"Oh, come now," I said.

"Open your books!" said Madison. "Every time Philip turned around he was marrying some new woman. He practically had bedsores from so many nuptial couches. And when he finally married a skirt named Cleopatra– not the Egyptian one-his wife Olympia got fed up, grabbed Alexander, jumped into her chariot and left the kingdom in a cloud of horse biscuits. One marriage too many. A man that marries at all should be in a padded cell and a man that commits bigamy ought to be tied down and tortured by the most fiendish psychiatrist available."

It spoiled my day. I went over and sat down under an olive tree. He had expressed my own beliefs and plights altogether too well.

It was right at that moment that the true significance of the threat in Turkey hit home. I was already married twice in New York.

The thought of marrying another in Turkey was more than I could bear and when I remembered that Nurse Bildirjin was a sadist who put her knees into chests while a patient's skull was being drilled, I began to shudder. And when the fact that she was also underage wriggled into my mental torture scene, I began to be quite ill.

When we returned to the ship for lunch, I ate very little and begged off from further excursions in the after­noon. They left without me.

Slumped in the owner's salon, I was not cheered the slightest bit to hear from the lips of the small, bald-headed Mr. Twaddle, the Assistant Dean of Students at Empire, that Heller had passed all his examinations with flying colors.

"Wister," said Twaddle, standing up and removing his pipe, "I posted a notice to see you personally because I am utterly astounded! You are very close to a first ever. One hundred percent across the boards in a vast array of subjects. It's really quite astounding what we at Empire can do with a student. I look at these grades from that military college and compare it to these grades for your senior year here and it's hard to believe my eyes. What a diligent student! Goodness gracious, how you have reformed! Shows what constant application in class will do under our superlative faculty. And amazing, you never missed a single day in attendance."

"I find it somewhat astonishing myself," said Heller. The dog! He'd never set foot in those classrooms after the first few days! That Izzy had arranged it all!

"So that puts your class average at the top as well. So I am pleased to tell you, and wanted to do so personally, that you are graduating as a Bachelor of Nuclear Science and Engineering next week, Magna Cum Laude."

"I appreciate it," said Heller.

"Oh, don't thank me. There's another note here from Miss Simmons. She's usually an absolute tiger on students. Hard to understand. She's the one who called it to the attention of the faculty that you should be given the highest possible honors. Here's her note. She says, 'I am eternally grateful to this student for the way he has promoted relations between my students and myself. Without what he has done, it would be a joyless world.' She even made a speech at faculty meeting, telling them she had never been more satisfied."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Heller. "It was touch and go there for a while. But after a time she began to come around."

I mourned the loss of my ally.

"Now, there's one more thing," said Mr. Twaddle. "You finished your senior year as an ROTC officer. According to your enrollment in the ROTC, you should be sworn in to the United States Army as a second lieutenant and go on active duty."

"Sworn in?" said Heller.

"Take the oath of allegiance and all that," said Mr. Twaddle.

"That would be..." Heller stopped. I knew the quandary this was putting him in. As a Grade X Royal officer of the Voltar Fleet, he would incur the death penalty if he swore allegiance to some alien force. I became very alert. If this happened, I had him!

Mr. Twaddle raised a hand to silence him. "Your ROTC studies were for G-2, Army Intelligence. Your diploma is for nuclear science.

Colonel Tanc sent over a new Army ruling. Here it is, right here. As there is no war in progress at the moment, the Army has no need of more intelligence. Unless war is declared, any nuclear engineer is permitted to apply himself to his trade in a civilian capacity. So the news is that your induction into the Army has been deferred. And you can accept all those high-priced industry offers that will be raining on our students come graduation day."

"Wonderful," said Heller.

My heart sank. There went my last chance. Heller would be as busy as a hurricane getting out new fuel and wrecking Rockecenter and Lombar. This was BAD!

Gloom deepened around me.

The reality of the mess I was in was reaching me.

Suddenly the thought hit me that Bury would be on my trail when Heller's villainous determination to save this planet reached his ears. A better, cleaner fuel would be just wonderful for five billion Earth people but would be death for Rockecenter and that's what counted.

I couldn't stand any more. I dragged myself to my bedchamber and lay down.

I must have dozed. I awoke to find Teenie rummaging in my closets.

She saw I was awake. "Inky, do you have an alpenstock?"

"What's an alpenstock?" I said.

"A thing you climb mountains with. I'm getting all ready for tomorrow. Maddie and I are going to drive down and climb Mount Olympus if we can."

"For Gods' sakes, what for?" I said.

"For Gods' sakes," she said. "They tell me that's where all the Greek Gods live. Zeus and the rest of 'em. And Alexander thought he was a god and maybe he went up there, too."

"Hey, no," I said. The thought of so much exertion made exhaustion run through me. "It's nine or ten thousand feet high, snow-capped, a whole series of peaks. It's dangerous. You might get dizzy and fall. For Gods' sakes, don't let yourself be killed!" That was all I would need to drown me in the soup I was barely swimming in. "Besides, I think all those Gods packed up when people stopped sacrificing goats so they could eat. I doubt you'll even find a busted laurel wreath."

"Oh, that isn't my only reason. I want to get a bird's-eye view of the sea out there and the islands. And I want to try to see Turkey. It's only about two hundred and twenty-five miles due east and nothing between it and us but water. Hey, what the hell's the matter with you, Inky?" She yelled louder. "Steward, you better come in here with a bucket! Inky's gotten seasick in port!"

The first inkling I had of real trouble came the following afternoon.

I was stricken in my bed, as I had been since yesterday. There was a tap on the door. The wireless officer looked in. "Is Miss Teenie here?"

"Why do you want her?" I croaked from my bed.

"It's just that her radio traffic is piling up and I haven't seen her all day."

"Radio traffic?" I blinked. What the Hells was Teenie doing getting radio traffic? From whom and why? "I'll take it," I said cunningly.

"No, no," he said. "It's always marked confidential."

The elderly stewardess heard the commotion. She came up the passageway carrying a laundry bag. "Miss Teenie won't be back until supper," she told the wireless officer. "You know better than to come down here and bother Mr. Bey. He's ailing."

The man saluted and withdrew, carrying the mysterious sheaf of messages in his hand, unread by me.

The next event was less mysterious but more shatter­ing. About four, I heard a rumbling on the dock beside us. I raised myself on a shaky elbow and looked out the port.

DEMONSTRATORS!

They were carrying signs, shaking fists, marching round and round beside the ship!

TURKS GO HOME!

TOOLS OF YANKEE IMPERIALISM

DOWN WITH TURKEY!

I always knew there was bad blood between the Turks and Greeks. It began with the Persian Wars. And although Alexander had conquered Asia Minor, as centuries passed, the Asians had gotten their own back and the Seljuk Turks had conquered all of Greece and held it right up into modern times. It looked like the bad blood had spilled over at the sight of our Turkish flag.