In my room, Heller got my clothes off me and put me in the bath and when he had the mess washed away he got me into my bed. He was amazingly solicitous. He turned a drying lamp to put heat onto my stomach area, hoping that would help.

I lay there in dull misery. I had never felt so ill in my whole life, even worse than talking to Lombar.

Heller picked up some of my clothes from where they had fallen. "These are ruined," he said.

I went rigid with alarm: he was emptying the pockets! I couldn't think of any way to stop him. When one is not going regularly to a place of work, he tends to make himself into a sort of walking office; there were notebooks, old envelopes, messages, you name it. If he were to comb through them, the double cross of Mission Earth might be exposed!

But he was just putting them aside in a pile. He was not even looking at them. Sick as I was, I felt a slight edge of contempt for his total ignorance of the espionage game. He was a child!

He put the numerous weapons in a second pile and then he took the whole uniform, cap, boots and everything, verified it was empty and dumped it in the waste disposer. Well, it had been pretty dirty and stinky even before the "accident" today.

One of the guards had remained inside the room, ready to help him. Heller fished my identoplate from the pile of papers and handed it to the guard.

"No!" I pleaded weakly.

"Go down to the camp," Heller told him, "and get a complete new General Services uniform from their supply." The guard gave him a crossed-arm Fleet salute – they never saluted me – and vanished with my identoplate.

"Heller," I wailed. "With that plate he'll just buy half the prostitutes in Camp Kill! You've bankrupted me."

"Oh, I don't think so. Soltan, you'll just have to learn to trust people." Trust riffraff and criminals like these? "Oh, I am too ill for a conduct lesson! Don't moralize at me." He adjusted the heat on my stomach and put a cool wet cloth on my head. "Feeling better?" I wasn't. Heller cleaned up the mess the clothes had transferred to the floor. These Fleet spacers are amazingly neat. He undressed and took a shower himself. He washed out his redstar engineer's rag and then his exercise suit. He neated the whole place up and then put on a one-piece casual evening suit. He combed his hair and then, looking like something that just stepped out of a tailor's window, he turned on the Homeview and sat down.

My heart almost stopped. He was leaning forward and reaching toward the two piles from the suit. I thought he was going to go through my papers!

But he didn't. He reached toward the weapons pile and picked, up a blastick. "Quite an arsenal you've got here." He opened the blastick load chamber and checked the power cartridge. "You have to be careful of these things. They ship them with a dummy load – looks just like the real thing. Well, this one is okay." I expected him to, any moment, start pawing through the papers. But he picked up the stungun and verified its load. He reached again and once more I held my breath. But he picked up the ten-inch Knife Section blade. He looked at it curiously. They certainly aren't common. If you know them, there is a certain way you can flick at the tip and make them sing. He flicked the tip and made it sing. "Good alloy," he said.

His hand moved up and before I could even see what he was going to do, it left his hand with such velocity it hissed. I flinched. Was it coming at me?

There was a melon on a shelf and the knife hit it dead center and went through it with a thunk! He went over and removed it with a sort of double flip of his wrist and stood there offering me a neat slice of melon. "Want some?" he said. The thought of it made me go green inside again. "Sorry," said Heller, "but sometimes a melon can cool one down." He replaced the piece of cut melon and returned to the chair but he still didn't reach for any papers. He cleaned up the knife and its scabbard.

The guardsman came back with a package of uniforms. He returned the identoplate. Heller handed him a credit note and the guard said, "Will that be all, sir?" They never said "sir" to me. But then, I thought nastily, you can buy a lot of things with a credit note.

But that wasn't the end of it. The fellow leaned over and whispered something in Heller's ear and Heller smiled and whispered back. They both grinned. What were they planning? A breakout?

The guard stepped back and was about to salute when Heller pointed at the floor. "You dropped the money."

"So I did," said the guard and picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then he gave Heller a salute and left. So the guard wasn't only interested in money, I told myself. They wereup to something.

Heller got a textbook about Earth and began to read. He still ignored my papers. What a fool! He wouldn't last ten days on Earth.

Somehow this made me feel worse and I began to worry about myself. I had never before had any stomach trouble. I didn't seem to have a fever.

What could it be?

If I were to go down to Doctor Crobe, he would tell me that he would put in a new stomach. I thought about Crobe. I would never, never, never permit myself to go unconscious around that loony: you could wake up with a cow's head!

That suggestion he had made about Heller's legs . . . !

I was sick all over again! There was nothing left to throw up. I just hung off the side of the bed, retching.

Heller got a pan but it wasn't needed. He dampened a cloth and put it on my forehead. But I didn't pay much attention. I was desperate. I could not go on being sick like this. I'd not just be sick if I didn't run this mission. I'd be dead!

I lay there. Heller had gone back to the textbook. I made myself think calmly and rationally. When had this illness begun?

With careful concentration I thought it over. It had started when I went into Crobe's area. There was something totally poisonous about Crobe!

Yes, each time I concentrated on him, I felt sick!

Ha! It was obvious! I must never go near Crobe again! Never, never, never!

Abruptly, I was totally well! One instant I was feeling horrible. The next instant I was feeling great! There was not the tiniest suggestion of pain or nausea!

I sat up in happy relief.

"Feeling better?" said Heller. I nodded vigorously.

"Well, sometimes these things pass away pretty quick. After all, you're young and healthy. Some fast bug, no doubt. I'm glad you're better." I got up, washed my face again and put on my new uniform. I stuffed my telltale papers in my pockets and rearmed myself.

Life looked absolutely wonderful!

But as the priests of Voltar say, "Never get too fond of happiness or the Gods will take it away." And so it was that evening.

Heller pottered about, neating things up, cleaning things, polishing up the table, straightening up the room. I ignored his spacer passion for bright, good order. I didn't even mind the echo orchestra he had playing on the Homeview. I occupied my time neating up my pocket papers.

There was a knock on the door and I opened it. Two of the guardsmen were standing there with a big box on a low, wheeler dolly. "For you," said one.

It was an awfully big box. I couldn't remember ordering anything of the sort. "For me?"

"For you all right," said the guardsmen. "See?" It was too dark in the passageway to read the label so they pushed it on into the room and closed the door behind them.

Sure enough, a big sign on top of the box read, URGENT. OFFICER GRIS ONLY!

The solemnity of their expressions, the way Heller was watching, should have alerted me. But I had been feeling too good.

I put out my hand, grasped the handle on top and opened the lid. What I expected to see I don't know. But what I did see was pure horror!