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was finally over. Rockford stopped outside the door
of their cabin to fill and light his pipe.
"It was a profitable evening," he said to Hunter. "I can start planning in
detail now--after a little beer, that is."
He'll go to sleep after he drinks his beer, Hunter thought, and there will
never be any plan unless I--

Soft footsteps came up the path behind them. It was Princess Lyla.
"I want to apologize," she said, "I just told Val ... Mr. Boran the same
thing."
Her face was a pale oval in the starlight, her eyes dark shadows. "I'm
sorry my husband mentioned the New Jardeen incident."
"That's all right, Lyla," Rockford said. "No harm was done."
"He's an ex-military man, and I guess it's his nature to be more
forthright than tactful."
"You certainly can't condemn him for that," Rockford said. "In fact,
he's an extraordinary teller of entertaining stories. It was a most
enjoyable evening."
* * * * *
"And, in a way, it was," Rockford said when she was gone and they
were in the cabin. He was seated in the softest chair, a can of beer in his
hand, as usual.
Hunter thought of the way she had looked in the starlight and said,
"Why did she let that windbag sit at the head of the table and ruin the
meeting that she had arranged?"
"He'll soon be her husband--I suppose she feels she should be loyal to
him."
"But--"
"But what?"
"Nothing. It's none of my business."
"Oh?" Rockford smiled in a way Hunter did not like. "You think so,
eh?"

Hunter changed the subject. "Are you going to start talking to Boran to
undo the damage Narf and Sonig have done?"
"It would be a waste of time, my boy. Val Boran's mind is already
made up."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Drink six cans of beer and go to sleep."
"I thought you had a plan."
"I have, a most excellent plan."
"What is it?"
"You'd scream like a banshee if you knew. You'll learn--if you manage
to live that long."
Rockford was sound asleep an hour later, snoring gently. Hunter sat
thinking, hearing the steady murmur of a voice coming from Val
Boran's cabin. Sonig's voice--using every means of persuasion he could
think of, at the moment capitalizing on the New Jardeen incident and
Boran's withheld grief over the sister he had lost.
And the Terran Republic's representative was sprawled fat and
mindless in a fog of beer fumes.
Hunter hesitated no longer. The fate of Earth and the Terran Republic
hung in the balance and time was desperately limited--if there was now
any time at all.
He took paper and pen and began the urgent message to Supreme
Command, headed, TOP EMERGENCY. It would be sent via
Hyperspace Communications from the city and would span the hundred
light-years within seconds.
* * * * *

He was up before Rockford the next morning, and went out into the
bright sunlight. He looked hopefully for Alonzo, not wanting to be seen
mailing the letter in person. Rockford, despite his drunken stupors,
could be shrewdly observant and he might deduce the contents of the
letter before Supreme Command ever received it.
He was some distance from the cabin when he heard the pound of
padded feet behind him.
"Rootenant," Alonzo had the grin of a genial canine idiot. "Do you
want me to mair your retter to your dear ore mother?"
"Yes, I have the letter right here."
"O.K. I got to hurry, because the mair hericopter reaves right away. I
charge six fig cookies or three candy bars or--"
"Here--take it and run--and try not to slobber all over it."
* * * * *
They were served breakfast in the cabin. Afterward, Rockford went for
a brief talk with Princess Lyla. He came back and settled down in the
easy-chair, his pipe in his hand.
"Your morning's duty won't be at all unpleasant," he said. "The
obnoxious and repulsive things will begin to happen to you later.
Maybe this afternoon."
"What do you mean?"
"This morning you will go for a walk with Princess Lyla and discuss
changing the Vestan Space Guard into a force along Terran Space
Patrol lines. Narf is still in bed, by the way."
Rockford added, "I'll give you a bit of sage advice, for your own
good--try not to fall in love with her."
* * * * * * * * *

Hunter and Princess Lyla sat together on the high hill, their backs
against the red trunk of a cloud tree. On the mountain's slope to their
right lay the dark and junglelike Tiger Forest--he wondered if it was
true that the savage tree tigers never left its borders--while the toylike
cabins of the