "Hishtoo has a ship, but not this one. Helaise saw. She's hurt-get Slowboat on the box and have Cummings out here five minutes ago. Tell him who's injured, and how."

Then Barton saw her arm, bent horribly between el- bow and wrist, with a sharp end of bone showing through the torn skin.

Above the break, deep, saw-toothed lacerations oozed blood. Hishtoo-he's paying me back, all right!

Barton activated the compartment's screen; sooner than he expected, he reached Slobodna's man at the party. Some party! He relayed Tarleton's orders and signed off. ^

On Tarleton's bed Helaise huddled, moaning; beads of sweat rolled down her cheeks and forehead. Like a mother elephant, the big man fussed over her, not daring to touch. But all his concern wasn't helping anything.

All right; Barton knew how to reduce a fracture. He'd learned the trick in the Army, the hard way, and Renzel's

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frail arm should be easier than an infantryman's mus- cular leg. The jagged end of bone would carry bacteria into the wound, but that's what antibiotics were for- and he needed this woman in shape to tell her story.

Some pain-killer would have helped, but he didn't, know where Myra kept the stuff.

So he talked Tarleton into position for helping, and applied traction to the crumpled arm. It straightened;

Helaise screamed once. then bit her lip; blood ran.' When he thought he had it right, he said to Tarleton, "Can you bold it right there?" At the man's nod. Barton got up and poured a jolt of his boss's best bourbon. Helaise wasn't in shock, near as he could tell, so the stuff should help.

And when she sipped it, her color began to come back.

As. an afterthought he gave Tarleton a taste also, then took one himself before giving Helaise the last of it.

"Now we're bourbon-brothers," he said, "so you can tell us what happened. Like how come you stayed here, and not ap Fenn."

The tale was short but ugly. After his defeat at Barton's hands-or, rather, feet-ap Fenn kept Helaise afraid of him and more afraid to complain. When he saw that everyone who knew he was assigned to ship duty had left in the first car, he made Helaise back his story, to the rest, that she had the duty and he could leave with them. At the party he figured to avoid Barton and anyone else who knew him for AWOL. "... and if you did see him, what could you do about it, in public?"

Fear, not loyalty to ap Fenn, had kept Helaise from calling to warn Tarleton and the rest. "And I still fear Terike. What will happen to me when he comes back?"

"Nothing," said Barton. "Because hell be locked in Compartment Six. Which brings up a point-Hishtoo.

What happened there?"

She had taken food to the Demu, and he'd knocked the tray aside and grabbed her. Barton nodded. "Must have known you were the only one of us aboard; that hardshell always knew more English than he let on. Then what?"

"Eeshta tried to help me; he knocked her down. Her mouth ran blood but she got up and ran, crying out, *I will not let him take the ship to Sisshain!' Hishtoo dropped roe and went after her, but she slammed the control room door in his face. He shouted something after her-in Demu, I think."

"So that's who's in there," Tarleton said,

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"Who else?" said Barton. "Once you said Hishtoo didn't have this ship-and that's the next job I men- tioned, how to get to her. She's hurt, or in shock; that's why she didn't answer your calls."

Barton shook his head. "All right, Helaise. The rest of it?" She'd tried to run but she was half-stunned. Hishtoo caught her, and slammed her forearm against his knee until the bones gave.

"Then he bit me-horribly-and I heard him speak in English."

"Crab salad," Barton muttered.

"How did you know that?" She tried to sit up, and failed.

"Hishtoo has a long memory. I said that to him a couple of times, when the break was on the other arm. His. But, anyway. Then what, Helaise? Did Hishtoo have a weapon?"

He hadn't. He'd dragged Renzel out of the ship, across the spaceport- A car passed; to avoid its lights, Hishtoo pushed the woman one way as he fell the other. She could still run, and found hiding in shadows under another ship.

"He couldn't find me. I lay there a long time." And even- tually she saw the Demu climb the ramp into a Tilaran ship; a few minutes later, that ship lifted. Then she walked, and sometimes crawled, trying to seek her way back. But when Tarleton found her, she didn't recognize where she was.

Barton nodded. "That covers it. And that blows it.

Hishtoo's off to tell all good Demu that now is the time to put down the upstart animals." He felt his lips stretch over his teeth and knew he wasn't smiling. "Tarleton, we can forget the surprise party. The birthday boy is go- ing to be damned well braced for it"

"We can't sit on this," Barton said. Again he punched for a circuit to the party building, and this time asked for Vertan. Soon, on the screen the Tilaran appeared.

Barton spoke first. "Hishtoo has escaped, taking a ship of the Tilari. He goes, we think, to a place of the name Sisshain. Is its location of your knowledge?"

"No, Barton. Of Demu planets, we know only from the maps you show us. Except for Demmon, their major world, we know not of names. But now-what is to do?

And of what mischance did the Demu escape?"

Irritated, Barton shook his head. Post-mortems

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wouldn't put Hishtoo back in Compartment Six. But maybe he'd better soothe the Tilaran. "It was ap Feno- the man who was of force to the woman. He put his duty here on a woman, who was not of strength to contain Hishtoo. She is injured and of great pain. As for now, Vertan-can you send a ship after Hishtoo? Your pilots must be of greater skill than he, in your own ships."

"Of what hour was his departure?" , -

Barton thought "The time is not of certainty-only that it preceded discovery of ap Fenn with the woman."

"Then effectively he is beyond detection range, since we know not of his direction. And it was your part to keep the Demu of no harm to us."

The entry-request light blinked-Cummings, prob- ably. Barton let his resentment flare. "If you are only of futility and recrimination, Vertan, the matter is not of immediacy. We will speak of it later." He cut the screen.

"A little rough, weren't you?" Tarleton's voice was edged. "Are you trying to cancel the alliance?".

"Oh, bullshiti I'm tired of people hitching from the cheap seats. First, Vertan wouldn't help with ap Fenn- now all he can say is that Hishtoo was our problem.

Where the hell was his own security, that let Hishtoo get away with his ship?" He shook his head, "Skip it-I think Cummings wants in."

"One thing, first. You're the one. Barton, who said that two races are more important than any one man.

Have you changed your mind?"

In midstride, Barton paused. "No-no, I haven't It's just that I'm beginning to wonder if one of those races is going to pull its weight after all." Tarleton did not an- swer.

Barton half-walked, half-ran to the main airlock.

Cummings was there, all right, and the doctor wasted no words. "The man is dead. Where's the woman?"

"Follow me. Ap Fenn died, huh? Not much loss, may- be, but it still bugs me that the Tilari wouldn't help."

"They couldn't have saved him. After all-without hospital facilities-and there wasn't time to move him- I didn't quite manage that myself. The things you saw looked bad, but the real damage was internal. Ruptured spleen-internal hemorrhage. The Tilarans don't know our anatomy well enough to have handled that in the emergency situation." Well, maybe not-but Barton

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was still angry. It was the principle of the thing, he grum- bled to nobody.