The Colors of Space

The crews of repairmen were working down in the hull, and the Swiftwing was a hell of clanging noise and shuddering heat. Maintenance was working overtime, but the rest of the crew, with nothing to do, stood around in the recreation rooms, tried to play games, cursed the heat and the dreary dimness through the viewports, and twitched at the boiler-factory racket from the holds.

Toward the end of the third day, the biologist reported air, water and gravity well within tolerable limits, and Captain Vorongil issued permission for anyone who liked, to go outside and have a look around.

Bart had a sort of ship-induced claustrophobia. It was good to feel solid ground under his feet and the rays of a sun, even a green sun, on his back. Even more, it was good to get away from the constant presence of his shipmates. During this enforced idleness, their presence oppressed him unendurably—so many tall forms, gray skins, feathery crests. He was always alone; for a change, he felt that he'd like to be alone without Lhari all around him.

But as he moved away from the ship, Ringg dropped out of the hatchway and hailed him. "Where are you going?"

"Just for a walk."

Ringg drew a deep breath of weariness. "That sounds good. Mind if I come along?"

Bart did, but all he could say was, "If you like."

"How about let's get some food from the rations clerk, and do some exploring?"

The sun overhead was a clear greenish-gold, the sky strewn with soft pale clouds that cast racing shadows on the soft grass underfoot, fragrant pinkish-yellow stuff strewn with bright vermilion puff-balls. Bart wished he were alone to enjoy it.

"How are the repairs coming?"

"Pretty well. But Karol got his hand half scorched off, poor fellow. Just luck the same thing didn't happen to me." Ringg added. "You know that Mentorian—the young one, the medic's assistant?"

"I've seen her. Her name's Meta, I think." Suddenly, Bart wished the Mentorian girl were with him here. It would be nice to hear a human voice.

"Oh, is it a female? Mentorians all look alike to me," Ringg said, while Bart controlled his face with an effort. "Be that as it may, she saved me from having the same thing happen. I was just going to lean against a strip of sheet metal when she screamed at me. Do you think they can really see heat vibrations? She called it red-hot."

They had reached a line of tall cliffs, where a steep rock-fall divided off the plain from the edge of the mountains. A few slender, drooping, gold-leaved trees bent graceful branches over a pool. Bart stood fascinated by the play of green sunlight on the emerald ripples, but Ringg flung himself down full length on the soft grass and sighed comfortably. "Feels good."

"Too comfortable to eat?"

They munched in companionable silence. "Look," said Ringg at last, pointing toward the cliffs, "Holes in the rocks. Caves. I'd like to explore them, wouldn't you?"

"They look pretty gloomy to me. Probably full of monsters."

Ringg patted the hilt of his energon-ray. "This will handle anything short of an armor-plated saurian."

Bart shuddered. As part of uniform, he, too, had been issued one of the energon-rays; but he had never used it and didn't intend to. "Just the same, I'd rather stay out here in the sun."

"It's better than vitamin lamps," Ringg admitted, "even if it's not very bright."

Bart wondered, suddenly and worriedly, about the effects of green sunburn on his chemically altered skin tone.

"Well, let's enjoy it while we can," Ringg said, "because it seems to be clouding over. I wouldn't be surprised if it rained." He yawned. "I'm getting bored with this voyage. And yet I don't want it to end, because then I'll have to fight it out all over again with my family. My father owns a hotel, and he wants me in the family business, not five hundred light-years away. None of our family have ever been spacemen before," he explained, "and they don't understand that living on one planet would drive me out of my mind." He sighed. "How did you explain it to your people—that you couldn't be happy in the mud? Or are you a career man?"

"I guess so. I never thought about doing anything else," Bart said slowly, Ringg's story had touched him; he had never realized quite so fully how much alike the two races were, how human the Lhari problems and dreams could seem. Why, of course, the Lhari aren't all spacemen. They have hotel keepers and garbage men and dentists just as we do. Funny, you never think of them except in space.

"My mother died when I was very young," Bart said, choosing his words very carefully. "My father owned a fleet of interplanetary ships."

"But you wanted the real thing, deep space, the stars," Ringg said. "How did he feel about that?"

"He would have understood," Bart said, unable to keep emotion out of his voice, "but he's dead now. He died, not long ago."

Ringg's eyes were bright with sympathy. "While you were off on the drift? Bad luck," he said gently. He was silent, and when he spoke again it was in a very different tone.

"But some of the older generation—I had a professor in training school, funny old chap, bald as the hull of the Swiftwing. Taught us cosmic-ray analysis, and what he didn't know about spiral nebulae could be engraved on my fifth toe-claw, and he'd never been off the face of the planet. Not even to one of the moons! He was the supervisor of my student lodge, and oh, was he a—" The phrase Ringg used meant, literally, a soft piece of cake.

"His feet may have been buried in mud, but his head was off in the Great Nebula. We had some wild times," Ringg reminisced. "We'd slip away to the city—strictly against rules, it was an old-style school—and draw lots for one of us to stay home and sign in for all twelve. You see, he'd sit there reading, and when one of us came in, just shove the wax at us, with his nose in a text on cosmic dust, never looking up. So the one who stayed home would scrawl a name on it, walk out the back door, come around and sign in again. When there were twelve signed in, of course, the old chap would go up to bed, and late that night the one who stayed in would sneak down and let us in."

Ringg sat up suddenly, touching his cheek. "Was that a drop of rain? And the sun's gone. I suppose we ought to start back, though I hate to leave those caves unexplored."

Bart bent to gather up the debris of their meal. He flinched as something hard struck his arm. "Ouch! What was that?"

Ringg cried out in pain. "It's hail!"

Sharp pieces of ice were suddenly pelting, raining down all around them, splattering the ground with a harsh, bouncing clatter. Ringg yelled, "Come on—it's big enough to flatten you!"

It looked to Bart as if it were at least golf-ball size, and seemed to be getting bigger by the moment. Lightning flashed around them in sudden glare. They ducked their heads and ran.

"Get in under the lee of the cliffs. We couldn't possibly make it back to the Swift—" Ringg's voice broke off in a cry of pain; he slumped forward, pitched to his knees, then slid down and lay still.

"What's the matter?" Bart, arm curved to protect his skull, bent over the fallen Lhari, but Ringg, his forehead bleeding, lay insensible. Bart felt sharp pain in his arm, felt the hail hard as thrown stones raining on his head. Ringg was out cold. If they stayed in this, Bart thought despairingly, they'd both be dead!

Crouching, trying to duck his head between his shoulders, Bart got his arms under Ringg's armpits and half-carried, half-dragged him under the lee of the cliffs. He slipped and slid on the thickening layer of ice underfoot, lost his footing, and came down, hard, one arm twisted between himself and the cliff. He cried out in pain, uncontrollably, and let Ringg slip from his grasp. The Lhari boy lay like the dead.

Bart bent over him, breathing hard, trying to get his breath back. The hail was still pelting down, showing no signs of lessening. About five feet away, one of the dark gaps in the cliff showed wide and menacing, but at least, Bart thought, the hail couldn't come in there. He stooped and got hold of Ringg again. A pain like fire went through the wrist he had smashed against the rock. He set his teeth, wondering if it had broken. The effort made him see stars, but he managed somehow to hoist Ringg up again and haul him through the pelting hail toward the yawning gap. It darkened around them, and, blessedly, the battering, bruising hail could not reach them. Only an occasional light splinter of ice blew with the bitter wind into the mouth of the cave.

Bart laid Ringg down on the floor, under the shelter of the rock ceiling. He knelt beside him, and spoke his name, but Ringg just moaned. His forehead was covered with blood.

Bart took one of the paper napkins from the lunch sack and carefully wiped some of it away. His stomach turned at the deep, ugly cut, which immediately started oozing fresh blood. He pressed the edges of the cut together with the napkin, wondering helplessly how much blood Ringg could lose without danger, and if he had concussion. If he tried to go back to the ship and fetch the medic for Ringg, he'd be struck by hail himself. From where he stood, it seemed that the hailstones were getting bigger by the minute.

Ringg moaned, but when Bart knelt beside him again he did not answer. Bart could hear only the rushing of wind, the noise of the splattering hail and a sound of water somewhere—or was that a rustle of scales, a dragging of strange feet? He looked through the darkness into the depths of the cave, his hand on his shock-beam. He was afraid to turn his back on it.

This is nonsense, he told himself firmly, I'll just walk back there and see what there is.

At his belt he had the small flashlamp, excessively bright, that was, like the energon-beam shocker, a part of regulation equipment. He took it out, shining it on the back wall of the cave; then drew a long breath of startlement and for a moment forgot Ringg and his own pain.

For the back wall of the cave was an exquisite fall of crystal! Minerals glowed there, giant crystals, like jewels, crusted with strange lichen-like growths and colors. There were pale blues and greens and, shimmering among them, a strangely colored crystalline mineral that he had never seen before. It was blue—No, Bart thought, that's just the light, it's more like red—no, it can't be like both of them at once, and it isn't really like either. In this light—

Ringg moaned, and Bart, glancing round, saw that he was struggling to sit up. He ran back to him, dropping to his knees at Ringg's side. "It's all right, Ringg, lie still. We're under cover now."

"Wha' happened?" Ringg said blurrily. "Head hurts—all sparks—all the pretty lights—can't see you!" He fumbled with loose, uncoordinated fingers at his head and Bart grabbed at him before he poked a claw in his eye. "Don't do that," Ringg complained, "can't see—"

He must have a bad concussion then. That's a nasty cut. Gently, he restrained the Lhari boy's hands.

"Bartol, what happened?"

Bart explained. Ringg tried to move, but fell limply back.

"Weren't you hurt? I thought I heard you cry out."

"A cut or two, but nothing serious," Bart said. "I think the hail's stopped. Lie still, I'd better go back to the ship and get help."

"Give me a hand and I can walk," Ringg said, but when he tried to sit up, he flinched, and Bart said, "You'd better lie still." He knew that head injuries should be kept very quiet; he was almost afraid to leave Ringg for fear the Lhari boy would have another delirious fit and hurt himself, but there was no help for it.

The hail had stopped, and the piled heaps were already melting, but it was bitterly cold. Bart wrapped himself in the silvery cloak, glad of its warmth, and struggled back across the slushy, ice-strewn meadow that had been so pink and flowery in the sunshine. The Swiftwing, a monstrous dark egg looming in the twilight, seemed like home. Bart felt the heavenly warmth close around him with a sigh of pure relief, but the Second Officer, coming up the hatchway, stopped in consternation:

"You're covered with blood! The hailstorm—"

"I'm all right," Bart said, "but Ringg's been hurt. You'll need a stretcher." Quickly, he explained. "I'll come with you and show you—"

"You'll do no such thing," the officer said. "You look as if you'd been caught out in a meteor shower, feathertop! We can find the place. You go and have those cuts attended to, and—what's wrong with your wrist? Broken?"

Bart heard, like an echo, the frightening words: Don't break any bones. You won't pass an X-ray.

"It's all right, sir. When I get washed up—"

"That's an order," snapped the officer, "do you think, on this pestilential unlucky planet, we can afford any more bad luck? Metals fatigue, Karol burned so badly the medic thinks he may never use his hand again, and now you and Ringg getting yourselves laid up and out of action? The medic will help me with Ringg; that Mentorian girl can look after you. Get moving!"

He hurried away, and Bart, his head beginning to hurt, walked slowly up the ramp. His whole arm felt numb, and he supported it with his good hand.

In the small infirmary, Karol lay groaning in a bunk, his arm bound in bandages, his head moving from side to side. The Mentorian girl Meta turned, charging a hypo. She looked pale and drawn. She went to Karol, uncovering his other arm, and made the injection; almost immediately the moaning stopped and Karol lay still. Meta sighed and drew a hand over her brow, brushing away feathery wisps that escaped from the cap tied over her hair.

"Bartol? You're hurt? Not more burns, I hope?"

She looks just like a fluffy little kitten, Bart thought incongruously. Fatigue was beginning to blur his reactions.

"Only a few cuts," he said, in Universal, though Meta had spoken Lhari. In his weariness and pain he was homesick for the sound of a familiar word. "Ringg and I were both caught in the hailstorm. He's badly hurt."

"Sit down here."

Bart sat. Meta's hands were skillful and cool as she sponged the blood away from his forehead and sprayed it with some pleasantly cold, mint-smelling antiseptic. Bart leaned back, tireder than he knew, half-closing his eyes.

"That hail must have been enormous; we heard it through the hull. Whatever possessed you to go out into it?"

"It wasn't hailing when we left," Bart said wearily. "The sun was as nice and green as it could be." He bit the words off, realizing he had made a slip, but the girl seemed not to hear, fastening a strip of plastic over a cut. She picked up his wrist. Bart flinched in spite of himself, and Meta nodded. "I was afraid of that; it may be broken. Better let me X-ray it."

"No!" Bart said harshly. "It's all right, I just twisted it. Nothing's broken. Just strap it up."

"It's pretty badly swollen," the girl said, moving it gently. "Does that hurt? I thought so."

Bart set his teeth against a cry. "It's all right, I tell you. Just because it's black and blue—"

He heard her breath jolt out, her fingers clenched painfully on his wounded wrist. She did not hear his cry this time. "And the sun was nice and green," she whispered. "What are you?"

Bart felt himself slip sidewise; he thought for a moment that he would faint where he sat. Terrified, he looked up at Meta. Their eyes met, and she said, hardly moving her pale lips, "Your eyes—they're like mine. Your eyelashes—dark, not white. You're not a Lhari!"

The pain in his wrist suddenly blurred everything else, but Meta suddenly realized she was gripping it; she gave a little, gentle cry, and cradled the abused wrist in her palm.

"No wonder you didn't want it X-rayed," she whispered. Biting her lip, she glanced, terrified, at Karol, unconscious in the bunk. "No, he can't hear us; I gave him a heavy shot of hypnin, poor fellow."

"Go ahead," Bart said bitterly, "yell for your keepers."

Her gray eyes blazed at him for a moment; then, gently, she laid his wrist on the table, went to the infirmary door and locked it on the inside. She turned around, her face white; even her lips had lost their color. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"Does it matter now?"

Shocked comprehension swept over her face. "You don't think I'd tell them," she whispered. "I heard talk, in the Procyon port, of a spy that had managed to get through on a Lhari ship." Her face twisted. "You—you must know about the man on the Multiphase, you know they'll—make sure I can't—hide anything dangerous to the Lhari at the end of the voyage."

"Meta—" concern for her swept over him—"what will they do to you when they find out that you know and—didn't tell?"

Her gray eyes were wide as a kitten's. "Why, nothing. The Lhari would never hurt anyone, would they?"

Brainwashed? He set his mouth grimly. "I hope you never find out different."

"Why would they need to?" she asked, reasonably. "They could just erase the memory. I never heard of a Lhari actually hurting anyone. But something like this—" She wavered, looking at him. "You look so much like a Lhari! How was it done? How could they do it? Poor fellow, you must be the—the loneliest man in the Universe!"

Her voice was compassionate. Bart felt his throat tighten, and had the awful feeling that he was going to cry. He reached with his good hand for hers, seeking the comfort of a human touch, but she flinched instinctively away.

He was a monster to this pretty girl....

"It looks so real," she said helplessly. "Yes, now I can see, you have tiny moons at the base of the nail, and the Lhari don't." Her face worked. "It's—it's horrifying! How could you—"

There was a noise in the corridor. Meta gasped and ran to unlock the door, stood back as the medic and the Second Officer came in, staggering under Ringg's weight. Carefully, they put him into a bunk. The medic straightened, shaking his crest.

"Did you get that wrist taken care of, Bartol?"

Meta stepped between Bart and the officer, reaching for a roll of bandage. "I'm working on it now, rieko mori," she said. "It only wants strapping up." But her fingers trembled as she wound the gauze, pulling each fold tight.

"How's—Ringg?"

"Needs quiet," grunted the medic, "and a few sutures. Lucky you got him under cover when you did."

Ringg said weakly from his bunk, "Bartol saved my life. I can think of plenty who'd have run for cover, instead of staying out in that stuff long enough to drag me inside. Thanks, shipmate."

Meta's hand, with a swift hard pressure, lingered on Bart's shoulder as she cut the bandage and fastened the end. "I don't think that will bother you much now," she whispered, fleetingly. "I didn't dare say it was broken or they'd insist on X-rays. If it hurts I'll get you something later for the pain. If you keep it strapped up tight—"

"It will do," Bart said aloud. The tight bandage made it feel a little better, but he felt sick and dizzy, and when the medic turned and saw him, the officer said brusquely "Watch off for you, Bartol. I'll fix the sign-out sheet, but you go to your cabin and get yourself at least four hours of sleep. That's an order."

Bart stumbled out of the cabin with relief. Safe in his own quarters, he flung himself down on his bunk, shaking all over. He'd come safely through one more nightmare, one more terror—for the moment! Had he put Meta in danger, too? Was there no end to this ceaseless fear? Not only for himself, but for others, the innocent bystanders who stumbled into plots they did not understand?

You're doing this for the stars. It's bigger than your fear. It's bigger than you are, or any of the others....

He was beginning to think it was a lot too big for him.

The green-sun Meristem lay far behind them. Karol's burns had healed; only a faint pattern on Ringg's forehead showed where six stitches had closed the ugly wound in his skull. Bart's wrist, after a few days of nightmarish pain when he tried to pick up anything heavy, had healed. Two more warp-drive shifts through space had taken the Swiftwing far, far out to the rim of the known galaxy, and now the great crimson coal of Antares burned in their viewports.

Antares had twelve planets, the outermost of which—far away now, at the furthest point in its orbit from the point of the Swiftwing's entry into the system—was a small captive sun. No larger than the planet Earth, it revolved every ninety years around its huge primary.

Small as it was, it was blazingly blue-white brilliant, and had a tiny planet of its own. After their stop on Antares Seven—the largest of the inhabited planets in this system, where the Lhari spaceport was located—they would make a careful orbit around the great red primary, and land on the tiny worldlet of the blue-white secondary before leaving the Antares system.

As Bart watched Antares growing in the viewports, he felt a variety of emotions. On the one hand, he was relieved that as his voyage in secrecy neared its official destination, he had as yet not incurred unmasking.

But he felt uncertain about his father's co-conspirators. Would they return him to human form and send him back to Vega, his part ended? Or would they, unthinkably, demand that he go on into the Lhari Galaxy? What would he do, if they did?

At one moment he entertained fantasies of going on into the Lhari worlds, returning victorious with the secret of their fueling location, or of the star-drive itself. At another, he could not wait to be free of it all. He longed for the society of his own people, yet ached to think that this voyage between the stars must end so soon.

They made planetfall at the largest Lhari spaceport Bart had seen; as always, the Second Officer was the first to go through Decontam and ashore, returning with exchanged mail and messages for the Swiftwing's crew. He laughed when he gave Bartol a sealed packet. "So you're not quite the orphan we've always thought!"

Bart took it, his heart suddenly pounding, and walked away through the groups of officers and crew eagerly debating how they would spend their port leave. He knew what it would be.

It was on the letterhead of Eight Colors, and it contained no message. Only an address—and a time.

He slipped away unobserved to the Mentorian part of the ship to borrow a cloak from Meta. She did not ask why he wanted it, and stopped him when he would have told her. "I'd—rather not know."

She looked very small and very scared, and Bart wished he could comfort her, but he knew she would shrink from him, repelled and horrified by his Lhari skin, hair, claws.

Yet she reached for his hand, gripping it hard in her own dainty one. "Bartol, be careful," she whispered, then stopped. "Bartol—that's a Lhari name. What's your real one?"

"Bart. Bart Steele."

"Good luck, Bart." There were tears in her gray eyes.

With the blue cloak folded around his face, hands tucked in the slits at the side, he felt almost like himself. And as the strange crimson twilight folded down across the streets, laden with spicy smells and little, fragrant gusts of wind, he almost savored the sense of being a conspirator, of playing for high stakes in a network of intrigue between the stars. He was off on an adventure, and meant to enjoy it.

The address he had been given was a lavish estate, not far from the spaceport, across a little gleaming lake that shimmered red, indigo, violet in the crimson sunset, surrounded by a low wall of what looked like purple glass. Bart, moving slowly through the gate, felt that eyes were watching him, and forced himself to walk with slow dignity.

Up the path. Up a low flight of black-marble stairs. A door swung open and shut again, closing out the red sunset, letting him into a room that seemed dim after the months of Lhari lights. There were three men in the room, but his eyes were drawn instantly to one, standing against an old-fashioned fireplace.

He was very tall and quite thin, and his hair was snow-white, though he did not look old. Bart's first incongruous thought was, He'd make a better Lhari than I would. His firm, commanding voice told Bart at once that this was the man in charge. "You are Bartol?" He extended his hand.

Bart took it—and found himself gripped in a judo hold. The other two men, leaping to place behind him, felt all over his body, not gently.

"No weapons, Montano."

"Look here—"

"Save it," Montano said. "If you're the right person, you'll understand. If not, you won't have much time to resent it. A very simple test. What color is that divan?"

"Green."

"And those curtains?"

"Darker green, with gold and red figures."

The men released him, and the white-haired man smiled.

"So you actually did it, Steele! I thought for sure the code message was a fake." He stepped back and looked Bart over from head to foot, whistling. "Raynor Three is a genius! Claws and everything! What a deuce of a risk to take though!"

"You know my name," Bart said, "but who are you?"

Suspicion came back into the dark eyes. "Does that Mentorian cloak mean—you've lost your memories, too?"

"No," said Bart, "it's simpler than that. I'm not Rupert Steele. I'm—" his voice caught—"I'm his son."

The man looked startled and shocked. "I suppose that means Rupert is dead. Dead! It came a little before he expected it, then. So you're Bart." He sighed. "My name's Montano. This is Hedrick, and I suppose you recognize Raynor Two."

Bart blinked. It was the same face, but it was not grim like Raynor One's, nor expressive and kindly like that of Raynor Three. This one just looked dangerous.

"But sit down," Montano said with a wave of his hand, "make yourself comfortable."

Hedrick relieved Bart of his cloak; Raynor Two put a cup of some steaming drink in his hand, passed him a tray of small hot fried things that tasted crisp and delicious. Bart relaxed, answering questions. How old? Only seventeen? And you came all alone on a Lhari ship, working your way as Astrogator? I must say you've got guts, kid! It was dangerously like the fantasy he had invented. But Montano interrupted at last.

"All right, this isn't a party and we haven't all night. I don't suppose Bart has either. Enough time wasted. Since you walked into this, young Steele, I take it you know what our plans are, after this?"

Bart shook his head. "No. Raynor Three sent me to call off your plans, because of my father—"

"That sounds like Three," interrupted Raynor Two. "Entirely too squeamish!"

Montano said irritably, "We couldn't have done anything without a man on the Swiftwing, and you know it. We still can't. Bart, I suppose you know about Lharillis."

"Not by that name."

"Your next stop. The planetoid of the captive sun. That little hunk of bare rock out there is the first spot the Lhari visited in this galaxy—even before Mentor. It's an inferno of light from that little blue-white sun, so of course they love it—it's just like home to them. When they found that the inner planets of Antares were inhabited, they built their spaceport here, so they'd have a better chance at trade." Montano scowled fiercely.

"But they wanted that little worldlet. So we went all over it to be sure there were no rare minerals there, and finally leased it to them, a century at a time. They mine the place for some kind of powdered lubricant that's better than graphite—it's all done by robot machinery, no one's stationed there. Every time a Lhari ship comes through this system they stop there, even though there's nothing on Lharillis except a landing field and some concrete bunkers filled with robot mining machinery. They'll stop there on the way out of this system—and that's where you come in. We need you on board, to put the radiation counter out of commission."

He took a chart from a drawer, spread it out on a table top. "The simplest way would be to cut these two wires. When the Lhari land, we'll be there, waiting for them. On board the Lhari ship, there must be full records—coordinates of their home world, of where they go for their catalyst fuel—all that."

Bart whistled. "But won't the crew defend the ship? You can't fight energon-ray guns!"

Montano's face was perfectly calm. "No. We won't even try." He handed Bart a small strip of pale-yellow plastic.

"Keep this out of sight of the Mentorians," he said. "The Lhari won't be able to see the color, of course. But when it turns orange, take cover."

"What is it?"

"Radiation-exposure film. It's exactly as sensitive to radiation as you are. When it starts to turn orange, it's picking up radiation. If you're aboard the ship, get into the drive chambers—they're lead-lined—and you'll be safe. If you're out on the surface, you'll be all right inside one of the concrete bunkers. But get under cover before it turns red, because by that time every Lhari of them will be stone-cold dead."

Bart let the strip of plastic drop, staring in disbelief at Montano's cold, cruel face. "Kill them? Kill a whole shipload of them? That's murder!"

"Not murder. War."

"We're not at war with the Lhari! We have a treaty with them!"

"The Federation has, because they don't dare do anything else," Montano said, his face taking on the fanatic's light, "but some of us dare do something, some of us aren't going to sit forever and let them strangle all humanity, hold us down, let us die! It's war, Bart, war for economic survival. Do you suppose the Lhari would hesitate to kill anyone if we did anything to hurt their monopoly of the stars? Or didn't they tell you about David Briscoe, how they hunted him down like an animal—"

"But how do we know that was Lhari policy, and not just—some fanatic?" Bart asked suddenly. He thought of the death of the elder Briscoe, and as always he shivered with the horror of it, but for the first time it came to him: Briscoe had provoked his own death. He had physically attacked the Lhari—threatened them, goaded them to shoot him down in self-defense! "I've been on shipboard with them for months. They're not wanton murderers."

Raynor Two made a derisive sound. "Sounds like it might be Three talking!"

Hedrick growled, "Why waste time talking? Listen, young Steele, you'll do as you're told, or else! Who gave you the right to argue?"

"Quiet, both of you." Montano came and laid his arm around Bart's shoulders, persuasively. "Bart, I know how you feel. But can't you trust me? You're Rupert Steele's son, and you're here to carry on what your father left undone, aren't you? If you fail now, there may not be another chance for years—maybe not in our lifetimes."

Bart dropped his head in his hands. Kill a whole shipload of Lhari—innocent traders? Bald, funny old Rugel, stern Vorongil, Ringg—

"I don't know what to do!" It was a cry of despair. Bart looked helplessly around at the men.

Montano said, almost tenderly, "You couldn't side with the Lhari against men, could you? Could a son of Rupert Steele do that?"

Bart shut his eyes, and something seemed to snap within him. His father had died for this. He might not understand Montano's reasons, but he had to believe that Montano had them.

"All right," he said, thickly, "you can count on me."

When he left Montano's house, he had the details of the plan, had memorized the location of the device he was to sabotage, and accepted, from Montano, a pair of dark contact lenses. "The light's hellish out there," Montano warned. "I know you're half Mentorian, but they don't even take their Mentorians out there. They're proud of saying no human foot has ever touched Lharillis."

When he got back to the Lhari spaceport, Ringg hailed him. "Where have you been? I hunted the whole port for you! I wouldn't join the party till you came. What's a pal for?"

Bart brushed by him without speaking, disregarding Ringg's surprised stare, and went up the ramp. He reached his own cabin and threw himself down in his bunk, torn in two.

Ringg was his friend! Ringg liked him! And if he did what Montano wanted, Ringg would die.

Ringg had followed him, and was standing in the cabin door, watching him in surprise. "Bartol, is something the matter? Is there anything I can do? Have you had more bad news?"

Bart's torn nerves snapped. He raised his head and yelled at Ringg, "Yes, there is something! You can quit following me around and just let me alone for a change!"

Ringg took a step backward. Then he said, very softly, "Suit yourself, Bartol. Sorry." And noiselessly, his white crest held high, he glided away.

Bart's resolve hardened. Loneliness had done odd things to him—thinking of Ringg, a Lhari, one of the freaks who had killed his father, as a friend! If they knew who he was, they would turn on him, hunt him down as they'd hunted Briscoe, as they'd hunted his father, as they'd hounded him from Earth to Procyon. He put his scruples aside. He'd made up his mind.

They could all die. What did he care? He was human and he was going to be loyal to his own kind.

But although he thought he had settled all the conflict, he found that it returned when he was lying in his bunk, or when he stood in the dome and watched the stars, while they moved through the Antares system toward the captive sun and the tiny planet Lharillis.

It's in my power to give this to all men....

Should a few Lhari stand in his way?

He lay in his bunk brooding, thinking of death, staring at the yellow radiation badge. If you fail, it won't be in our lifetime. He'd have to go back to little things, to the little ships that hauled piddling cargo between little planets, while all the grandeur of the stars belonged to the Lhari. And if he succeeded, Vega Interplanet could spread from star to star, a mighty memorial to Rupert Steele.

One day Vorongil sent for him. "Bartol," he said, and his voice was not unkind, "you and Ringg have always been good friends, so don't be angry about this. He's worried about you—says you spend all your spare time in your bunk growling at him. Is there anything the matter, feathertop?"

He sounded so concerned, so—the word struck Bart with hysterical humor—so fatherly, that Bart wanted insanely to laugh and to cry. Instead he muttered, "Ringg should mind his own business."

"But it's not like that," Vorongil said. "Look, the Swiftwing's a world, young fellow, and a small one. If one being in that world is unhappy, it affects everyone."

Bart had an absurd, painful impulse—to blurt out the incredible truth to Vorongil, and try to get the old Lhari to understand what he was doing.

But fear held him silent. He was alone, one small human in a ship of Lhari. Vorongil was frowning at him, and Bart mumbled, "It's nothing, rieko mori."

"I suppose you're pining for home," Vorongil said kindly. "Well, it won't be long now."

The glare of the captive sun grew and grew in the ports, and Bart's dread mounted. He had, as yet, had no opportunity to put the radiation counter out of order. It was behind a panel in the drive room, and try as he might, he could think of no way to get to it unobserved. Sometimes, in sleepless nights, it seemed that would be the best way. Just let it go. But then the Lhari would detect Montano's ship, and kill Montano and his men.

Did he believe that? He had to believe it. It was the only way he could possibly justify what he was doing.

And then his chance came, as so many chances do when one no longer wants them. The Second Officer met him at the beginning of one watch, saying worriedly, "Bartol, old Rugel's sick—not fit to be on his feet. Do you think you can hold down this shift alone, if I drop in and give you a hand from time to time?"

"I think so," Bart said, carefully not overemphasizing it. The Second Officer, by routine, spent half of his time in the drive room, and half his time down below in Maintenance. When he left, Bart knew he would have at least half an hour, uninterrupted, in the drive room. He ripped open the panel, located the wires and hesitated; he didn't quite dare to cut them outright.

He jerked one wire loose, frayed the other with a sharp claw until it was almost in shreds and would break with the first surge of current, pulled two more connections loose so that they were not making full contact. He closed the panel and brushed dust over it, and when the Second Officer came back, Bart was at his own station.

As Antares fell toward them in the viewport, he found himself worrying about Mentorians. They would be in cold sleep, presumably in a safe part of the ship, behind shielding, or Montano would have made provisions for them. Still, he wished there were a way to warn Meta.

He was not on watch when they came into the planetary field of Lharillis, but when he came on shift, he knew at once that the trouble had been located. The panel was pulled open, the exposed wires hanging, and Ringg was facing old Rugel, shouting, "Listen, Baldy, I won't have you accusing me of going light on my work! I checked those panels eight days ago! Tell me who's going to be opening the panels in here anyhow?"

"No, no," Rugel said patiently, "I'm not accusing you of anything, only being careless, young Ringg. You poke with those buzzing instruments and things, maybe once you tear loose some wires."

Bart remembered he wasn't supposed to know what was going on. "What's this all about?"

It was Rugel who answered. "The radiation counter—the planetary one, not the one we use in space—is out of order. We don't even need it this landing—there's no radiation on Lharillis. If it were the landing gear, now, that would be serious. I'm just trying to tell Ringg—"

"He's trying to say I didn't check it." Ringg was not to be calmed. "It's my professional competence—"

"Forget it," Bart said. "If Rugel isn't sore about it, and if we don't need it for landing, why worry?" He felt like Judas.

"Just take a look at my daybook," Ringg insisted, "I checked and marked it service fit! I tell you, somebody was blundering around, opening panels where they had no business, tore it out by accident, then was too much of a filthy sneak to report it and get it fixed!"

"Bartol was on watch alone one night," said the Second Officer, "but you wouldn't meddle with panels, would you, Bartol?"

Bart set his teeth, steadying his breathing, as Ringg turned hopefully to him. "Bartol, did you—by mistake, maybe? Because if you did, it won't count against your rating, but it means a black mark against mine!"

Bart hid his self-contempt in sudden, tense fury. "No, I didn't! You're going to accuse everybody on the Swiftwing, all the way from me to Vorongil, before you can admit a mistake, aren't you? If you want somebody to blame, look in a mirror!"

"Listen, you!" Ringg's pent-up rage exploded. He seized Bart by the shoulder and Bart moved to throw him off, so that Ringg's outthrust claws raked only his forearm. In pure reflex he felt his own claws flick out; they clinched, closed, scuffled, and he felt his claws rake flesh; half incredulous, saw the thin red line of blood welling from Ringg's cheek.

Then Rugel's arms were flung restrainingly around him, and the Second Officer was wrestling with a furious, struggling Ringg. Bart looked at his red-tipped claws in ill-concealed horror, but it was lost in a general gasp of consternation, for Vorongil had flung the drive room door open, taking in the scene in one blistering glance.

"What's going on down here?"

For the first time, Bart understood Vorongil's reputation as a tyrant. One glance at Ringg's bleeding face and Bart's ripped forearm, and he did not pause for breath for a good fifteen minutes. By the time he finished, Bart felt he would rather Ringg's claws had laid him bleeding to the bone than stand there in the naked contempt of the old Lhari's freezing eyes.

"Half-fledged nestlings trying to do a man's work! So someone forgot the panel, or damaged the panel by mistake—no, not another word," he commanded, as Ringg's crest came proudly up. "I don't care who did what! Any more of this, and the one who does it can try his claws on the captain of the Swiftwing!" He looked ugly and dangerous. "I thought better of you both. Get below, you squalling kittens! Let me not see your faces again before we land!"

As they went along the corridor, Ringg turned to Bart, apology and chagrin in his eyes. "Look—I never meant to get the Bald One down on us," he said, but Bart kept his face resolutely averted. It was easier this way, without pretense of friendship.

The light from the small captive sun grew more intense. Bart had never known anything like it, and was glad to slip away and put the dark contact lenses into his eyes. They made his eyes appear all enormous, dilated pupil; fearfully, he hoped no one would notice. His arm smarted, and he did not speak to Ringg all through the long, slow deceleration.

When the intercom ordered all crew members to the hatchway, Bart lingered a minute, pinning the yellow radiation badge in a fold of his cloak. A spasm of fear threatened to overwhelm him again, and nightmarish loneliness. He felt agonizingly homesick for his own familiar face. It seemed almost more than he could manage, to step out into the corridor full of Lhari.

It won't be long now.

The hatch opened. Even accustomed, as he was, to Lhari lights, Bart squeezed his eyes shut at the blue-white brilliance that assaulted him now. Then, opening slitted lids cautiously, he found that he could see.

A weirdly desolate scene stretched away before them. Bare, burning sand, strewn with curiously colored rocks, lay piled in strange chaos; then he realized there was an odd, but perceptible geometry to their arrangement. They showed alternate crystal and opaque faces. Old Rugel noted his look of surprise.

"Never been here before? That's right, you've always worked on the Polaris run. Well, those aren't true rocks, but living creatures of a sort. The crystals are alive; the opaque faces are lichens that have something like chlorophyll and can make their food from air and sunlight. The rocks and lichens live in symbiosis. They have intelligence of a sort, but fortunately they don't mind us, or our automatic mining machinery. Every time, though, we find some new lichen that's trying to set up a symbiote cycle with the concrete of our bunkers."

"And every time," Ringg said cheerfully, "somebody—usually me—has to see about having them scraped down and repainted. Maybe someday I'll find a paint the lichens don't like the taste of."

"Going to explore with Ringg?" Rugel asked, and Ringg, always ready to let bygones be bygones, grinned and said, "Sure!" Bart could not face him.

Vorongil stopped and said, "This your first time here, young Bartol? How would you like to visit the monument with me? You can see the machinery on the way back."

Relieved at not having to go with Ringg, he followed the captain, falling into step beside him. They moved in silence, along the smooth stone path.

"The crystal creatures made this road," Vorongil said at last. "I think they read minds a little. There used to be a very messy, rocky desert here, and we used to have to scrabble and scratch our way to the monument. Then one day a ship—not mine—touched down and discovered that there was a beautiful smooth road leading up to the monument. And the lichens never touch that stone—but you probably had all this in school. Excited, Bartol?"

"No—no, sir. Why?"

"Eyes look a bit odd. But who could blame you for being excited? I never come here without remembering Rhazon and his crew on that long jump. The longest any Lhari captain ever made. A blind leap in the dark, remember, Bartol. Through the dark, through the void, with his own crew cursing him for taking the chance! No one had ever crossed between galaxies—and remember, they were using the Ancient Math!"

He paused, and Bart said through a catch of breath. "Quite an achievement." His badge still looked reassuringly yellow.

"You young people have no sense of wonder," Vorongil said. "Not that I blame you. You can't realize what it was like in those days. Oh, we'd had star-travel for centuries, we were beginning to stagnate. And now look at us! Oh, they derided Rhazon—said that even if he did find anyone, any other race, they'd be monsters with whom we could never communicate. But here we have a whole new galaxy for peaceful trade, a new mathematics that takes all the hazard out of space travel, our Mentorian friends and allies." He smiled. "Don't tell the High Council on me, but I think they deserve a lot more credit than most Lhari care to give them. Between ourselves, I think the next Panarch may see it that way."

Vorongil paused. "Here's the monument."

It lay between the crystal columns, tall, of pale blue sandstone, with letters in deep shadow of such contrast that the Lhari could read them: a high, sheer, imposing stele. Vorongil read the words slowly aloud in the musical Lhari language:

"'Here, with thanks to Those who Watch the Great Night, I, Rhazon of Nedrun, raise a stone of memory. Here we first do touch the new worlds. Let us never again fear to face the unknown, trusting that the Mind of All Knowledge still has many surprises in store for all the living.'

"I think I admire courage more than anything there is, Bartol. Who else could have dared it? Doesn't it make you proud to be a Lhari?"

Bart had felt profoundly moved; now he snapped back to awareness of who he was and what he was doing. So only the Lhari had courage? Life has surprises, all right, Captain, he thought grimly.

He glanced down at the badge strip of plastic on his arm. It began to tinge faint orange as he looked, and a chill of fear went over him. He had to get away somehow—get to cover!

He looked round and his fear was almost driven from his mind. "Captain, the rocks! They're moving!"

Vorongil said, unruffled, "Why, so they are. They do, you know; they have intelligence of a sort. Though I've never actually seen them move before, I know they shift places overnight. I wonder what's going on?" They were edging back, the path widening and changing. "Oh, well, maybe they're going to do some more landscaping for us. I once knew a captain who swore they could read his mind."

Bart saw the slow, inexorable deepening of his badge—he had to get away. He tensed, impatient; gripped by fists of panic. Somewhere on this world, Montano and his men were setting up their lethal radiations....

Think of this: a Lhari ship of our own to study, to know how it works, to see the catalyst and find out where it comes from, to read their records and star routes. Now we know we can use it without dying in the warp-drive....

Think of this: to be human again, yet to travel the stars with men of my own race!

It's worth a few deaths!

Even Vorongil? Standing here, talking to him, he might—say it! You talked to him as if he'd been your father! Oh, Dad, Dad, what would you do?

His voice was steady, as he said, "It's very good of you to show me all this, sir, but the other men will call me a slacker. Hadn't I better get to a work detail?"

"Hm, maybe so, feathertop," Vorongil said. "Let me see—well, down this way is the last row of bunkers. See the humps? You can check inside to see if they're full or empty and save us the trouble of exploring if they're all empty. Have a look round inside if you care to—the robot machinery's interesting."

Bart tensed; he had wondered how he'd get hidden inside, but he asked, "Not locked?"

"Locked?" The old Lhari's short, yellowed crest bobbed in surprise. "Why? Who ever comes here but our ships? And what could we do with the stuff but take it back with us? Why locked? You've been on the drift too long—among those thieving humans! It's time you got back to live among decent folk again. Well, go along."

The sting of the words stiffened Bart as he took his leave. The color of the badge seemed deeper orange....

When it's red, you're dead.

It's true. The Lhari don't steal. They don't even seem to understand dishonesty.

But they lied—lied to us all....

Knowing what we were like, maybe! That we'd steal their ships, their secrets, their lives!

The deepening color of the badge seemed the one visible thing in a strange glaring world. He walked along the row of bunkers, realizing he need not check if they were full or empty—the Lhari wouldn't live long enough to harvest their better-than-graphite lubricant. They'd be dead.

The last bunker was empty. He looked at his orange badge and stepped inside, heart pounding so loudly he thought it was an external sound—it was an external sound, a step.

"Don't move one inch," said a voice in Universal, and Bart froze, trembling. He looked cautiously round.

Montano stood there, spacesuited, his head bare, dark contact lenses blurring his eyes. And in his hand a drawn blaster was held level—trained straight at Bart's heart.

After the first moment of panic, Bart realized Montano could not tell him from a Lhari. He remained motionless. "It's me, Montano—Bart Steele."

The man lowered the weapon and put it away. "You nearly got yourself cut down," he said. "Did you make it all right?" He crossed behind Bart, inspecting the fastenings of the bunker.

"It's just luck I didn't shoot you first and ask questions afterward." Montano drew a deep breath and sat down on the concrete floor. "Anyway, we're safe in here. We've got about half an hour before the radiation will reach lethal intensity. It has a very short half-life, though; only about twelve minutes. If we spend an hour in here, we'll be safe enough. Did you have any trouble putting the radiation counter out of commission?"

So in half an hour they would all be dead. Ringg, Rugel, Captain Vorongil. Two dozen Lhari, all dead so that Montano could have a Lhari ship to play with.

And what then? More killing, more murder? Would Montano start killing everyone who tried to get the secret of the drive from him? The Lhari had the star-drive; maybe it belonged to them, maybe not. Maybe humans had a right to have it, too. But this wasn't the right way. Maybe they didn't deserve it.

He turned to look at Montano. The man was leaning back, whistling softly through his teeth. He felt like telling Montano that he couldn't go through with it. He started to speak, then stopped, his blood icing over.

If I try to argue with him, I'll never get out of here alive. It means too much to him.

Do I just salve my conscience with that then? Sit here and let them die?

With a shock of remembrance, it came to Bart that he had a weapon. He was armed, this time, with the energon-beam that was part of his uniform. Montano had evidently forgotten it. Could he kill Montano? Even to save two dozen Lhari?

He reached hesitantly toward the beam-gun, quickly thumbed the catch down to the lowest point, which was simple shock. He froze as Montano looked in his direction, hand out of sight under his cloak.

"How many Lhari on board?"

"Twenty-three, and three Mentorians."

"Anyone apt to be behind shielding—say, in the drive chamber?"

"No, I think they're all outside."

Montano nodded, idly. "Then we won't have to worry."

Bart slipped his hand toward his weapon. Montano saw the movement, cocked his head in question; then, as understanding flashed over his face, his hand darted to his own gun. But Bart had pressed the charge of his, and Montano slumped over without a cry. He looked so limp that Bart gasped. Was he dead? Hastily he fumbled the lax hand for a pulse. After a long, endless moment he saw Montano's chest twitch and knew the man was breathing.

Well, Montano would be safe here in the bunker. Hastily, Bart looked at his timepiece. Half an hour before the radiation was lethal—for the Lhari. Was it already, for him? Shakily, he unfastened the door. He ran out into the glare, seeing as he ran that his badge was tinged with an ever-darkening, gold, orange....

Montano had said there was a safety margin, but maybe he was wrong, maybe all Bart would accomplish would be his own death! He ran back along the line of bunkers, his heart pounding with his racing feet. Two crewmen came along the line, young white-crested Lhari from the other watch. He gasped, "Where is the captain?"

"Down that way—what's wrong, Bartol?" But Bart was gone, his muscles aching with the unaccustomed effort inside gravity. Putting on speed, he saw the tall, austere shape of Vorongil, his banded cloak dark against the glaring light. Vorongil turned, startled, at the sound of his running feet.

Suddenly, Bart realized that he was still holding his energon-ray. In shock and revulsion, he dropped it at Vorongil's feet.

"Captain, go warn the men! They'll all be dead in half an hour! There are lethal radiations—"

"What? Are you sunstruck?"

Bart stopped cold. Never once had it crossed his mind what he would say to Vorongil or how he would make the captain believe his story, without revealing Montano. He started to hold up his badge, realized the Lhari captain could not see color, and dropped it again, while Vorongil bent over to pick up the fallen gun. "Are you sunstruck or mad, Bartol? What's this babble?"

"Captain, everybody on the Swiftwing—"

"And speak Lhari!" Vorongil demanded, and Bart realized that in his excitement he had been shouting in Universal. He drew a long, deep breath.

"Captain, there are lethal radiations being released here," he said. "You have just barely half an hour to gather all the men and get them behind shielding."

"The radiation counter is out of order," Vorongil remarked, unruffled. "How can you possibly know—"

Bart stood in despair. Could he say, A ship has landed here? Could he say, Check that bunker? Even if Montano was a would-be murderer, he was human, and Bart could not betray him to the Lhari. There had been too much betrayal. His voice rose in sudden hysteria.

"Captain, there's no time! I tell you, you'll all be dead if you don't believe me! Get the men into the ship! Get them behind shielding and then check my story! I'm not—" he had gone this far, he might as well go the whole way—"I'm not a Lhari!"

"What?"

One of the crewmen came dashing up, his crest sweat-streaked. "Captain! Rugel has collapsed! We don't know what's wrong with him."

"Radiation sickness," said Bart, and Vorongil reached out, catching his shoulder in a cruel taloned grip. Bart said desperately "I'm not a Lhari! I signed on in disguise—I knew they meant to take the ship, but I can't let you all die.

"How can I make you believe me? Here—" In desperation, Bart reached up. Pain stabbed his eyeballs, fierce, blinding, as he pulled out one of the contact lenses. He could not see the captain's face through the light, but suddenly two Lhari were holding his arms. The fear of death was on Bart, but it no longer mattered. He saw through watering eyes the ever-deepening orange of the badge disappearing.

"Here," he said, tearing at it, "radiation. You must be able to see how dark it is. Even if it's just darkness...."

Suddenly Vorongil was shouting, but Bart could not hear. Two men were dragging him along. They hustled him up the ramp of the ship. He could see again, but his eyes were blurred, and he felt sick, colors spinning before his eyes, a nauseated ringing in his head.

At first he thought it was his ears ringing; then he made out the rising, shrieking wail and fall of the emergency siren, steps running, shouting voices, the slow clang of the doors. Someone was pushing at him, babbling words in Lhari, but he heard them through an ever-increasing distance: Vorongil's face bent over his, only a blurred crimson blob that flashed away like a vanishing star in the viewport. It flamed out into green darkness, vanished, and Bart fell through what seemed to be a bottomless chasm of starless night.

When he woke, acceleration had its crushing hand on his chest. He tried to move, discovered that he was strapped hard into a bunk, and fainted again.

Suddenly the pressure was gone and he was lying at ease on the smooth sheets of a hospital bunk. His eyes were covered with a light bandage, and there was a sharp pain in his left arm. He tried to move it and found it was tied down.

"I think he's coming round," said Vorongil's voice.

"Yes, and a lot too soon for me," said a bitter voice which Bart recognized as that of the ship's medic. "Freak!"

"Listen, Baldy," said Vorongil, "whoever he is, he could have been blinded or killed. You wouldn't be alive now if it wasn't for that freak, as you call him. Bartol, can you hear me? How much light can your eyes stand?"

"As much as any Mentorian." Bart found he could move his right arm, and twitched the bandage away. Vorongil and the medic stood over him; in the other infirmary bunk a form was lying, covered with a white sheet. Sickly, Bart wondered if they had found Montano. Vorongil followed the direction of his eyes.

"Yes," he said, and his voice held deep bitterness, "poor old Rugel is dead. He didn't get much of the radiation, but his heart wouldn't stand it, and gave out." He bowed his head. "He was bald in the service of the ships when my crest was new-sprouted," he said in deep grief.

Bart felt the shock of that, even through his own fear. He looked down at his left arm. It was strapped to a splint, and fluid was dripping slowly into the vein there.

Vorongil nodded. "I expect you feel pretty sick. You got a good dose of radiation yourself, but we've given you a couple of transfusions—one of the Mentorians matched your blood type, fortunately. It was a close call."