“You’ve explained nothing,” she said, coldly, and from a distance. “I’ve heard nothing but a mountain of lies, lies, lies, about a man whose boots you aren’t fit to clean. Now, will you get out, or do I have to call the hotel guard?”

“You don’t believe—?” He stared at her, wide-eyed.

“Get out.” She turned her back on him. Like a man in a daze, he turned himself and walked blindly to the door and numbly out into the corridor. Still walking, he shook his head, like a person who finds himself in a bad dream and unable to wake up.

What was this curse upon him? She had not been lying—she was not capable of doing so successfully. She had really heard his explanation and —it had meant nothing to her. It was all so obvious, so plain—the machinations of William, the stupidity of Killien. And she had not seen it when Donal pointed it out to her. She, of all people, a Select of Kultis! Why? Why? Why?

Scourged by the devils of selfdoubt and loneliness, Donal moved off down the corridor, back in the direction of Galt’s hotel.

AIDE-DE-CAMP

They met in the office of Marshal Galt, in his Freiland home; and the enormous expanse of floor and the high vaulted ceiling dwarfed them as they stood three men around a bare desk.

“Captain Lludrow, this is my Aide, Commandant Donal Graeme,” said Galt, brusquely. “Donal, this is Russ Lludrow, Patrol Chief of my Blue Patrol.”

“Honored, sir,” said Donal, inclining his head.

“Pleased to meet you, Graeme,” answered Lludrow. He was a fairly short, compact man in his early forties, very dark of skin and eye.

“You’ll trust Donal with all staff information,” said Galt. “Now, what’s your reconnaissance and intelligence picture?”

“There’s no doubt about it, they’re planning an expeditionary landing on Oriente.” Lludrow turned toward the desk and pressed buttons on the map keyboard. The top of the desk cleared to transparency and they looked through at a non-scale map of the Sirian system. “Here we are,” he said, stabbing his finger at the world of Freiland, “Here’s New Earth”—his finger moved to Freiland’s sister planet—”and here’s Oriente”—his finger skipped to a smaller world inward toward the sun— “in the positions they’ll be in, relative to one another twelve days from now. You see, we’ll have the sun between the two of us and also almost between each of our worlds and Oriente. They couldn’t have picked a more favorable tactical position.”