"Fleet police have been looking everywhere for him for five days," this uneducated officer went on.

Spiteos was safe. The Apparatus was safe. The mission was safe. What amateurs these spacers were after all!

"Well, they can stop looking," I said. And I was very glad to have found out about it. It was almost worth the beating to be able to turn it off. "Jettero Heller was needed for urgent consultation on a matter of the Grand Council." It didn't stop them. But it slowed them down. There were some "yah-yahs" of disbelief. Somebody had a smart idea and dived at me and while another held me, my identoplate was taken from my pocket.

"Section 451 of the Apparatus!" It was a yelp of triumph. It was followed with "I-knew-its,"

"Drunks!" and snarls. And they would have attacked again but I had the situation now.

So what if the mission was confidential. "You don't want that identoplate," I said coolly. "You want the orders in my paper case. It must be over around the counter. Unfortunately, if you open the case, I will have to swear you all to secrecy. But that's all right. Go ahead." They still didn't believe me. They found the case-pretty badly smashed it was, too. They brought it over for me to unlock. I rattled off the oath of state secrecy and they all said yes. I opened the case and threw them the Grand Council order and the personnel order of Jettero Heller.

The senior officer read them. Some bright spark from Fleet Intelligence held up his hand to halt any further action, took the two orders and went to the switchboard.

He came back, lips curled in disgust. "The first time anything connected with the 'drunks' was ever straight. They're authentic. We'll have to let him go." Thank the Gods I'd gone to Fleet personnel before I came to this den of young lepertiges! The magic of a written order. Regardless of what chicanery lay under it. That was the way they ran their lives.

"I came," I said demurely, "to pick up his baggage." The (bleeping) fools thought their friend was safe!

Jettero Heller's room apparently lay at the end of a long passageway on the top floor. The hotel manager had shown up, an old spacer with a totally bald head who, judging from burn scars on his face, was a retired gunner. Behind us trooped several of the young officers, led by the biggest one who had done the most beating: they were coming along "just in case." I really wanted a chance to ransack through his things and find some weaknesses and personal flaws to aid in handling him.

"I think," I said, "that he'll be giving up his room. This mission is going to take a while. I'll be packing up all his possessions." The manager didn't even glance at me but I could see a reaction. It reminded me I was not wholly out of this place yet. We arrived at the last door and he threw it open. He threw it wideopen. So I could look.

I'd expected, of course, just a little cubicle, the standard officer's room. What I saw stopped me dead!

It was a suite! Threespacious rooms stretched out, and way over at the far end of the last one there were big doors and a garden terrace that overlooked the mountains!

A junior officer's quarters? Oh, no. There was many an admiral who had no such quarters as this!

I went sort of numb. Spacers always tend to bring the look of a ship down to the planet surface. They also have lots of time in space and are given to making things out of whatever is handy: a blastgun breech carved into a wood nymph, a piece of armor shield made into a table, a control seat made into a chair, an acceleration couch converted to a settee, spare porthole casings made into picture frames, that sort of thing. And they were all here, of course, but beautifully done.

One expects the souvenirs from many a planet: the toy muscle-dancing girl that swings her hips as she hands you a bottle opener, the polished shell of a sea animal that glitters but says on it Memories of Bactose, the little boy with six arms who waves flags and spells out Come Home to Erapin, the carved woman that opens an inlaid box and throws you a chank-pop when you say "Kiss me, Serafin!" They were all here along with the banners and wreaths but they were all absolute top of their line: exquisite!

The gleaming metal floors were strewn with rugs from a dozen planets, each one a collector's item.

And the whole place harmonized together with beautiful taste.

Wow! There was many a Lord who would have envied this layout!

I at once thought I had Jettero's fracture point: I doubted he was wealthy in his own right and no Grade X junior officer could ever afford a thousandth of this on Fleet pay. Jettero must have both hands in the appropriations take, right up to the elbows!

We stepped over to a musical bar in the first room and the old gunner indicated the whole suite with a sweep of his hand. Like a tourist guide, monotonously, he said, "Five years ago the battleship Menuchenkencrashed a thousand miles inside enemy lines on the planet Flinnup. It was hopeless: the ship's drives were disabled, three thousand officers and crew faced capture and execution. Jettero Heller penetrated the Flinnup defenses with vital spare parts, got the drives operating, pried the Menuchenkenout of a caldron of fire and brought her out." He paused. "When the Menuchenkencrew was released from the hospital, they came here." He moved his hand slowly to indicate the rooms. "They did this while Jettero was out on another mission. As a gift." He indicated the walls and a few of the fittings. "It has been added to since by others. If his present mission took a hundred years, this would still be here. It's a show-place of the club! And it's Jettero's home." Oh, well, I thought. So he wasn't a crook. But people have other fracture points. "I better pick up the few things he will need."

"Don't let him touch anything," said the big, tough officer. "We'll do any packing." They jostled me aside and opened an invisible door, displaying a vast closet of clothes and personal gear. One of the officers lifted a dress uniform off the rack and brought it out.

"No, no," I said. "He'll be under cover. No uniforms. Just personal necessities. He's travelling light." They shrugged and began to gather those up. But they had dropped the dress uniform close to me and I looked at it. It was red-piped, of course, and had the gold "Ten" for his grade woven into the stand-up collar. Now most civilians think that the wavy gold, silver and copper lines that ornament the chest of some dress uniforms are just that: ornaments. They wonder sometimes why some junior officer looks like a metal mine on parade and some seniors look so plain. The fact is, those thick, wavy lines of braid are citations; they are sewn in such a way that the top flap can be lifted and under it, in tiny letters, is the citation itself.

Jettero Heller's dress uniform breast had neither silver nor copper braid. It was an almost solid mass of gold!

I lifted some of the flaps: building a bridge under severe enemy fire; mining the orbit of Banfochon III; rebuilding the destroyed control center of Hemmerthon under enemy barrage; recovery of the derelict Genmaid;sabotage of the Rollofan transport system; mining the fortress ofMontrail . . .On and on! I had to look at several more before I even found the battleship Menuchenken.Jettero Heller's few years of service had been active ones even for a combat engineer. Behind each one of those brief entries would lie a whole lurid scene of close shaves and violent battle.

I told myself how it must have happened: fellow gets a reputation and they keep drafting him when the odds look hopeless. And in times of perpetual war, there were lots of these. Then my estimate was soured by noting that what they call the "Volunteer Star" – a blaze of diamonds with a ruby center – was tucked with its ribbon inside the jacket. They award that for fifty perilous volunteers. They didn't keep drafting him – he kept volunteering!