Beyond The Farthest Star

Foreword

Naturally, my imagination has been constantly intrigued by speculation as to the fate of Tangor, since his unseen, perhaps ghostly, fingers typed the story of his advent upon Poloda, that mysterious planet some 450,000 light years from Earth; typed them upon my own machine one midnight while I sat amazed, incredulous, and fascinated, with my hands folded in my lap.

His story told of his death behind the German lines in September, 1959, when he was shot down in a battle with three Messerschmitts, and of how he had found himself, alive, uninjured, and as naked as the day he was born, in another world.

I hung upon every line that he wrote; his description of the underground city of Orvis with its great buildings that were lowered deep beneath the surface of the ground when the Kapar bombers flew over by thousands to drop their lethal bombs in the great war that has already lasted more than a hundred years.

I followed his adventures after he became a flier in the air corps of Unis, the Polodan country of his adoption. I grieved with him at the bedside of little Harkas Yamoda; and there were tears of relief in my eyes, as there must have been in his, when the surgeons announced that she would live.

And then the last line that he typed: "Listen! The sirens are sounding the general alarm."

That was all. But I have sat before my typewriter at midnight many a night since that last line was typed by unseen hands. I have wondered if Tangor ever came back from the battle to which that general alarm called him, or if he died a second death and, perhaps, a final one.

I had about given up my midnight vigils as useless, when one night recently, shortly before midnight, I was awakened by a hand upon my shoulder. It was a moonlight night. The objects in the room were faintly visible, yet I could see no one. I switched on the reading light at the head of my bed. Other than myself there was no one in the room, or at least no one I could see; and then I heard and saw the space bar of my typewriter moving up and down with something that seemed like a note of urgency.

As I started to get out of bed, I saw a sheet of typewriter paper rise from my desk as though endowed with life and place itself in the typewriter. By the time I reached my desk and sat down before the machine, those ghostly fingers had already started to type the story which you are about to read.

Tangor had returned!

Chapter One

THAT GENERAL ALARM certainly called us to a real battle. The Kapars sent over ten thousand planes, and we met them over the Bay of Hagar with fully twenty thousand. Perhaps a thousand of them got through our lines to drop their bombs over Orvis, those that our pursuit planes did not overtake and shoot down; but we drove the others out over the Karagan Ocean, into which ships plunged by the thousands.

At last they turned and fled for home, but we pursued them all the way to Ergos, flying low over the very city, strafing them as they taxied for their ramps; then we turned back, perhaps ten thousand ships out of the twenty thousand that had flown out to meet the Kapars. We had lost ten thousand ships and perhaps fifty thousand men, but we had practically annihilated the Kapar fleet and had saved Unis from a terrific bombing; and on the way back, we met a few straggling Kapars returning, shooting down every last one of them.

Once more all three of my gunners were killed, while I came through without a scratch. Either I have a charmed life or else, having died once, I cannot' die again.

I saw practically nothing of Harkas Yamoda while she was convalescing, as the doctors had ordered that she have perfect rest; but a flier has to have relaxation, and he has to have girl friends-he sees altogether too much of men while he is on duty, as about half of those he does see are firing rifles or machine guns or cannons at him. It is a nerve-racking business, and the majority of us are always on edge most of the time when we are on the ground. It is a strange thing; but that restlessness and nervousness seem to leave me when I am in the air; and of course when you are in battle, you haven't time to think of such things.

There was a girl working in the office of the Commissioner for War, whom I had seen and talked to many times. She was always exceedingly pleasant to me and as she seemed a nice sort, intelligent and witty, I finally asked her to have dinner with me.

We had a mightily pleasant evening together, and after that I saw a great deal of her when I was off duty. She liked to get me to talk about my own world, way off there so far beyond Canapa.

Once, after we had been going together for some time, Morga Sagra said she couldn't understand why it was I was so loyal to Unis when I hadn't been born there and had no relations, even, on the planet.

"Suppose you had come down in Kapara," she asked, "instead of in Unis?"

I shrugged. "I don't like to think of it," I said; "I am sure that I never could have fought for and been loyal to the Kapars."

"What do you know about them," she asked, "except what we Unisans have told you? and naturally, we are biased. As a matter of fact, I don't think they are a bad sort at all, and their form of government is based upon a much more enduring concept than ours."

"Just what do you mean?" I asked.

"It is based on war," said Morga Sagra, "and war is the natural state of the human race. War is their way of life. They are not always thinking of peace as are we."

"You wouldn't like peace?" I asked.

"No!" she exclaimed, "I should hate it. Think of having to associate with men who never fought. It would be disgusting. If I were a man, I would join the Kapars, for they are going to win the war eventually."

"That is a very dangerous thing to say, Morga Sagra," I told her.

"I'm not afraid to tell you," she said; "you are no Unisan, you owe no more allegiance to Unis than you do to Kapara. Listen, Tangor; don't be stupid. You are an alien here; you have made a good record as a fighter, but what can it get you?-nothing. You will always be an alien, who can do no more than fight for Unis-and probably get killed in the long run."

"Well, and what do you want me to do, stop fighting?"

"No," she said, leaning close to me and whispering; "I want you to go to Kapara and take me with you. You and I could go far there with the Unisan military secrets we could take with us."

I was immeasurably shocked, but I did not let her see it. The little fool was a traitor, and if she had thought that I was greatly shocked by what she had said, she would be afraid that I might turn her in to the authorities. If she would turn against Unis for no reason whatsoever other than a perverted admiration for the Kapars, she certainly wouldn't hesitate to' turn against me if she had reason to fear me. She was right, I am an alien here. Any lie that she could make up might be believed.

"You take me by surprise, Morga Sagra," I said; "I had never thought of such a thing. I don't believe that it could be done; the Kapars would never accept me."

After that she evidently thought that I could be won over easily, for she told me that she had long been in touch with Kapar sympathizers in Orvis and knew two Kapar secret agents well.

"I have discussed this matter with them," she said, "and they have promised me that you and I will be treated like kings of old if we can get to Ergos. That's the capital of Kapara," she added.

"Yes, I know," I told her; "I have been there."

"You have!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, to drop bombs on it. It would be amusing to go there now to live, and have my old comrades in arms dropping bombs on me."

"Then you'll go?" she asked.

"Let me think it over, Morga Sagra," I said; "this is not something that a man can do without thought."

So we left it that way, and the next day I went to the Commissioner for War and told him the whole story, and I didn't have even a single qualm of conscience for betraying Morga Sagra; she was a traitor and she tried to make a traitor of me. While I am on Poloda, Unis will be as dear to me as my own United States of America . I wear the uniform of her fighting force; I have been well treated; my friends are here; they trust me, as do my superiors and my fellow fighters. I could never betray them.

The Commissioner for War is a crusty old fellow, and he almost blew up like one of his own bombs when he learned that a Kapar agent was employed in his department.

"She'll be shot tomorrow!" he exploded, and then he thought a moment and calmed down. "Maybe it would be better to let her live," he said; "maybe we can use her. Come with me."

He took me to the Eljanhai's office and there he had me repeat what I had told him. "It is too bad," said the Eljanhai; "I knew her father well; he was a brave officer. He was killed in battle when she was a little baby. I hate to think of ordering his daughter destroyed, but I suppose there is no other way."

"I have another way," said the Commissioner for War. "I suggest that if Tangor will accept the mission, we let him accede to Morga Sagra's proposition. As you know, the Kapars are supposed to have perfected a power amplifier which will permit them to fly to great distances from Poloda, possibly to other planets. I have heard you say that you wished that we could get the drawings of this new amplifier." He turned to me. "It would be a very dangerous mission, Tangor, and one in which you might not possibly be able to succeed, but there would be a chance, if you were there. What do you say to it?"

"I am in the service of Unis," I said; "whatever you wish me to do, I will do to the best of my ability."

"Excellent," said the Eljanhai, "but do you realize that the chances are about a thousand to one that you will be unsuccessful and that you will never get out of Kapara alive."

"I realize that, sir," I said, "but I take similar chances almost ever day of my life."

"Then it is settled," he said, "let us know when you are ready to go, and every arrangement will be made to facilitate your departure; and, by the way, when you get to Kapara, see if you can get any information as to the fate of one of our most valuable secret agents from whom we have not heard for two years; he is an officer named Handon Gar," and then he described the man very minutely to me, as I could not, of course, inquire about him, and furthermore, he had unquestionably changed his name after he reached Kapara.

The two then gave me certain military information to report to the Kapars, information they were perfectly willing to trade for a chance to get the secret of the amplifier.

I wondered just why they were so anxious to obtain the secret of this power amplifier and so I made bold to ask.

"To be perfectly frank," said the Eljanhai, "Unis is tired of war; and we wish to send an expedition to one of the nearer planets, either Tonos or Antos, to see what conditions are there; and if they are better, eventually to transport all Unisans to one of these planets."

What an amazing and stupendous project, it was staggering even to contemplate-an heroic migration unparalleled in history.

"But if you get the secret," warned the Eljanhai, "you must destroy all copies of the plans you do not bring away with you, and destroy also all those who could reproduce them, so that the Kapars cannot follow. Our sole desire is to find some world free from war, and no world would be free from war if there were Kapars there."

I saw Morga Sagra again that evening. "Well," she asked, "have you made up your mind?"

"Yes," I replied. "I have come to the conclusion that you were right; I owe these people nothing, and if the Kapars are going to win this war, I might as well be on the winning side."

"You are quite right," she said; "you will never regret it. I have made all the necessary arrangements for our entry into Kapara, but the problem of getting out of Unis is for you to solve."

"I will take care of everything," I told her, "and in the meantime I think that we should not be seen together too much. Hold yourself in readiness to leave at any moment; I may call for you tomorrow or the next day."

We parted then and I went out to the Harkases' to bid them good-bye. Yamoda was stronger and had been moved out into the garden, where she lay on a couch in the artificial sunlight which illuminates this underground city. She seemed so genuinely happy to see me that I hated to tell her that I was going away for an indefinite period. We had become such excellent friends that it saddened us both to realize that we might not see one another again for a considerable time, and her lip trembled when I told her that I had come to say good-bye. She seemed to sense that this was more than an ordinary parting to which the women of Unis are so accustomed.

"How long will you be gone?" she asked.

"I have no idea," I replied.

"Then I suppose that you can't tell me where you are going, either."

"No, I can't," I replied; "about all I can tell you is that it is a secret mission."

She nodded and placed her hand on mine. "You will be careful of yourself, won't you, Tangor?" she asked.

"Yes, Yamoda, I will be careful; and I will try to get back as quickly as possible, for I shall miss you very much."

"You have been doing very well without me lately," she said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye; "is she such very good company?"

"She is better than nobody," I replied, "and I get terribly lonesome when I can't come out here."

"I don't believe I know her," she said; "she does not go with the same people I do."

I thought I noticed just a trace of contemptuousness in that speech, something quite unlike Yamoda. "I have never met any of her friends," I said. Just then Yamoda's mother came into the garden, and we talked of other things. They insisted on my staying to dinner.

When I left, later in the evening, it was very hard for me to say good-bye to them all, for the Harkases are my best friends in Unis, and Don and Yamoda are just like brother and sister to me; in fact their mother calls me her other son.

Chapter Two

EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I called on the Commissioner for War, and told him that I planned on leaving that day. I explained in detail the procedure I wished to follow to get Morga Sagra out of Orvis, and he told me that everything would be arranged in accordance with my plans. He then gave me a sheaf of military documents which I was to turn over to the Kapars as proof of my good faith and of my potential value to them.

"You will need something to meet expenses while you are there," he said, and he handed me a heavy leather pouch. "As there is no longer any monetary medium of international exchange," he continued, "you will have to do the best you can with the contents of this pouch, which contains gold and precious stones. I shall immediately instruct your squadron commander that you have been ordered to make a reconnaissance flight alone and that the mission is a secret one, he is to see that no one is in the hangar between the third and fourth hours after noon, as it is my wish that no one sees you depart. During that time, you can smuggle in your co-conspirator; and now good-bye, my boy, and good luck. The chances are that I shall never see you again, but I shall remember you as one who died gloriously for the honour and glory of Unis."

That sounded altogether too much like an obituary, and I went away thinking of the little white cross somewhere in the Rhine valley. If what I had been told about the Kapars were true, I would have no little white cross there, as my body would be shipped off to serve as food for some of their subjugated peoples working in slavery for them.

I called on Sagra at the third hour after noon. "Everything is arranged," I told her, "and we shall be on our way within the hour."

She had not smiled as she usually did when we met, and I noticed a certain constraint in her manner. Finally the cause of it came out, as she blurted, "What were you doing in conference with the Commissioner for War this morning?"

"How did you think I was going to get out of Orvis?" I demanded. "I had to work on the old chap a long time to get him to order me to make a reconnaissance flight alone."

"I'm sorry," she said, "but this is dangerous business; and when one's life is constantly at stake, suspicion becomes almost an obsession.

"I can well understand that," I said; "but if our mission is to be successful, we must trust one another fully."

"I shan't doubt you again," she said, "but right now my nerves are on edge. I am really terrified, for I don't see how you are going to get me out of the city; and if you are caught trying it, we'll both be shot."

"Don't worry," I said; "just do as I tell you."

We went out to my car then, and I had her get in the rear compartment, and when I was sure that no one was looking, I told her to lie down on the floor; then I threw an old robe over her.

I drove directly to the hangar, which I found entirely deserted. I drove as close to my ship as I could and then had Sagra crawl into the gunner's compartment in the belly of the fuselage. A moment later I had taxied up the ramp and taken off.

"Which way?" I asked Sagra, over the communicating system.

"Northwest," she replied. "When can I get out of here? I don't like it down here."

"In just a moment," I replied.

By mutual agreement, Sagra had kept all of the plans covering our flight to Kapara and our entry into that country to herself. My job had been to simply get the military secrets and get us out of Orvis.

A small hatchway in the ceiling of the compartment in which Sagra was led to the rear gunner's cockpit, and when I told her to come up with me, she came through this hatchway and climbed over into the forward cockpit.

"Now," I said, "you can tell me why we are flying northwest if we are going to Kapara, which lies southwest of Unis."

"It's a long way around, I know," she said, "but it's the only way in which we can eventually enter Kapara in a Kapar plane. In this plane and with that uniform of yours, we'd not get far in Kapara; so we are flying to Gorvas first."

Gorvas is a city on the continent of Karis, the farthest removed from the continent of Epris on which Kapara is situated. It is a poor barren continent, and the one least affected by the war, for it possesses nothing that the Kapars want.

After an uneventful flight, we landed at Gorvas. No fighting planes had come up to meet us, and no antiaircraft shells had burst around us, as we had circled above Gorvas before landing; for the people of Karis know they have nothing to fear from Unis, and we received a friendly greeting from some officers at the airport.

Morga Sagra had obtained forged credentials for us, and she had told me that my name hereafter would be Korvan Don, while she would keep her own name which was favourably known to her connections in Ergos, the capital of Kapara.

After leaving the airport, Sagra told the driver of the public conveyance we had hired, to drive to a certain house, the address of which had been given her by a Kapar agent in Orvis.

Gorvas is a poor city, but at least it is not underground, although, as I was told, every building has its bombproof cellar. Occasionally we saw bomb craters, indicating that the Kapars came even here to this far away, barren country, either because the Kerisans were known to be friendly with Unis or just to satisfy their inordinate lust for destruction.

Our driver took us to a poor part of town and stopped before a mean little one-story stone house where we dismissed him. We stood there until he had driven away; then Sagra led the way along the street to the third house, after which she crossed the street to the house directly opposite. It was all quite mysterious, but it showed the care with which everything had been arranged to avoid leaving a well-marked trail.

Approaching the door of this house, which was a little more pretentious than the one before which we had first stopped, Sagra knocked three times in rapid succession, and then twice more at intervals; and after a moment the door was opened by a hard-faced, scowling man.

"What do you want?" he demanded gruffly.

"I am Morga Sagra," replied my companion, "and this is Korvan Don."

"Come in," said the man; "I've been expecting you. Let me see your credentials."

Sagra handed him a perfectly blank piece of paper. I was standing near the man, and when he opened it up, I saw that there was nothing on it.

"Sit down," said the man, and then he went to a desk; and, seating himself there, took what appeared to be a pocket flashlight from one of the drawers and shone its light upon the paper.

The light must have made writing on the paper visible for I could see him passing it back and forth and that his eyes followed it. Presently he got up and handed the paper back to Sagra.

"You will remain here," he said, "while I go and complete arrangements." Then he left us.

"Do you know that fellow's name?" I asked Sagra.

"Yes," she said.

"What is it? Why didn't you introduce me?"

"His name is none of your business," said Sagra. "You must learn not to ask questions, Korvan Don; however, just to satisfy your curiosity, I don't mind telling you that his name is Gompth."

"What a beautiful name," I said, "but as far as I am concerned you needn't have told me what it was. His name doesn't interest me any more than his face."

"Don't say things like that," snapped Sagra. "He is a very important person, and it is not wise to make unpleasant remarks about important persons. Now be sure not to let him know that you know his name, for that is not the name that he goes by here."

I was getting my introduction to the fear and suspicion which hangs like a pall over everything Kaparan. I had said that I did not care whether I knew this man's name or not, for how could I know that one day I should be very glad that I did know it.

In about an hour, Gompth returned. He had brought with him civilian clothing such as is worn by the inhabitants of Karis, and after we had changed into it, he drove us out into the country, where he turned an old Karisan plane over to us.

It was not until Sagra and I were in the plane that he gave us our final instructions, and handed us credentials. He directed us to fly to a city called Pud, on the continent of Auris, and report to a man with the poetic name of Frink.

"What will become of my plane?" I asked him.

"What difference does it make to you?" he demanded.

"It makes a great deal of difference to me," I snapped, for I was getting fed up with all this rudeness and secrecy. "I expect that, unquestionably, I shall be sent on missions to Unis; and if I am, I shall need my plane and my uniform."

He eyed me suspiciously before he replied. "How could you ever return to Unis without being destroyed as a traitor?" he asked.

"Because I used my head before I left Orvis," I replied; "I arranged to be sent out on reconnaissance flight, and I can think of a hundred excuses to explain even a long absence."

"If you ever need your plane or your uniform," he said, "they will be here when you return."

I breathed more freely when we rose into the clear air and left Mr. Gompth behind. His was a most depressing personality. His conversation gave the impression that he was snapping at you like an ill-natured dog, and not once while we were with him had he smiled. I wondered if all the Kapars were like that.

In Pud we found Frink by the same devious means that we had arrived at the house of Gompth, only here there was a slight difference; we were allowed to call Frink by name, because Frink was not his name.

We stayed overnight in Pud; and in the morning, Frink gave us Kapar clothes, and later furnished us with a Kapar plane, a very excellent plane too; and for that I was glad, as I had not been very happy crossing the Voldan Ocean from Karis to Auris in the ancient crate that Gompth had furnished us. Before us lay a flight of some two thousand miles across the Mandan Ocean from Auris to Kapara.

The crossing was monotonous and uneventful, but after we got over Kapara, and were winging toward Ergos, we sighted a squadron of Unisan planes that were doubtless on reconnaissance. I tuned away in an effort to avoid them, but they took after us.

The ship I was piloting was a very swift scouting plane lightly armed. There was a bow gun which I could operate and one gun in an after cockpit, which Morga Sagra could not have operated even had I wished her to. I had no intention of firing on an Unisan plane under any circumstances, and so I turned and ran.

They chased me out across the Mandan Ocean for nearly a thousand miles before they gave up and turned back. I followed, keeping just within sight of them, until they bore to the south with the evident intention of passing around the southern end of the continent of Epris; then I opened the throttle wide and streaked for Ergos.

When we ran down a ramp into the city, we were immediately surrounded by men in green uniforms; and an officer gruffly demanded our credentials. I told him that our instructions were to hand them to Gurrul and then he bundled us into a car, and we were driven off, surrounded by green-clad members of the Zabo, the secret police of Kapara.

Ergos is a large city, sprawling around deep underground. We passed first through a considerable district in which there were indications of the direst poverty.

The buildings were principally flimsy shelters and sometimes only holes in the ground, into which people scurried when they saw the green uniforms of the Zabo. But presently we came to more substantial buildings, which were all identical except in the matter of size. There was not the slightest indication of ornamentation on any of them. The ride was most uninteresting, just one monotonous mile after another until we approached the centre of the city where the buildings suddenly became rococo in their ornateness.

The car stopped before one of the more hideous these buildings, a multi-coloured atrocity, the facade of which was covered with carved figures and designs.

We were hustled out of the car and into the building, and a moment later we were ushered into the office of Gurrul, Chief of the Zabo, the most feared man in all Kapara.

Chapter Three

GURRUL WAS A GROSS MAN with a cruel mouth and close-set eyes. He scrutinized us in silence for a full minute, as though he were trying to read our in-most thoughts. He was really fixing in his mind every detail of our appearance, and he would know us again whenever or wherever he saw us and only the cleverest of disguises could deceive him. It is said of him that Gurrul knows a million people thus, but that seems to me like an exaggeration.

He took our credentials and examined them carefully; then he asked for the military secrets I had brought from Orvis, and when I turned them over to him he glanced through them hurriedly, giving no indication of any great interest in them.

"You flew for the enemy?" he demanded of me.

"Yes," I replied.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I knew no other country than Unis," I explained.

"Why did you turn against the country of your birth?" he asked.

"Unis is not the country of my birth."

"Where were you born?"

"On another planet in another solar system millions of miles from here."

He scowled at me fiercely and pounded his desk until everything on it danced. "You dare stand there and tell me such a lie, you fool!" he cried; "you, a filthy Unisan, dare insult my intelligence thus. Possibly you have never heard of Gurrul, you idiot. If you had, you would have cut your own throat before you came to him with such a story."

"Most high," said Morga Sagra timidly, "I believe that he speaks the truth-everyone in Orvis believes him."

He wheeled on her angrily. "Who told you to speak?" he snapped.

"Forgive me, most high," she said. She was trembling all over, and I was afraid that her knees were going to give away beneath her.

Gurrul turned to one of his lieutenants. "Have them searched and then lock them up," he ordered, and that was the end of our reception in Kapar, where they were going to receive us with open arms and load us with honours.

My gold and jewels were taken from me, and Morga Sagra and I were locked up in a cell in the basement of the Zabo headquarters. Our cell was nothing but an iron cage, and I could see corridor after corridor of them closely packed together, and all of them appeared to have occupants, sometimes six or eight people jammed into a cage scarcely large enough for two.

Most of our fellow prisoners whom I could see sat dejectedly on the stone floor of their cages, their heads bowed upon their chests; but there were others who gibbered and screamed, those whom torture and confinement had driven mad. When the screaming annoyed a guard too much, he would come down to the cage and turn a hose upon the screaming inmate. From the first hour that we were there, for a solid hour, one of the poor creatures screamed incessantly. One guard after another turned the hose on him, but still he screamed. Finally the head keeper came in, an officer covered with gold braid, medals, and brass buttons. He walked up to the maniac's cage and deliberately shot him through the heart. He did it as casually as one might swat a fly, and then he walked away without a backward glance.

"You must be very happy," I said to Morga Sagra.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

"You are in your beloved Kapara at last, surrounded by your dear friends."

"Hush," she cautioned, "someone will hear you."

"Why should I hush?" I asked. "Don't you want them to know how fond you are of them?"

"I am fond of them," she said; "this is all a terrible mistake, but it is your fault—you never should have told that story to Gurrul."

"You wouldn't want me to lie to the most high, would you?"

"You must not use that tone of voice when you speak of anyone here," she whispered; "the first thing you know, you'll get us both beheaded."

We were kept in that vile hole for a week, and almost every waking hour we expected to be taken out and destroyed. Morga Sagra was virtually a nervous wreck when, at last, they did come for us.

Sagra was so weak from fright that the guards had to support her as we were lead along a corridor. Finally one of them said to her, "You have nothing to fear; you are going to be released."

At that Sagra collapsed completely and sat down on the stone floor. The guards laughed and picked her up and practically carried her the rest of the way. They were still carrying her when I was hustled off down another corridor.

They took me from the building through a rear doorway and put me into what looked like a big green moving van. It was so filled with humanity that they had to push me in and then slammed the doors on me quickly before I fell out. There was an iron barred window in front, and a guard with a rifle in his hand sat facing it.

As soon as the doors were closed and locked, the truck started off, the human load swaying to and fro, trampling on each others toes and cursing beneath its breath. That was a ride to be long remembered for its discomforts.

The heat from the men's bodies became absolutely oppressive, and the air so foul that one could scarcely breathe.

The vehicle moved at a high rate of speed. How long we were in it, I do not know; but I should imagine about two hours, because it seemed like ten; but at last it stopped and turned around and was backed up to stop again. Then the doors were opened, and we were ordered out.

I saw before me a very large enclosure, surrounded by a high wire fence. There were open sheds along two sides. There were several hundred men in the enclosure, and they were all dressed alike in black clothes with big white numbers across the front and back. I didn't have to be told that I was in a prison camp.

There was sort of an office by the gate where we were taken from the truck, and here our names were entered in a book and we were given prison uniforms and numbers. Then we were ordered into the enclosure with the other prisoners. They were a filthy, emaciated lot with the most hopeless expressions I have ever seen on human faces. When I had been taken from my cell, I had felt that I was going to be beheaded, but I could conceive that this was infinitely worse.

I had asked the officer who had checked us in why I was being imprisoned and for how long, but he had just told me to shut up and speak only when I was spoken to.

This was a work camp, and when I say work that doesn't half describe it. We were usually employed on the hardest kind of manual labour for sixteen hours a day. There was one day of rest in every ten; it had been upon one of the rest days that I had arrived. There were both men and women in the camp, and they came from nearly every country of Poloda. We were treated just like animals, the prison clothes they gave us had to last a year; and we only had the one suit in which we worked and slept. Most of the men, and women too, were in nothing but rags. The food that was given us was indescribable. It was thrown into troughs twice a day just as food is given to hogs. Men and women both were insulted, beaten, kicked, often killed. We were not allowed to use names even among ourselves-just our numbers.

Day and night, guards patrolled just outside the wire fence; and if they saw prisoners talking, they yelled at them to stop and sometimes they came inside and beat them. Nevertheless we did talk, for it was hard to stop us after dark; and finally I made a few friends.

There was one who said that he came from Orvis, with whom I became quite friendly, although I knew it was dangerous, as the Kapars planted many spies in these camps. Finally, however, I came to the conclusion that this Tunzo Bor was all right, and so I asked him if he knew a man named Handon Gar.

Immediately he was all suspicion. "No," he said, "I don't know anyone by that name. Why do you ask?"

"I have a message for him," I replied.

"From whom?" he asked.

"From a friend in Orvis."

"Well, I don't know any Handon Gar," he insisted, "and if he is here you may rest assured he is not known by that name."

"I suppose not," I said, "but I certainly wish that I could find him, as I should like to deliver my message."

I was sure that he was lying and that he did know Handon Gar and that it was quite possible that the man might be in this very camp, but I saw that it was useless to pursue the question further as it would only make Tunzo Bor all the more suspicious of me.

We were worked very hard and were underfed. It seemed to me that the Kapars were very stupid; they need labour, yet they treat the men in labour camps so badly that the mortality rate is much higher than necessary. I noticed that the Kapars are always pressed for food, but they are extremely short-sighted to beat men to death for nothing or overwork them so they drop in their tracks, when these same men might be producing more food for them.

The lot of the free workers is a little better, but not much; they are serfs, but they are not locked up in prison camps. However, they are overworked and treated cruelly, although many of them are native Kapars as well as peoples of conquered countries. The soldiers fare much better than the workers, and the members of the Zabo live well, for everyone is afraid of them; even the army officers and those highly placed politically live little better, though they live off the fat of the land, if there is any fat in Kapara.

After a week of hard labour and poor food, I was given an easy job, working in the garden of the officer in charge of the camp. An armed guard always accompanied me and remained with me while I worked. He did not abuse me, nor did any of the guards in the prison compound. I was even given good food occasionally from the officer's kitchen. I could not understand it, but I was afraid to ask any questions, but finally the guard himself volunteered some information.

"Who are you, anyway?" he demanded.

"I am No. 267M9436," I replied.

"No," he said; "I mean what is your name?"

"I thought we weren't supposed to use any names," I reminded him.

"If I tell you to, you can," he said.

"Well, my name is Korvan Don," I replied.

"Where are you from?"

"Orvis."

He shook his head. "I can't understand it," he said.

"Understand what?" I asked.

"Why orders have been given that you shall be treated so much better than the other prisoners," he explained; "and they come straight from Gurrul, too."

"I'm sure I don't know," I replied, but I had an idea that it might be because Gurrul was still investigating me and might be coming to the conclusion that I could be of value to the Kapars. I knew perfectly well that I wasn't being treated this way because of any humanitarian reasons.

Chapter Four

WHEN THE SKY IS NOT OVERCAST, the Polodan nights are gorgeous in the extreme. There is a constant procession of planets passing across the heavens, following each other in stately procession throughout the night; and thus clear nights are quite well lighted, especially by the nearer planets.

It was on such a clear night, about three weeks after I had been brought to the prison camp, that a fellow prisoner came close to me and whispered, "I am Handon Gar."

I scrutinized him very closely to see if I could recognize him from the description given me by the Commissioner for War.

This man was terribly emaciated and looked like an old man, but gradually I recognized him. He must have been subjected to the cruellest of treatment during the two years that he had been here.

"Yes," I said presently, "I recognize you."

"How can you recognize me?" he demanded, instantly suspicious; "I do not know you, and you never knew me. Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I recognized you from the description given me by the Commissioner for War," I explained. "I know that you are Handon Gar, and that I can trust you. My name is Tangor; I am know here as Korvan Don. I was sent here on a mission by the Eljanhai and the Commissioner for War," I continued in a low whisper, "and was instructed to ascertain what your fate had been."

He smiled sourly. "And now you are in the same boat as I; I'm afraid they'll never learn what became of either of us."

"Is Tunzo Bor all right?" I asked.

"Yes, but he suspected you. However, I did too, but I couldn't see how I could be any worse off if I told you my name. I do not recall ever having heard yours. Where did you live in Unis, and what did you do?"

"I lived in Orvis and was a pilot in the fighting service."

"It is strange that I never met you," he said, and I could see that he was becoming suspicious again.

"It is not so strange," I said; "I am sure that I know only a very few of the thousands of pilots in the service; one could not know them all. Do you know Harkas Don?"

"Yes, indeed, very well," he replied

"He is my best friend," I said.

He was silent for some time, and then he said, "How are Don's brothers?"

"He hasn't any," I replied; "they have all been killed in the war."

"And his sisters?" he asked.

"He only has one sister," I replied; "Yamoda. I saw her the night before I left. She had had an accident, but she is all right now."

"Well," he said, "if you know these people so intimately, you must be all right. You know we have to be careful here."

"Yes, I understand," I replied.

Again he was silent for a few moments, and then he leaned closer to me and whispered, "We are going to make a break in a few days; Tunzo Bor and I and a couple of others. We have it all planned. Do you want to come along?"

"I can't," I replied; "I haven't fulfilled my mission yet."

"You can't fulfil it while you're in a work camp," he said, "and you'll never get out. You might just as well make a break with us. If we get back to Orvis, I'll explain to the Eljanhai that I advised you to escape while there was a chance."

"No, thanks," I replied, "I shall get out of here."

"You seem very sure," he said, and I noticed that he looked at me peculiarly, and I had a feeling that he already regretted telling me what he had. I was about to try to reassure him, when a guard ordered us to stop talking.

A couple of days later, which was a rest day, a guard called to me to come over to the wire fence, and there I found Morga Sagra awaiting me. It was quite unusual for prisoners to be allowed to have visitors, and I could see that it aroused a great deal of interest and comment in the compound.

"I have been working hard for your release," she told me in a whisper, "but Gurrul is still unconvinced. If you have heard of anything suspicious here-anything the Zabo would like to know of you will report it, it will prove that you are all right, and it will be much easier to get you out."

"I have heard nothing," I said; "we are not allowed to do much talking, and anyway, everyone here is suspicious of everyone else."

"Well, keep your ears open, though I think that I'll soon have you out anyway. The thing that has Gurrul guessing is your appearance; you know, you don't look much like a native of any Polodan country; and so he is commencing to think that your story of your origin may be true."

"How are you getting along?" I asked her.

"All right," she said. "I have a nice apartment, and they are treating me all right, but I am always being watched; however, it is a grand place to live; these are real people; they live for war-a great race, a noble race.

"And a very hospitable people," I said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Be careful, Korvan Don," she said. "You can go too far even with me. Remember that I am a Kapar now."

I laughed. "You always insist on putting the wrong interpretation on things I say, Sagra."

"I hope so," she snapped.

Shortly after she left, Handon Gar approached me. "You'll get out all right, you damn cur," he whispered under his breath. "I know that woman, I always thought that she was a traitor. I suppose that you told her all about the plan Tunzo Bor and I have to escape."

Once again a guard interrupted and made us stop talking before I could explain. But could I explain? I was sorry flat he believed as he did; but there was nothing that I could do about it, for I could not tell even him all the details of my mission.

And then, the very next day, his suspicions must have been definitely confirmed, as a messenger came from Gurrul with an order for my immediate release; and to make it appear all the worse, Morga Sagra accompanied the messenger and threw her arms around me.

I was taken by underground railway to Ergos and immediately to Gurrul's office in the headquarter's building of the Zabo. He talked to me for about half an hour, asking me many questions concerning the other world and solar system from which I said I came.

"You certainly are no Polodan," he said, "there never was a human being like you, but I don't see how you could have been transported from another solar system."

"Neither do I," I admitted, "but there are many things in the universe that none of us understand."

"Well, Morga Sagra has vouched for you, and I am taking her word for it," he said; then he told me that quarters had been reserved for me, and that he would send a man with me to show me where they were located. "I think I can use you later on," he said; "so hold yourself in readiness. Do not leave your quarters without leaving word where you are going and never leave the city without my permission;" then he called into the room the man who was to show me to my quarters and dismissed me.

I knew that he was still suspicious of me, but that was not at all surprising as the secret police are always suspicious of everybody and everything. However, when I whispered to him some of the military secrets I had been ordered by the Eljanhai to give him orally, his attitude changed a little; and he was almost amiable as he bid me goodbye.

When I reached my new quarters, the door was opened by a rather nice looking chap in the livery of a servant.

"This is your master, Korvan Don," said the green-uniformed Zabo agent who accompanied me.

The man bowed. "My name is Lotar Canl, sir," he said; "I hope that I shall be able to satisfy you."

Morga Sagra's apartment was in the same building as mine; and almost immediately we commenced to be invited out and entertained, but I had the feeling that we were being constantly watched. Well, so is everyone in Kapara. The entire nation lives in an atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion. The army fears the Zabo, the Zabo hates the army; everyone fears the five top men of the regime, each of whom fears the others. The head of the nation is called the Pom Da, literally the Great I. The present Pom Da has ruled for ten years. I suppose he had a name once, but it is never used; he is just the Great I, a cruel and cunning monster who has ordered many of his best friends and closest relatives destroyed.

Morga Sagra is a most sagacious girl; she was cut out by nature for intrigue, treason, and espionage. She thinks far ahead and lays her plans accordingly.

Everywhere that she went, she told people that I was from another world. She did this not so much to attract attention to me, but to help convince the Kapars that I had no ties in Unis and no reason to be loyal to that country. She wanted them to understand that I would be no traitor to Kapara, and eventually her plan bore fruit-the Great I sent for me.

Lotar Canl, my man, was evidently greatly impressed when he gave me the message. "You can go very far in Kapara, sir," he said, "if the Pom Da becomes interested in you; I am very proud to serve you, sir."

I already knew that I might go far if the Pom Da noticed me, but in what direction I was not certain-the paths of glory sometimes lead but to the grave.

Chapter Five

WHEN I REACHED THE ORNATE BUILDING which houses the head of Kapara, I was first carefully searched for concealed weapons and then escorted by two heavily armed guards to a room presided over by a grim, elaborately uniformed and decorated official. Here I waited for about half an hour, my two guards sticking close to me; then the door at the far end of the room opened, and another officer appeared and called my name.

The guards arose with me and escorted me to the door of an enormous chamber, at the far end of which a man sat behind a huge desk. The guards were dismissed at the doorway and told to wait, and two officers took their places and escorted me the length of the room into the presence of the Pom Da.

He is not a large man, and I think that he appears even smaller than he is because of his very evident nervousness, fear, and suspicion.

He just sat and eyed me for what must have been a full minute before he spoke. His expression was venomous, seeming to reflect the deepest hatred; but I was to learn later that this expression was not reserved for anyone in particular; it was almost habitual with him, and this is understandable because his whole ideology is based on hate.

"So you are Korvan Don, the traitor?" he shot at me.

"I am no traitor," I said.

One of the officers seized me roughly by the arm. "When you address the Pom Da," he shouted angrily, "always refer to him as the Highest Most High."

"You are betraying Unis," said the Pom Da, ignoring the interruption.

"Unis is not my country-Highest Most High."

"You claim to be from another world-from another solar system. Is that right?"

"Yes, Highest Most High," I replied.

"One Highest Most High in a conversation is sufficient," snapped the officer on my other side. I was learning Kaparan high etiquette the hard way.

The Pom Da questioned me for some time about the Earth and our solar system and how I could know how far away it was from Poloda. I explained everything to him to the best of my ability, but I doubt very much that he understood a great deal of what I said; the Kapars are not highly intelligent, their first Pom Da having killed off a majority of the intelligent people of his time and his successor destroying the remainder, leaving only scum to breed.

"What were you in that strange world from which you say you came?" he asked.

"I was a flyer in the fighting forces of my country and also something of an inventor, having been at work on a ship in which I purposed travelling to another planet of our solar system."

"How far from your Earth would this planet be?" he asked.

"About 48,000,000 miles ," I replied.

"That is a long way," he said. "Do you think that you could have done it?"

"I had high hopes; in fact, I was almost on the verge of perfecting my ship when I was called away to war."

"Tonas is less than six hundred thousand miles from Poloda," he mused. I could see that he had something on his mind, and I guessed what it was, or at least I hoped. He talked to me for over a half an hour and then he dismissed me, but before I left I asked him if he would order my gold and jewels returned to me.

He turned to an officer standing at one end of his desk and instructed him to see that all of my belongings were returned to me; then the two officers and I backed out of the room. I had stood all during the interview, but that was not at all surprising as there was only one chair in the room and that was occupied by the Pom Da.

The green Zabo car took me back to my quarters, and the men who accompanied me were most obsequious; and when Lotar Canl opened the door and saw them bowing to me and calling me Most High, he beamed all over.

Morga Sagra came in from her apartment presently; and she was delighted with the honour that had been done me, and she didn't let any grass grow under her feet before she let it be known that I had been received by the Pom Da in an interview that lasted over a half an hour.

Now we commenced to be invited into the homes of the highest; and when my gold and jewels were returned, as they were the day after my interview with the Pom Da, Sagra and I were able to splurge a little bit; so that we had a gay time in the capital of Kapara, where only the very highest have a gay time, or even enough to eat.

Among our acquaintances was a woman named Gimmel Gora, with whom Morga Sagra had associated while I was in the prison camp; and she and her man, Grunge, were with us a great deal. They were not married, but then no one in Kapara is married; such silly, sentimental things as marriages were done away with nearly a hundred years ago. I did not like either Gimmel Gora or Grunge; in fact, I did not like any of the Kapars I had met so far, with the possible exception of my man, Lotar Canl; and, of course, I even suspected him of being an agent of the Zabo.

The Kapars are arrogant, supercilious, stupid, and rude; and Grunge was no exception. I did not know what he did for a living; and, of course, I never asked, as I never showed the slightest curiosity about anything. If a stranger asks too many questions in Kapara, he is quite likely to find his head rolling around on the floor-they don't waste ammunition in Kapara.

We were making a lot of acquaintances, but I was not any place with my mission. I was no nearer learning about the amplifier than I had been in Orvis. I kept talking about the ship I had been inventing in my own world, hoping in that way to get a hint from someone that would lead me on the right trail; but after two months in Ergos, I hadn't been able to get the slightest lead; it was just as though no such thing as a new powerful amplifier existed, and I commenced to wonder if the Commissioner for War had been misinformed.

One day a green car stopped before the building in which my apartment was located. Lotar Canl, who had been at a front window saw it, and when a summons came at our door, he looked at me apprehensively. "I hope that you have not been indiscreet," he said as he went to open the door.

I, too, hoped that I hadn't, for these grim, green-uniformed men do not call on one for the purpose of playing rummy or hopscotch.

"Korvan Don?" asked one of the men, looking at me.

I nodded, "Yes."

"Come with us."

That was all-just like that: "Come with us."; just, "Come with us."

I came, and they whisked me away to that horrible building with the carved facade, where I was ushered into Gurrul's office.

He gave me that venomous stare of his for about a half a minute before he spoke. "Do you know what happens to People who have knowledge of crimes against the state and do not report them to the authorities?" he demanded.

"I think I can guess," I replied.

"Well, four men have escaped from the prison camp in which you were confined."

"I do not see how that concerns me," I said.

He had a large file of papers on the desk before him, and he thumbed through them. "Here," he said, "I find that on several dates you were found talking to Handon Gar and Tunzo Bor-in whispers!"

"That is the only way one may talk there," I replied.

He thumbed through the papers again. "It seems that you were extremely familiar with Tunzo Bor from the time you entered camp; you were evidently very familiar with both of these men, although I find no record that you were particularly familiar with the other two who escaped. Now," he shouted, "what were you whispering about?"

"I was questioning them," I said.

"Why?" he demanded.

"I question whomever I can for such information as I may get. You see, I was in the Zabo in my own country; so it is natural for me to acquire all the information I can from the enemy."

"Did you get any information?"

"I think I was about to when Morga Sagra came to see me; after that they wouldn't talk to me."

"Before Handon Gar escaped he told several prisoners that you were a spy from Unis."

As he growled this out, Gurrul looked as though he would like to chop my head off himself.

I laughed. "I told him that myself," I said. "He evidently wanted to get even with me for almost fooling him."

Gurrul nodded. "An intelligent agent would have done that very thing," he said. "I am glad that you have been able to clear yourself, as this is the first bad report I have had concerning you." then he dismissed me.

As I walked slowly toward my apartment, just about a half a mile from the Zabo headquarters, I reviewed in my mind my interview with Gurrul; and I came to realize that he had exonerated me altogether too willingly. It was not like him. I had a feeling that he was still suspicious of me, and that he had done this to throw me off my guard that I might be more easily trapped if I were indeed disloyal. This conviction was definitely heightened before I reached my apartment. I had occasion to stop in two shops on the way; and, on each occasion, when I left the shop I saw the same man loitering nearby; I was being shadowed, and in a very crude and amateurish way at that. I thought that if the Zabo were no more efficient in other respects, I would have little to fear from them; but I did not let this belief lessen my caution.

Before I reached my apartment, I met Grunge, who was walking with a man I did not know, and whom he introduced as Horthal Wend. Horthal was a middle-aged man with a very kindly face, which certainly differentiated him from most of the other Kapars I had met.

They invited me into a drinking place and because I believed Grunge to be connected in some way with the Zabo, I accepted. Grunge had no visible means of support, yet he was always well supplied with money; and, for that reason, I suspected him of being either a member or a tool of the secret police. I felt that if I associated with men of this stamp and was always careful of what I said and did, only good reports of me could reach Gurrul. I also made it a point to try to never be alone with anyone-and never to whisper; there is nothing that makes a member of the Zabo more suspicious than a whisper.

Grunge and Horthal Wend ordered wine. Grunge had to show a wine card in order to obtain it; and this strengthened my belief that he was connected with the Zabo, for only those who stand well with the government are issued wine cards.

When I ordered a non-alcoholic drink, Grunge urged me to take wine; but I refused, as I never drink anything of the sort when I have an important duty to fulfil.

Grunge seemed quite put out to think that I would not drink wine with him, and that convinced me that he had hoped that wine would loosen my tongue-a very mouldy trick of secret police. I found Horthal Wend as kindly in manner as in appearance, and I took quite a liking to him. Before I left him, he had extracted a promise from me that I would come and see him and his woman and bring Morga Sagra with me.

Little did I dream then what the death of this kindly man would mean to me.

Chapter Six

THE FOLLOWING EVENING, Sagra and I had dinner with Grunge and Gimmel Gora, and during the course of the evening I mentioned Horthal Wend and remarked that I had found him most intelligent and friendly.

"I guess that he is intelligent enough," said Grunge, "but I find him a little too pleasant; that, to me, is an indication of sentimentality and softness, neither of which have any place in Kapar manhood. However, he stands very well with the Pom Da, and is, therefore, a safe man to know and cultivate, for our beloved Pom Da is never wrong in his estimate of men-in fact, he is never wrong in anything."

I could not help but think that if sentiment and intelligence had no place in Kapar manhood, Grunge was an ideal Kapar.

Grunge's use of the word beloved might seem to belie my statement that he was without sentiment, but it was really only the fawning expression of a sycophant and connoted more of fear than love.

I was constantly mentally comparing Kapars with the Unisans. Here in Kapara all is suspicion and fear-fear of unseen malign for forces that are all powerful; fear of your next door neighbour; fear of your servants; fear of your best friend, and suspicious of all.

All during the evening, Sagra had seemed distrait. Grunge, on the other hand was quite talkative and almost affable. He directed most of his conversation and elephantine wit at Sagra and was correspondingly disagreeable and sarcastic when he spoke to Gimmel Gora.

He was meticulously polite to me, which was unusual; as Grunge was seldom if ever polite to anyone of whom he was not afraid. "We have much to be thankful for in the wonderful friendship that has developed between us," he said to me; "It seems as though I had known you always, Korvan Don. It is not often in this life that two men meet who may mutually trust each other on short acquaintance."

"You are quite right," I said, "but I think one learns to know almost instinctively who may be trusted and who may not. I wondered what he was driving at, and I did not have to wait long to discover.

"You have been in Kapara for some time, now," he continued, "and I suppose that some of your experiences could not have been entirely pleasant; for instance the prison camp and the prison beneath the Zabo headquarters."

"Well, of course, freedom is always to be preferred to confinement," I replied; "but I have sense enough to realize that every precaution must be taken in a nation at war, and I admire the Kapars for their efficiency in this respect. While I did not enjoy being confined, I have no complaint to make, I was well-treated." If one may instinctively recognize a trustworthy friend, one may also instinctively recognize an unscrupulous enemy; and this I felt Grunge to be, for I was confident that he was attempting to cajole me into making some criticism that would incriminate me in the eyes of the Zabo.

He looked a little crestfallen, but he said, "I am glad to hear you say that. Just between friends, tell me in confidence what you thought of Gurrul."

"A highly intelligent man, well fitted for the post he occupies," I replied. "Although he must have to contend with all types of criminals, scoundrels, and traitors, he appears to me to be fair and just, without being soft or sentimental." I was learning to talk like a Kapar and to lie like one too.

As Sagra and I walked home that night, I asked her what had been troubling her, for she had not seemed herself at all.

"I am worried and frightened," she replied; "Grunge has been making advances to me, and Gimmel Gora knows it. I am afraid of both of them, for I believe that both are agents of the Zabo."

"Neither one of us has anything to fear," I said. "Aren't we both good Kapars?"

"I sometimes wonder if you are," she said.

"At first I may have been a little critical," I said, "but that was before I understood the strength and beauty of their system. Now I am as good a Kapar as there is." From this speech it might be assumed that I was suspicious of Morga Sagra, and the assumption would be wholly correct. I was suspicious of Morga Sagra, of Grunge, of Gimmel Gora, of Lotar Canl, my man—in fact, of everybody. In this respect, at least, I had become a good Kapar.

When I got home that night, I found that my quarters had been thoroughly ransacked. The contents of every drawer was scattered about on the floor; my rugs had been torn up, and my mattress cut open.

While I was viewing the havoc, Lotar Canl came home. He looked around the place, and then, with the faintest of smiles on his lips he said, "Burglars. I hope that they got nothing of value, sir."

Most of my gold and jewels are deposited in a safe place; but in addition to that which I carry on my person, I had left a handful of gold in one of the drawers in my desk, and this I found scattered on the floor-all of it.

"Well," I said, "they overlooked this gold, and there was nothing else in the apartment anybody would wish."

"They must have been frightened away before they could gather this up," said Lotar Canl.

The little game that he and I were playing was almost laughable for neither of us dared suggest the truth-that the apartment had been searched by the police.

"I am glad," he said, "that you had nothing of value here other than this gold."

When I met Sagra the next day, I said nothing about the matter to her, for I had learned that no matter how often one's home is "burglarized" or even if his grandmother is taken at midnight and beheaded, he does not mention the occurrence to anyone; but Sagra was less reticent. She told me that she was being constantly watched; that her room had been searched three times, and that she was terrified. "I have a secret enemy," she said, "who is leaving no stone unturned to get me destroyed."

"Have you any idea who it is?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "I think I know."

"Gimmel Gora?"

She nodded, and then she whispered, "And you must be careful of Grunge. He thinks that you are my man, and he would like to get rid of you."

There had never been any suggestion of any sentimental relationship between Morga Sagra and me. She had used me in order to get to Kapara; and because we had been two strangers in a strange land, we had been constantly thrown together since. I know that she enjoyed my company, and I still found her witty and entertaining when she was not entirely preoccupied with the terror which now obsessed her. If ever a just retribution were being meted to a person, this was the instance. I was confident that Morga Sagra would have given her soul to have been back in Unis; and to her terror was added hopelessness, for she knew that she could never return.

That evening we went to call on Horthal Wend and his woman, Haka Gera. She was a heavy minded, rather stupid woman, but evidently a good housekeeper and probably a good manager, which I judged Horthal Wend needed, for he was evidently easy-going and careless.

We talked about art, literature, music, the weather, and the wonders of Kapar ideology-about the only safe subject for discussion in Kapara; and even then we had to be careful. If one should by mistake express appreciation of some work of art or musical composition by a person in bad odour with the heads of the state or with the Zabo, that was treason.

During the evening, their fourteen year old son, Horthal Gyl, joined us. He was a precocious child, and I do not like precocious children. He was a loudmouthed little egotist who knew it all, and he kept projecting himself into the conversation until he practically monopolized it.

Horthal Wend was evidently very proud of him and very fond of him; but once when he made a gesture as though to caress the lad, the boy struck his hand away.

"None of that!" he growled at his father; "such maudlin sentimentality is not for Kapar men. I am ashamed of you."

"Now, now," said his mother gently; "it is not wrong for your father to love you."

"I do not wish him to love me," snapped the boy. "I only wish that he should admire me and be proud of me because I am hard. I do not want him or anyone to be as ashamed of me as I am of him because of his sentimentality and softness."

Horthal Wend tried to smile as he shook his head. "You see, he is a good Kapar," he said; and, I thought, a little sadly.

"I see," I said.

The boy shot me a quick suspicious look. Evidently I had not kept my innermost feelings out of those two words.

We left shortly after this and as we walked home, I was conscious of a feeling of great depression. I think it was caused by the attitude of that son to his father. "Horthal Gyl will grow up to be a fine example of the Kapar gentlemen," I said.

"I would rather not discuss him," replied Sagra.

Chapter Seven

I WENT TO BED immediately after reaching my apartment. Lotar Canl had asked for the entire night off; so when I was awakened shortly after mid-night by a summons at my door, I had to answer it myself. As I opened it, two green-clad Zabo troopers stepped in with drawn pistols.

"Dress and come with us," said one of them.

"There must be some mistake," I said; "I am Korvan Don, you can't want me."

"Shut up and get dressed," said the one who had first spoken, "or we'll take you along in your nightclothes."

While I was dressing, I racked my brains trying to think what I had done to deserve arrest. Of course I knew it would be useless to ask these men. Even if they knew, which they probably did not, they wouldn't tell me. Naturally I thought of Grunge, because of what Morga Sagra had told me, but the man could not possibly have had anything to report against me; although, of course, he could have fabricated some story.

I was taken directly to Gurrul's office; and although it was well after midnight, he was still there. He gave me one of his most terrible looks and then screamed at me, "So you slipped at last, you filthy spy. I have always suspected you, and I am always right."

"I don't know what you are talking about," I said. "You can have absolutely no charge against me; because I have spoken no treasonable words since I came to Kapara. I defy anyone to prove that I am not as good a Kapar as you.

"Oh," he barked, "so you haven't said anything treasonable? Well, you idiot, you have written it;" and he took a small red book from a drawer in his desk and held it up in front of me and shook it in my face. "Your diary, you fool." He turned the leaves and scanned the pages for a moment and then he read, "'Gurrul is a fat idiot'; so I am a fat idiot, am I?" He turned a few more pages, and read again. "'The Zabo is made up of moronic murderers; and when our revolution succeeds, I shall have them all beheaded. I shall behead Gurrul myself.' What do you say to that?"

"I say that I never saw that book before and that I never wrote any of the things which you have read."

He turned over some more pages and read again, "The Pom Da is an egotistical maniac and will be one of the first to be destroyed when J and I rule Kapara. Who is J?" he bellowed at me.

"I haven't the slightest idea," I told him.

"Well, there are ways of making you find out," he said, and getting up and coming around the end of his desk, he knocked me down before I had the slightest idea what his intentions were.

I leaped to my feet with the intention of handing him what he had handed me, but several troopers seized me. "Secure his hands," ordered Gurrul, and they put them behind my back and snapped handcuffs about my wrists.

"You'd better tell me who J is," said Gurrul, "or you'll get a great deal worse than what I just gave you. Who is this accomplice of yours? It will go easier with you if you tell me."

"I do not know who J is," I said.

"Take him into the question box," ordered Gurrul, and they took me into an adjoining room which I instantly saw was fitted up as a torture chamber. They let me look around the room for a moment at the various instruments of torture, and then Gurrul started demanding again that I tell him who J was. He kept striking me repeatedly, and when I fell he kicked me.

When I still insisted that I didn't know, one of them burned me with a hot iron.

"Your right eye goes next," said Gurrul; "who is J?"

They worked on me for about an hour, and I was pretty nearly dead when they finally gave up.

"Well," said Gurrul, "I can't spend all the rest of the night with this stubborn fool; take him downstairs and behead him-unless in the meantime he tells you who J is."

Well, this was the end of my mission. I had learned absolutely nothing, and now I was to be beheaded. As a spy I was evidently a total failure. A couple of them jerked me roughly to my feet; for I could not rise by myself, and just then the door opened and Lotar Canl entered the room. When I saw him, my suspicions were confirmed, as I had always thought that he was probably a Zabo agent; and now I thought that it was probably he who had turned this forged diary over to them, probably in the hope of winning preferment by discovering this plot against the nation.

He took in the scene in a quick glance and then he turned to Gurrul. "Why is this man here?"

"He is a traitor who was conspiring against Kapara," replied Gurrul. "We found the evidence of his guilt in this diary in his desk."

"I thought as much," said Lotar Canl, "when I came home earlier than I expected tonight and found that the book had been removed from his desk."

"You knew about this book," demanded Gurrul.

"Of course," replied Lotar Canl. "I saw it planted there. Korvan Don knew nothing about it. I have watched this man most carefully since he has been here. He is as good a Kapar as any of us."

Gurrul looked a little sheepish, that is if a wolf can look sheepish. "Who put the book in his desk?" he asked.

"The man who actually placed it there was an innocent tool," replied Lotar Canl. "I have him under arrest. He is in the next room under guard. I wish that you would question him yourself."

The man was brought in, and Gurrul showed him the diary and asked him if he had placed it in my desk.

The poor fellow was trembling so that he could scarcely speak, but finally he managed to say, "Yes, Most High."

"Why did you do it?" demanded Gurrul.

"The night before last, a man came into my room shortly after midnight. He flashed a tiny light on a Zabo badge he wore, but he was careful not to shine it on his face. He told me that I had been selected to place this book in Korvan Don's desk. He said that it was a command from you, Most High."

Gurrul called Lotal Canl to the far end of the room, and they whispered together for several minutes; then Gurrul came back. "You may go," he said to the man, "but understand that nobody ever came to your room in the middle of the night and asked you to put anything in anybody's desk; you were not brought here tonight; you did not see me nor anyone else who is in this room. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Most High," replied the man.

"Take him away and see that he is returned to his home," Gurrul directed the two agents who had brought the fellow in; then he turned again to me. "Mistakes are bound to occur occasionally," he said. "It is regrettable, but it is so. Have you any idea who might have had that book placed in your desk?"

I thought that it was Grunge, but I said, "I haven't any idea; as far as I know I haven't an enemy in Kapara. There is no reason why anyone should wish to get me into trouble." I suspected that Grunge was a Zabo agent, and I knew that if he were I would probably get myself into trouble by accusing him. Gurrul turned to one of his officers. "Have this man taken to a hospital," he said, "and see that he receives the best of treatment;" and then he turned to me. "You are never to mention this unfortunate occurrence to anyone. While returning home, you were knocked down and run over. Do you understand?"

I told him that I did; and then they sent for a stretcher, and I was carried out and taken to a hospital.

The next day, Sagra came to see me. She said that she had found a note under her door telling her that I had been in an accident and what hospital I was in.

"Yes," I said, "I was hit by an automobile."

She looked frightened. "Do you think that you will be hit again?" she asked.

"I hope not by the same automobile," I said.

"I am terribly frightened," she said; "I am afraid that it will be my turn next."

"Keep out of the way of automobiles," I advised her.

"Gimmel Gora won't speak to me any more, and Grunge won't leave me alone. He told me not to be afraid, as he is a Zabo agent."

"Just as I thought," I said, "and a hit and run driver too."

"I wish I were back in Orvis," she said.

"Be careful what you say, Sagra," I advised.

She looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. "You, too?" she asked.

"No, not I," I assured her; "but the walls may have ears."

"I wish you could tell me what happened," she said.

I shook my head. "I have told you-I was hit by an automobile and run over."

"I suppose you are right," she said; "and I also suppose that I have talked altogether too much; but I am nearly crazy, and if I didn't have someone to tell my fears too, I think I should go crazy."

Treason is a terrible thing, and its punishment must be terrible.

Chapter Eight

I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL for about two weeks; but at last I was discharged and allowed to go home, although I had to remain in bed there most of the time. I found a new man there to take Lotar Canl's place. He had brought a note from Lotar Canl saying that he knew that I would need someone as soon as I returned from the hospital and that he could highly recommend this man, whose name was Danul.

Lotar Canl came to see me himself the day after I was returned from the hospital. While we were talking, he wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. It read, "Danul is not connected with the Zabo, but he is a good Kapar;" then, after I had read it, he took the paper from me and burned it up; but he was very careful to see that Danul was not around to observe what he did.

It is terrible to live under this constant strain of fear and suspicion, and it shows in the faces of most of these people. Lotar Canl was peculiarly free from it, and I always enjoyed talking with him; however, we were both careful never to touch on any forbidden subjects.

While I was in Ergos, there was scarcely a day passed that I did not hear the detonation of Unisan bombs; and I could visualize my comrades in arms flying high over this buried city. The only reports that I ever heard of these activities always related Kapar victories; or the great number of enemy planes shot down, and the very small losses suffered by the Kapars, or they would tell of the terrific bombing of Orvis or of other Unisan cities. According to these offleial reports, Kapara was just on the verge of winning the war.

Harkas Yamoda was much in my mind at this time, and thoughts of her and my other friends in Orvis rather depressed me, because I felt that I couldn't return until I had fulfilled my mission, and I seemed to be as far as ever from that. No matter how often I brought up the subject of my invention, no one ever indicated that he had heard of such a thing. It was very disheartening, as the first step to acquiring any information about the new amplifier was to learn who was working on it; and of course I didn't dare suggest in the slightest way that I had knowledge that any such thing was being considered in Kapara.

Sagra came to see me every day and spent a great deal of time with me, and one day Grunge came. "I was very sorry to hear of your accident," he said; "and I intended to come and see you sooner, but I have been very busy. There are many careless drivers in Ergos; one cannot be too careful."

"Oh, well," I said, "perhaps it was my fault; I was probably careless in crossing the street."

"One cannot be too careful," he said again.

"I have found that out," I replied; "even a friend might run over one."

He gave me a quick look. He did not stay very long, and it was evident that he was nervous and ill at ease while he was there. I was glad when he left, for the more I saw of the man the less I liked him.

Horthal Wend and his woman and son came on another day while Sagra was there. Horthal Wend said that he had only just heard of my accident and was greatly distressed to think that he had not known of it before and come to see me earlier. He did not question me as to the cause of it, but Horthal Gyl did.

"I was hit by an automobile, knocked down and run over," I told him. He gave a knowing look and started to say something, but his father interrupted him. "Gyl has just made his mother and me very proud," he said; "he stood at the head of his class for the year," and he looked adoringly at the boy.

"What are you studying?" I asked, in order to be polite and not that I gave a continental hang what he was studying.

"What do you suppose a Kapar man studies?" he demanded impudently. "War."

"How interesting," I commented.

"But that is not all I study," he continued. "However, what else I study is the business only of my instructor and myself."

"And you expect to be a fighter when you grow up, I suppose," I said, for I saw that it pleased Horthal Wend that I should be taking an interest in his son.

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a Zabo agent," said the boy; "I am always practicing."

"How do you practice for that?" I asked.

"Don't show too much curiosity about the Zabo," he warned; "it is not healthful."

I laughed at him and told him that I was only politely interested in the subject.

"I have warned you," he said.

"Don't be impolite, son," Horthal Wend admonished him.

"If I were you," he retorted, "I wouldn't interfere with the Zabo; and you should be more careful with whom you associate," and he cast a dark look at Sagra. "The Zabo sees all; knows all." I should have liked to have choked the impossible little brat. Sagra looked uncomfortable and Horthal Wend fidgeted.

Finally he said, "Oh, stop talking about the Zabo, son; it's bad enough to have it without talking about it all the time."

The boy shot him a dirty look. "You are speaking treason," he said to his father.

"Now, Gyl," said his mother, "I wouldn't say things like that."

I could see that Horthal Wend was getting more and more nervous, and presently he got up and they took their leave.

"Somebody ought to give that brat rat poison," I said to Sagra.

She nodded. "He is dangerous," she whispered. "He hangs around Grunge's home a great deal and is very friendly with both Grunge and Gimmel Gora. I think it is through Gimmel Gora that he has come to suspect me; did you see how he looked at me when he told his father that he should be more careful with whom he associated?"

"Yes," I said, "I noticed; but I wouldn't worry about him, he is only a little boy practicing at being a detective."

"Nevertheless, he is a very dangerous little boy," she said. "A great deal of the information that the Zabo receives comes from children."

A couple of days later I went out for my first walk; and as Horthal Wend lived only a short distance from my apartment, I went over to call on him.

Haka Gera , his woman, opened the door for me. She was in tears, and the boy was sitting, sullen and scowling, in the corner. I sensed that something terrible had happened, but I was afraid to ask. At last, between sobs, Haka Gera said, "You came to see Wend?"

"Yes," I replied; "is he at home?"

She shook her head and then burst into a violent spasm of sobbing. The boy sat there and glowered at her. Finally she gained control of herself and whispered, "They came last night and took him away." She looked over at the boy, and there was fear in her eyes-fear and horror and reproach.

I did my best to comfort her; but it was hopeless, and finally I took my departure. As far as I know, Horthal Wend was never seen nor heard of again.

I am not a drinking man; but as I walked back toward my apartment, I was so depressed and almost nauseated by the whole affair that I went into a drinking place and ordered a glass of wine. There were only two other customers in the place as I seated myself at a little table. They had the hard, cruel faces of Kapar fighting men or police. I could see that they were scrutinizing me closely and whispering to one another. Finally they got up and came over and stopped in front of me.

"Your credentials," barked one of them.

My wine permit was lying on the table in front of me, and I pushed it over toward him. It bore my name and address and a brief description. He picked it up and looked at it and then threw it down on the table angrily. "I said your credentials," he snapped.

"Let me see yours," I said; "I have the right to know upon what authority you question a law-abiding citizen." I was right in my demand, although possibly a little foolish in insisting upon my rights. The fellow grumbled and showed me a Zabo badge, and then I handed him my credentials.

He looked them over carefully and then handed them back. "So you're the fellow who was run over by an automobile a few weeks ago," he said; "well, if I were you, I'd be more respectful to Zabo officers, or you may be run over again;" and then they turned and stamped out of the place. It was such things as this that made life in Ergos what it was.

When I got home, Danul told me that two Zabo agents had been there and searched my apartment. I don't know why he told me; because he really had no business to, unless he had been given orders to do so for the purpose of trapping me into some treasonable expression, for it is treason to express any disapproval of an act of the Zabo; I could have been drawn and quartered for what I was thinking of them though.

Now I commenced to be suspicious of Danul, and I wondered if Lotar Canl had lied to me or if this man was an agent without Lotar Canl having any knowledge of the fact. Insofar as suspicion was concerned, I was becoming a true Kapar; I suspected everybody. I think the only man whom I had ever met here that I had perfect confidence in was Horthal Wend, and they had come at night and taken him away.

Chapter Nine

MOREA SAGRA CAME IN SHORTLY after I returned; and I sent Danul out on an errand, so that I might tell her about Horthal Wend.

"That horrible child!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Tangor!" she cried, "can't we get out of here?"

"Don't ever speak that name again," I said. "Do you want to get me into trouble?"

"I'm sorry; it just came out. Couldn't we get away somehow?"

"And be shot as soon as we return to Orvis?" I said. "You got yourself into this," I reminded her, "and now you've got to grin and bear it and so have I; although I really enjoy it here," I lied. "I wouldn't go back to Orvis under any circumstances."

She looked at me questioningly. "I'm sorry," she said. "You won't hold it against me, will you? Oh, Korvan Don, you won't tell anybody that I said that?"

"Of course not," I assured her.

"I can't help it," she said, "I can't help it. I am almost a nervous wreck. I have a premonition that something terrible is going to happen," and just then there came a pounding on the door, and I thought that Morga Sagra was going to faint.

"Pull yourself together and buck up," I said, as I crossed to the door. As I opened it, I was confronted by two high officers of the Kapar fighting force.

"You are Korvan Don?" inquired one of them.

"I am," I replied.

"You will come with us," he said.

Well, at least they were not agents of the Zabo; but what they wanted of me I couldn't imagine; and, of course, I did not ask. Since I have been here in Ergos, I have schooled myself to such an extent that I even hesitate to ask the time of day. We were driven at high speed, through crowded streets, to the building in which is the office of the Pom Da, and, after but a moment's wait in an ante-room, I was ushered into the presence of the Great I.

The Pom Da came to the point immediately. "When you were here before," he said, "you told me that before you left that other world from which you say you came, you were working on a ship which you believed would have a radius of something like 48,000,000 miles . One of our foremost inventors has been working along similar lines, and had almost perfected a power amplifier which would make it possible for a ship to fly from Poloda to other planets of our solar system; but unfortunately he recently suffered an accident and died.

"Naturally this important work was carried on with the utmost secrecy. He had no assistants; nobody but he could complete the experimental amplifier upon which he was working. It must be completed."

"I have had excellent reports of your integrity and loyalty since you have been here. I have sent for you because I believe you are the man best fitted to carry on from where our late inventor left off. It is, naturally, a very important piece of work, the details of which must be guarded carefully lest they fall into the hands of our enemy, who treacherously maintains agents among us. I have convinced myself that you are to be trusted, and I am never wrong in my estimate of men. You will therefore proceed to the laboratory and workshop where the amplifier was being built and complete it."

"Is it a command, Highest Most High?" I asked.

"It is," he replied.

"Then I shall do my best," I said, "but it is a responsibility I should not have chosen voluntarily, and I cannot have but wished that you might have found someone better fitted than I for so important a commission." I wished to give him the impression that I was reluctant to work upon the amplifier, for fear that I might otherwise reveal my elation. After weeks of failure and disappointment, and without the faintest ray of hope of ever succeeding in my mission, the solution of my problem was now being dumped into my lap by the highest Kapar in the land.

The Great I, who was such a marvellous judge of men, gave me a few general instructions and then ordered that I be taken at once to the laboratory, and I backed out of his presence with the two officers who had brought me. I thought that I understood now, why I had been watched so closely, and why my apartment had been ransacked so frequently.

As I drove through the streets of Ergos, I was happy for the first time since I had left Orvis; and I was rather pleased with myself too, for I felt confident that my oft-repeated references to the imaginary ship that I had been supposed to have been working on, on Earth had finally born fruit. Of course, I had never been working on any such ship as I described; but I had done considerable experimental work on airplane motors, and I hoped that this would help me in my present undertaking.

I was driven to a neighbourhood with which I was very familiar and was taken to a laboratory behind a home in which I had been entertained– the home of Horthal Wend.

I spent a full week studying the plans and examining the small model and the experimental amplifier that was almost completed. Horthal Wend had kept voluminous notes, and from these I discovered that he had eliminated all the bugs but one. As I worked, I was occasionally aware of being watched; and a couple of times I caught a fleeting glimpse of a face at the window. But whether the Pom Da was having me watched or someone was awaiting an opportunity to steal the plans, I did not know.

The trouble with Horthal Wend's amplifier was that it diffused instead of concentrating the energy derived from the sun, so that, while I was confident that it would propel a ship to either of the nearer planets, the speed would diminish progressively as the distance from the central power station on Poloda increased, with the result that the time consumed in covering the 600,000 miles between the two planets would be so great as to render the invention useless from any practical standpoint.

On the day that I eliminated the last bug and felt sure that I had an amplifier capable of powering the ship to almost any distance from Poloda, I caught a glimpse of that face at the window again, and decided to try to find out who it was who was so inquisitive about my work.

Pretending that I had noticed nothing, I busied myself about the room, keeping my back toward the window as much as possible, until I finally reached the door that was near the window; then I threw the door open and stepped out. There was Horthal Gyl, very red in the face and looking very foolish.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded; "practicing again, or trying to pry into government secrets?"

Horthal Gyl got hold of himself in a hurry; the brat had the brazen effrontery of a skunk on a narrow trail. "What I am doing here is none of your business," he said impudently. "There may be those who trust you, but I don't."

"Whether you trust me or not, is of no interest to me," I said, "but if I ever catch you here again, I am going to give you all of the beatings in one that your father should have given you." He gave me one of his foul looks and turned and walked away.

The next day I asked for an interview with the Pom Da, who granted it immediately. The officers who came for me and those whom I encountered on my way to the office of the Great I were most obsequious; I was getting places in Kapara in a big way. Any man who spent a full week studying the plans and examining the small model and could ask for an audience with the Pom Da and get it immediately was a man to know.

"How is the work progressing?" he asked me as I stopped before his desk.

"Excellently," I replied. "I am sure that I can perfect the amplifier if you will place a plane at my disposal for experimental purposes."

"Certainly," he said. "What type of plane do you wish?"

"The fastest scout plane you have," I replied.

"Why do you want a fast plane," he demanded, instantly suspicious.

"Because it is the type of plane that will have to be used for the first experimental flight to another planet," I replied.

He nodded and beckoned to one of his aides. "Have a fast scout plane placed at Korvan Don's disposal," he ordered, "and issue instructions that he is to be permitted to fly at any time at his discretion." I was so elated that I could have hugged even the Pom Da; and then he added, "but give orders that a flying officer must always accompany him." My bubble was burst.

I made several experimental flights; and I always took along all the plans, drawings, and the model. I took them quite openly, and I kept referring to Horthal Wend's notes, to the drawings, and to the model during the flight, giving the impression that I had to have them all with me in order to check the performance of the amplifier on the ship, as well as to prevent theft of them while I was away from the laboratory.

The same officer never accompanied me twice, a fact which eventually had considerable bearing upon the performance of my mission. If these fellows could have known what was in my mind all the time they were sitting in the ship beside me, they would have been surprised; I was trying to think of some way in which I could kill them, for only by getting rid of them could I escape from Kapara.

The amplifier was an unqualified success; I was positive that it would fly the ship to any part of the solar system, but I didn't tell anybody so. I still insisted that a few experimental changes would have to be made, and so the time dragged on while I awaited an opportunity to kill the officer who accompanied me. The fact that they had never given me any weapons made this difficult.

I had not dared to ask for weapons; one does not go at anything of that kind directly, but I had tried to suggest that I should be armed by telling the Pom Da that I had seen someone looking in my laboratory window on several occasions. All that got me was a heavy guard of Zabo agents around the laboratory building.

Since I had been working on the amplifier, I had seen practically nothing of Morga Sagra, as I had slept in the laboratory and had only returned to my apartment occasionally for a change of clothing. After I commenced to fly, I occasionally went directly to my apartment from the hangar, taking the plans and the model with me; but I never went out on those nights as I did not dare leave the things in my apartment unguarded.

Danul cooked and served my meals, and Morga Sagra ate with me occasionally. She told me that she had seen Horthal Gyl with Gimmel Gora on several occasions recently, and that Grunge had left his woman and was living in another part of the city. Morga Sagra hadn't seen him for some time now, and she was commencing to feel much safer.

Things seemed to be going along beautifully about this time and then the blow fell-Morga Sagra was arrested.

Chapter Ten

Insofar as I was concerned, the worst feature of Morga Sagra's arrest was that when they came for her, they found her in my apartment. Of course I didn't have any idea what the charge against her might be; but, if she were suspected of anything, those who associated closely with her, would be under suspicion too.

She was taken away at what would be about seven o'clock in the evening Earth time, and about ten, Lotar Canl came. He was dressed in the uniform of an officer of the flying force. It was the first time that I had ever seen him in anything but civilian clothes; and I was a little, surprised, but I asked no questions.

He came and sat down close to me. "Are you alone?" he asked in a whisper.

"Yes," I said; "I let Danul go out after dinner."

"I have some very bad news for you," he said. "I have just come from the question box in Zabo headquarters. They had Morga Sagra there. That little devil, Horthal Gyl, was there too; it was he who had accused her of being a Unisan spy. A very close friend of mine, in the Zabo, told me that he had also accused you, and he had reported that I was very intimate with you and with Morga Sagra also. They tortured her to make her confess that she was a Unisan spy and that you were also."

"She never admitted that she was anything but a good Kapar, but in order to save herself from further torture, she told them that you were, just before she died."

"So what?" I asked.

"You have access to a ship whenever you want one. You must escape and that immediately for they will be here for you before midnight."

"But I can't take a ship out unless an officer accompanies me," I said.

"I know that," he replied; "that is the reason for this uniform. I am going with you."

I was instantly suspicious that this might be a trap, for, if I acted on his suggestion and tried to escape, I would be admitting my guilt. I knew that Lotar Canl was an agent of the Zabo, but I had liked him and I had always felt that I could trust him. He saw that I was hesitating.

"You can trust me," he said. "I am not a Kapar."

I looked at him in surprise. "Not a Kapar?" I demanded, "what are you then?"

"The same thing you are, Tangor," he replied-"a Unisan secret agent. I have been here for over ten years, but now that I am under suspicion, my usefulness is at an end. I was advised of your coming and told to look after you. I also knew that Morga Sagra was a traitor. She got what she deserved, but it was a horrible thing to see."

The fact that he knew my name and that he knew that I was an agent and Morga Sagra a traitor convinced me that he had spoken the truth.

"I'll be with you in just a moment," I said; then I got all the plans, drawings, and notes covering the amplifier and burned them, and while they were burning, I smashed the model so that not a single part of it was recognizable.

"Why did you do that?" demanded Lotar Canls.

"I don't want these things to fall into Kapar hands if we are caught," I said; "and I could reproduce that amplifier with my eyes shut; furthermore, there is a perfectly good one on the ship we will fly away."

It was a good thing that I had insisted upon having a fast scout plane, for while we were taxiing up the ramp to take off, an officer shouted at me to return; and then the alarm sounded, rising above the rapid fire of a machine gun, as bullets whistled about us.

Ships shot from half a dozen ramps in pursuit, but they never overtook us.

We flew first to Pud and got a change of clothing and the old Karisan plane from Frink, and then on to Gorvas where my knowledge of Gompth's name came in handy. Lotar Canl showed him his Zabo credentials, and we got a change of clothing and my ship. I had taken the amplifier off the Kapar plane at Pud, and when we reached Orvis, I took it immediately to the Elianhai, who congratulated me on having so successfully fulfilled a difficult mission.

Just as soon as I could get away from the Eljanhai and the Commissioner for War, I made a bee-line for the Harkases. The prospect of seeing them again made me even happier than had the successful fulfilment of my mission. Don and Yamoda were in the garden when I entered, and when Yamoda saw me, she jumped up and ran into the house. Don confronted me with a face.

I had been so filled with happiness at the prospect of seeing them, the shock of this greeting stunned me and kept me speechless for a moment, and then my pride prevented me from asking for an explanation. I turned on my heel and left. Blue and despondent, I went back to my old quarters. What had happened? What had I done to deserve such treatment from my best friends. I couldn't understand it, but I had been so terribly hurt that I would not go and ask for an explanation.

I took up my old duties in the flying corps immediately. Never in my life had I flown so recklessly. I invited death on every possible occasion, but I seemed to bear a charmed life; and then, one day, the Eljanhai sent for me.

"Would you like to give the amplifier a serious test?" he asked.

"I certainly would," I replied.

"What do you think would be the best plan?" he asked.

"I will fly to Tonos," I replied.

He did some figuring on a pad of paper and then said, "That will take between thirty-five and forty days. It will be very dangerous. Do you realize the risk?"

"Yes, sir."

"I shall ask for volunteers to go with you," he said.

"I prefer to go alone, sir; there is no use in risking more than one life. I have no ties here. It would not mean anything to anyone in a personal way, if I never return."

"I thought that you had some very close friends here," he said.

"So did I, but I was mistaken. I'd really prefer to go alone."

"When do you wish to start?" he asked.

"As soon as I can provision my ship; I shall need a great quantity of food and water; much more than enough for a round trip. There's no telling what conditions are like on Tonos. I may not be able to obtain any food or even water there as far as anyone knows."

"Requisition all that you require," he said, "and come and see me again before you take off."

By the following night, I had everything that I needed carefully stowed in my ship, which was equipped with a robot pilot, as were all the great radius ships in Poloda. I could set the robot and sleep all the way to Tonos if I wished; that is, if I could sleep that long.

I was so intrigued with the prospect of this adventure that I was almost happy while I was actively employed, but when I returned to my quarters that last night, possibly and probably my last night on Poloda, my depression returned. I could think of nothing but the reception that Yamoda and Don had given me. My best friends! I tell you, try as I would, I couldn't keep the tears from coming to my eyes as I thought about it.

I was just about ready to peel off my uniform and turn in when there was a knock at my door. "Come in!" I said.

The door opened, and an officer entered. At first I did not recognize him, he had changed so since I had last seen him. It was Handon Gar.

"So you did escape," I said "I am glad."

He stood for a moment in silence looking at me. "I don't know what to say," he said. "I did you a terrible wrong, and only today did I learn the truth."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I thought that you were a traitor, and so reported when I returned to Orvis. When you came back and they didn't arrest you, I was dumbfounded; but I figured that they were giving you more rope with which to hang yourself."

"Then it was you who told Harkas Yamoda?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "and that was the worst wrong I committed, for I hurt her and Don as much as I did you; but I have been to them and told them the truth. I have just come from them, and they want you to come to their home tonight.

"How did you learn the truth?" I asked.

"The Commissioner for War told me today. He was surprised to know that you had not told anyone."

"I had not received permission; I was still nominally a secret agent."

When I got to the Harkases, none of us could speak for several moments; but finally Don and Yamoda controlled their emotions sufficiently to ask my forgiveness, Yamoda with tears running down her cheeks.

We talked for some time, as they wanted to know all about my experiences in Kapara, and then Don and Handon Gar went into the house, leaving Yamoda and me alone.

We sat in silence for several moments, and then Yamoda said, "Morga Sagra; was she very beautiful?"

"To be perfectly truthful, I couldn't say," I replied. "I suppose she was good-looking enough, but my mind was usually filled with so many other things that I didn't give much thought to Morga Sagra except as a fellow conspirator. I knew she was a traitor, and no traitor could look beautiful to me. Then too I carried with me the memory of someone far more beautiful."

She gave me a quick half-glance, a little questioning look, as though to ask whom that might be; but I didn't have a chance to tell her, for just then Handon Gar and Don came back into the garden and interrupted our conversation.

"What's this I hear of the expedition you're setting out on tomorrow?" demanded Don.

"What expedition?" asked Yamoda.

"He's going to try to fly to Tonos."

"You're joking," said Yamoda.

"Am I, Tangor?" demanded Don.

I shook my head. "He's not joking." Then I told them of the amplifier I had perfected and that the Eljanhai had given me permission to make the flight.

"Not alone, Tangor!" cried Yamoda.

"Yes, alone," I replied.

"Oh, please, if you must go, have somebody with you," she begged; "but must you go?"

"My ship is outfitted, and I leave tomorrow morning," I replied.

Handon Gar begged to go with me. He said that he had permission from the Commissioner for War, if I wished to take him along. Don said he'd like to go, but couldn't as he had another assignment.

"I don't see any reason for risking more than one life," I said, but Yamoda begged me to take Handon Gar along, and he pleaded so eloquently that at last I consented.

That night as I left, I kissed little Yamoda goodbye. It was the first time that we had ever kissed. Until then, she had seemed like a beloved sister to me; now somehow, she seemed different.

Tomorrow Handon Gar and I take off for Tonos, over 570,000 miles away.

Editor's note: I wonder if Tangor ever reached that little planet winging its way around a strange sun, 450,000 light years away. I wonder if I shall ever know.

THE END