"Why? They couldn't know it was you."

"Yes, they could and will," said Heller. "I had a misunderstanding with a patrol in the Emperor's rooms. I made a very bad mistake, even if nobody alive recognized me. In the scuffle, I dropped my baton. It has my name on it."

"Oh, Jettero."

"Yes. I'm an idiot. We've committed one of the highest crimes there is against the state. And we have no place to go."

Heller called to the tug, "Where are we now?"

"Six hundred miles altitude, accelerating. We had one challenge and then no further interest. Please close your radiation port covers. We're about to enter the lower edge of the magnetosphere."

Heller went out and banged the various covers shut. "Any other dangers?" he called.

"We are going to come too close to the moon Niko if we stay on this course."

"Well, avoid it," said Heller.

"You better make up our mind where we are going," said the tug. "At this acceleration, space only knows where we'll wind up."

Heller went back into the medical room. The Countess had gotten more blankets. She was covering the Emperor up more thoroughly. "I think he's just asleep but he seems awfully restless."

Jet felt the pulse again. "His heart seems to be too faint and too irregular. He needs more help than I can give him."

He went back to the flight deck. He turned on a radio and clicked over to the police band.

Instantly, it blared out, ".. . shoot on sight. All patrols and stations, alert. A general warrant has been issued for Jettero Heller, Grade X Fleet combat engineer for the attempted murder of Lombar Hisst, Chief of the Apparatus and Minister of State. The officer is armed and desperate. The warrant states to take no chances. Shoot on sight. All patrols and stations alert. A general warrant..."

The Countess Krak had heard it. "How could he be sure it was you?"

Heller shook his head. "That doesn't matter now. What does matter is that I have an awfully sick man here and I can't get him any help. I wouldn't dare compromise a unit of the Fleet in this."

The Emperor was very restless, giving sudden spasmodic twitches. He flung his arm out from underneath the covers. Heller stared at it. He took hold of the wrist and turned the inside of the limb to the light.

The Countess Krak gasped. The whole inside of the arm was patterned with scars and punctures.

Heller reached for the other arm and looked at it, finding it in even worse condition.

Jet dropped the arm and grabbed a light. He pried open an eye. He examined it and stood back.

"Heroin!" he said.

"What?"

"I've seen this before. Mary Schmeck."

"Who? A woman?"

"Never mind. The poor thing died. And all for the want of a nickel bag."

The Countess Krak was puzzled. "What was all this?"

Jet ignored it. "Hisst made the Emperor into a heroin addict," said Heller. "I don't know if this is also something else. But he is sliding into withdrawal symptoms and at his age, I don't think his heart will stand it."

"Oh, the poor man! Whether he signs anything or not, don't let him die, Jettero."

He stood perplexed for a moment and then his face brightened. "Look," he said, "hold that oxygen mask over his face. I'll be right back."

He had had a solution for this. He had brought samples of heroin and opium and amphetamines with him from Earth, but he had turned them over to Crup with other evidence for Bis. But now it occurred to him that Gris had had some drugs that day he came aboard at the original departure from Voltar. He went to that cabin and opened its vaults. His hopes sank. He found nothing.

Thinking maybe that Gris had hidden them elsewhere, he went to the next crew cabin which had been occupied by Captain Stabb. None of the Antimanco cabins had been cleared out. He opened the vault.

PACKAGES!

Amphetamines, morphine and heroin! Stabb had been hooked!

Quickly he went to the remaining vaults of other members of the Antimanco crew. They had also been hooked!

Packing bundles of the stuff, he went back to the medical room. "I have it!" he said to Krak. "Now how, in Heavens' name, do you fix this stuff?"

"You're not going to shoot him with that poison?" said the Countess, aghast.

"It's an awfully strange way to serve the Emperor, but for the moment it's the only way to stop a slide into a very nasty state indeed. If I DON'T do it, he'll wake up and have hot and cold flashes, severe leg pains and be liable to overstrain his heart. And after that he'd run a fever and have vomiting spells and probably die."

He was trying to remember what he had read in the office of the FBI. The one thing that stuck in his memory was that Mary Schmeck would not have died had she had her fix.

He found a metal cup. He put it in a sterilizer. Then he put some water in it and boiled it over a burner. He was not at all sure he was doing this right and it was an awful chance. He did not even know the amount of heroin to use. He opened up a paper pack, verified that that was what it was. He sprinkled some into the hot water and watched the white crystals dissolve.

"Do we know what we're doing?" said the Countess Krak, for his hesitation and uncertainty were far from usual.

"No," said Heller. "We only know that if we don't do it, we may have a dead man on our hands by tomorrow. Get that blood-pressure tube and wrap it around his upper arm."

Heller got a pressure injector out of a drawer and filled its recess with the fluid.

He examined the inside of the arm for veins. There were none that had not collapsed. He signalled the Countess to remove the tube she had tied on. He told her to refasten it around the middle thigh. No veins showed up.

Heller took a deep breath. He simply fired the pressure injector at the inside of the leg.

"All we can do is hope," he said. "I don't know what tolerance he has developed. I don't know if subcutaneous injection like this will work. I don't know if I haven't given him an overdose. Watch him and keep that oxygen going." "What a risk!" said the Countess Krak.

"Yes," said Jet, "but the biggest risk is to do nothing at all." They hovered breathlessly.

The Emperor's restlessness gradually ceased. Was he going into a coma?

Heller felt his pulse. It was very hard to tell but it seemed to be strengthening. The breathing became less tortured and more normal.

Would it turn out to be an overdose?

The man's eyes opened. He pushed the oxygen mask away. The gaunt and sunken face was not easy to read. It was like looking at a death's head. He looked at them. He gave a long, shuddering sigh and closed his eyes.

Heller felt his pulse and listened to his breathing. "He's just asleep. I wish we could get some food into him."

"If he wakes up, I'll try," said the Countess Krak. "He needs a lot more help than this."

"Indeed, he does," said Heller, "but if Lombar Hisst has gone this far, he'll stop at nothing to get him back. And His Majesty was sure that that was certain death. Also, I don't think there's a single doctor in the Confederacy who knows how to treat drug addiction.

It's all new ground to them. We can't land on any planet in the Confederacy...."

Suddenly he and the Countess Krak looked at each other. They both said it at the same time. "PRAHD!"

They fled for Earth, more than twenty-two light-years away from Voltar.

Tug One, redubbed the Prince Caucalsia, unfettered with a tow and using its Will-be Was main drives, intended for transgalactic travel but being used within one, could put them across the space to Blito-P3 in three days. It was an advantage, Heller knew, that would give them five weeks and three days over any other craft that could make the run. If pursuit occurred—and he had no doubt that Lombar would think of Earth as a possible refuge they might use– it would take any other ship six weeks. He was buying time.