What a relief it would be to have her off my hands!

I got the taxi and we got her to the airport with the huge cases, hypnohelmet cartons and grip. Using the taxi driver and a porter, I got the luggage and her to the check-in counter. There was excess baggage, of course-$329! I had told her I didn't have any money. But I was up to it.

When they gave her her boarding pass, I led her over to a waiting-room seat and seated her. Then I went back to the counter. By the simple mechanism of giving the clerk a twenty-dollar bill for himself personally, I got the baggage marked Paid Excess through to New York.

She was looking around her at the several passengers who were waiting. Even if they were in cloaks and veils, the women were not badly dressed. White silk and gold brocade were visible through slits in the outer covering.

She looked down ruefully at herself. The comparison was not favorable. I suppressed my mirth. She did look pretty awful in that dingy cloak and hood with the holes in it. And the veil was gray with age. Oh, she'd force Heller to foot the bill for clothes, all right!

The echoey P. A. system was calling her flight, in Turkish and then in English, "Passengers now boarding THY Flight 19 for Istanbul. Gate One."

Afyon is just a little airport with only one plane a day and one gate, but since it reopened some years back, they like to do things big city style.

"That's your plane," I said urgently. Just being around her was a pretty nerve-wracking experience. If she guessed what I was putting her up to, she was quite capable of stamping me into the waiting-room floor.

"Wait," she said. "Haven't you forgotten something, Soltan?"

I looked down. I was still holding her flight envelope.

"Here," I said. "Here is the rest of your ticket and your baggage and excess check. The gate is right over there...."

"All right," she said, taking them and also pulling the boarding pass out of my other hand. "But I'm told New York is the biggest city on the planet. And although I am sure that everybody would know Jettero by this time, maybe he is using a different name like you did with me. And I don't even have his address!"

Oh, my Gods, how could I overlook that! If she couldn't find him they might send her straight back to point of origin.

The P. A. blared out hollowly again. Whoever was manning that P. A. system could visibly see he had passengers stalled and not moving toward the gate-namely us!"THY Flight 19! Gate One. You'll miss your flight, Sultan Bey! Move it!"

(Bleep) being too well-known. It threw me into con­fusion. I didn't have a pencil. I rushed to a counter and got one. There was no paper. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a scrap. I hastily wrote Heller's Earth name and address on the back of it. I rushed back to the Countess Krak, pushed it into her hand and shoved her bodily toward Gate One.

The man there took her boarding pass and urgently pointed at the plane. Everybody else was aboard. But the Countess Krak turned. She seized me by the shoulders and right through her veil gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, Soltan," she said. "I appreciate what you have done. You are a good man, Soltan."

She turned and raced over to the plane, and sped up the steps. At the top she turned and waved back to me. Then she vanished inside.

I stood there, very uneasy indeed. On the surface of it, getting her here, getting her scars removed and getting her on her way to see the man she loved would seem to merit appreciation. But looking only at the surface could get one into deep trouble in dealing with the Countess Krak. She had been up to something. That burst of affection was so unlike her, I knew down to the roots of my soul that it boded no good. Yes, the more I thought of it, the more certain I became. Some horrible trick was involved! I knew her too well! And to my sorrow!

The plane rumbled away to the takeoff area and then, with a roar, rushed down the runway and into the sky.

I was not out of the woods yet. She might not transfer to the international flight at Istanbul. She might have second thoughts and come back.

The taxi rushed me back to the hospital. I entered the interview room and locked the door behind me. I unlocked the cabinet and got out the viewer.

There she was in the Turkish Airlines plane. She had taken off the veil. The stewardess was giving her coffee and a small, dried-out roll. She took the little tray and examined it minutely, feeling the paper, trying to read the label on the sugar cube-which was in Turkish. She didn't know that she was supposed to put the sugar cube in the coffee. A taste of the beverage did not meet with her approval. She saw a passenger ring a buzzer and get the stewardess so she tried it. The stewardess came over.

"This is awfully bitter," the Countess said in Eng­lish. "Do you have some hot jolt?"

Oh, Gods. Code break! But it wouldn't have done any good to brief her. She would just have said, I'm not in the military!

The stewardess looked shocked. "We usually don't serve hard liquor on the early morning flight, ma'am."

"But this is so bitter!"

"Ah," said the stewardess, "you haven't put the sugar in." She opened a couple of cubes and dropped them in the cup. She must have thought the Countess Krak was feebleminded.

The Countess Krak studied the blunt, odd-shaped knife. She must have decided you could stir with it, for that is how she used it. Then she found the spoon still wrapped up in the napkin. She studied that. There was a pat of butter for the roll. She took some of it with the spoon and tasted it cautiously. She sipped at the coffee. Then she put everything back down on the tray. She muttered, in Voltarian, "Jettero must be starving to death on this planet!"

That was the most cheerful thought I had heard all day! I took off my cap and got out of my bearskin coat. I put the viewer on the examination couch and sat down in a chair. I might as well make myself comfortable. I was going to make very sure this lepertige got out of Turkey.

I reached up to fondle my "rank locket" as one will. My hand met empty air!

I looked.

GONE!

I must have dropped it!

A sick feeling coursed through me. I had intended just to borrow Utanc's emerald locket to give myself the necessary air of authority when I couldn't find mine. I had intended, before this day was out, to sneak it back into her wardrobe jewel drawer. Oh, my Gods, her rage at me would make the villa utterly uninhabitable!

Wait. Where had I felt it last? I couldn't recall.

I raced out into the hall. I almost collided head-on with Prahd. "Have you found a locket?" I screamed at him.

He said, "Sssh, sssh!" He pushed me back into his office. "Don't yell so. And you've taken off your fur coat. You can't run around in public in a Voltar uniform! Here." He grabbed a white doctor's coat out of a drawer and shoved it at me.

I steadied myself down long enough to put it on. The skirt and sleeves were much too long. "The locket

I was wearing to show my rank," I said. "It's gone. Please help me look for it."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I have an operation sched­uled. Just remember the places you have been and go look."

That was wise advice. I went to the operating room we had used last night. A cleaning team was in there. No, they hadn't seen a green locket.

I went to where I had stood looking through the oneway window. No, no locket on the floor.

Bright idea: I called the taxi driver on the phone. I held on while he went and looked in his cab. No, no locket.

Pleadingly, I told him to drive out to the airport and look around the floor and call back. He said he would.

I paced. Oh, Gods, Utanc would scream and rage and throw things in absolute hurricanes for days, weeks, months! It was the biggest stone in that drawer. It must be worth fifty thousand dollars at least!