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suppose I might as well go," Hunter said.
Lyla did not answer. She sat motionless, staring unseeingly before her,

and he wondered if she was thinking of how very soon Narf would be
king and his authority as great as hers.
She did not notice when he quietly left the room.
* * * * * * * * *
Rockford was waiting in the cabin, still in the easy-chair.
"Well," Rockford said, "what do you think of her?"
Hunter tried to keep the personal dislike out of his coldly formal reply:
"If you refer to your suggestion that I not make love to her, sir, I can
assure you that such a suggestion was never necessary. I happen to
have a code of ethics."
"I didn't say 'make love'. I said, 'fall in love'. That's quite ethical. Did
you complete your discussion with her?"
"Well ... no."
"You must do that this afternoon, then. Can't let anything as important
as that be delayed."
Hunter stared at him, trying to find one small grain of sanity in
Rockford's actions. The Verdam empire already had Jardeen within its
grasp, and Vesta, and the end for Earth was inevitable. And Rockford
slept, and drank beer, and regarded it as very important that the Vestan
Space Guard discussions--of a change that Narf would never permit--be
continued without delay.
He walked slowly into his own room. In the nightmare situation of
frustration there was one single sane and stable conviction for his mind
to cling to: Supreme Command would by now have received his
message and shot back the reply that would relieve Rockford of his
command. Perhaps it wasn't yet too late--
Then his mind reeled as a new conviction struck it.

There was a sheet of paper on his bed--a message.
His message!
... SITUATION EXTREMELY CRITICAL ... VAL BORAN
ALREADY CONVINCED BY SONIG'S PROPAGANDA ... MUST
REPORT ROCKFORD IS UTTERLY INCOMPETENT, HIS MIND
AND WILL DESTROYED BY ALCOHOL ... REPEAT: ROCKFORD
IS DOING NOTHING, HIS MIND DESTROYED BY ALCOHOL....
The words screamed up at him and he felt the sickness of one who sees
the last faint hope shattered and gone. All was lost, now....
He went outside, feeling a savage desire for violence rising above the
sickness.
"Rootenant!" Alonzo came bounding to meet him and slid to a halt with
his saucer feet scattering gravel and the idiotic grin on his face. "I mair
your retter and you owe me six fig cook--"
It occurred to Hunter that it was not Alonzo that should be punished.
He, Hunter, was the one who deserved execution for ever entrusting
anything so important as the message to an imbecilic animal.
He said with cold distinctness:
"The ... letter ... is ... inside."
"Oh?" Alonzo blinked. "I sure mair something, awr right. After Mr.
Rockford correct it."
"Correct it?"
"Oh, sure. Mr. Rockford, he up rong before you this morning to find
me and say you are writing a retter rast night and I must bring it by for
him to make awr your mistakes over again."
So Rockford was watching all the time, pretending to be in a drunken
sleep....

"Rootenant--" Alonzo shifted his big feet impatiently. "You stirr owe
me six fig--"
Hunter swung around and strode away, afraid he might decide to choke
the animal after all. A culture of twenty worlds was the same as already
destroyed, and he was held in a maddening quagmire of helplessness by
a crafty alcoholic and a dog with the mind of a small child.
"Ah ... my boy!" Rockford came out of the cabin, beaming as though
nothing had ever happened. "Look to your left, among those ghost
trees--Narf is demonstrating his quick-draw skill to Sonig. Narf is
supposed to be a very dangerous man, you know."
Hunter looked, and saw Narf whipping up the blunt, ugly spread-beam
blaster--known to soldiers as the Coward's Special, because at short
range it could not miss and would always cripple and blind a man for
life even though it would not always kill him. Sonig was standing by,
nodding his weasel head and smiling in open admiration.
"Of course," Rockford said, "Sonig isn't mentioning the needle gun all
Verdam envoys carry up their sleeve. He's flattering Narf's ego for a
reason--he intends to have Vesta, as well as Jardeen, sewed up for the
Verdam empire when he leaves here."
"And so far as I can see," Hunter said coldly, "Sonig never is going to
have anything vaguely resembling intelligent resistance to his plans."
[Illustration]
"Ah, yes ... so far as you can see," Rockford agreed amiably. "But you
obey my order to take Lyla for another walk and everything will turn
out all right. In fact, I'll speak to her about that right now."
Hunter stared after Rockford as