There could be a nasty homecoming ahead, Blade realized. First, though, came the comparatively straightforward job of removing Loyun Chard's starship from this Dimension. Lord Leighton could take his turn.

Blade ended the discussion with the Menel scientist as soon as he politely could. Then he ordered several bottles of wine and called up Riyannah. He wanted a lot of both to help him get back in touch with the one reality around him.

Blade and Riyannah returned to Targa in a Kananite ship. Riyannah was now disguised as a Targan. The best doctors and surgeons on Kanan did the work, but even so it wasn't completely successful. Her hair was now dark and close-cropped but still too fine for any Targan's. Artificial skin fastened the last two fingers of each hand together into an awkward bundle but couldn't completely hide the extra joints. Chemical injections changed her skin and eye color to something that just possibly might have been Targan. There was nothing anybody could do about her slimness.

Fortunately she didn't have to fool the underground, because she never could. Blade wasn't even sure she'd be able to fool the enemy, «unless the light is weak and they're in a hurry or too drunk to see straight,» as he put it. He still didn't object, since Riyannah wanted it this way. She had almost enough reasons to justify risking her neck.

«I'm an observer for the War Council, and how can I do my job if I can't go where I can observe? Besides, you may need another pair of eyes and ears and another gun for dealing with the underground. You've said it yourself-'Bare is the back that has no brother to defend it.' Perhaps a sister will do as well.»

«If that sister is you, she will,» said Blade. He hoped things would work out so that Riyannah didn't have to follow him every inch of the way. Otherwise nothing short of locking her up would keep her out of danger.

They made the return trip considerably faster than they'd made the trip out. The captain was pushing both the ship and the passengers to their limits. After the first Transition Riyannah was unconscious for six hours and Blade was disoriented for half the next day. After that they both put away their pride and took the other three Transitions to Targa under drugs.

They spent several days on the asteroid base. Blade noticed two welcome signs that someone was taking the danger of war seriously. A Menel starship came in and unloaded a dozen short-range patrol ships. A big Kananite ship loaded several hundred civilians and all their baggage, then left for home.

On the sixth day another Kananite ship unloaded the interplanetary craft that would take Blade and Riyannah the rest of the way to Targa. She was small, sleek, heavily armored, and bristling with hurd-ray projectors and missile launchers. Her crew were proud of their ship and ready for a fight against the Targans. They were almost disappointed when Blade told them their mission on this trip was to sneak in without being detected.

«Don't worry, you'll get plenty of fighting if we fail,» Blade said. «Maybe if we succeed.» He looked at the ship again and at the two men and three women who made up her crew. They were the first Kananites other than Riyannah he'd ever met who seemed to enjoy the prospect of a fight. He could almost believe he was listening to some Home Dimension fighter pilots, all determined to become aces in their first battle.

«How many ships are there like Trenbar?» he asked.

«Only three or four ready for space,» said the captain. «We're the first one out here. I think there are five or six more building at home.»

Three or four! Blade looked at Trenbar again. He'd never seen a spacecraft with «warship» written so clearly all over her. If he and Riyannah and the Targans could give Kanan the time to build three or four hundred like Trenbar and train crews for them all, Kanan and the Menel could thumb their noses at anything Loyun Chard could do.

Blade's optimism suffered a rude shock when he and Riyannah finally landed among the fighters of the Targan underground.

The trip itself was everything Trenbar's captain promised. They came in over the uninhabited north polar continent and hedge-hopped all the way south to their landing place without being attacked. Once a Targan plane started closing on them, but the captain accelerated and left the plane behind as if it was anchored in the sky. They slipped down through a mountain pass and landed less than a hundred miles from where Blade and Riyannah first met. The Targans helped unload the equipment, then Trenbar stood on her tail and leaped into the sky vanishing in a thunderclap of torn air.

Blade and Riyannah were taken to the current main base off the underground, in a maze of limestone caves deep in the mountains. There they confronted the five surviving leaders of the underground who'd been able to make it to this rendezvous. Chard's planes and men were pulling back now, but there'd been a period of savage raids after Blade and Riyannah escaped. Of the twelve leaders Riyannah expected to meet, four were dead and three more didn't dare leave their hiding places to travel to this meeting. Hundreds of the underground's fighters and many of their weapons and key pieces of equipment were also gone. This only strengthened their suspicions of Kananites and Kananite help.

Blade and Riyannah did their best, but for a while it seemed that their best wasn't going to be good enough. The Targans twisted everything they said, asked questions even the War Council of Kanan couldn't have answered, and generally made trouble.

At least Blade felt they were making trouble. He did his best not to let that feeling run away with him, because he knew it wasn't true. The Targan underground was battered, desperate, and sullen. They knew that Kananite aid might save them, but they also knew that Kananite treachery would finish them off like a moth dropped into a laser beam. They couldn't decide if it was worth risking the treachery in order to get the aid.

Blade understood all this, sympathized, and still began to feel like knocking the leaders' heads together. If there was one thing they couldn't do, it was refuse to make up their minds until Loyun Chard made the decision for them. At the same time Blade knew he couldn't push too hard, make a nuisance of himself, or arouse anyone's suspicions. Unlike the Kananites, the Targans wouldn't hesitate a minute in shooting troublemakers.

Eventually Blade saw that he had no choice, and Riyannah agreed with him. The War Council might object, but it was thirty light-years away on Kanan. He and Riyannah were here on Targa, facing Targans who were getting more stubborn and even threatening each day. They weren't going to risk throwing everything away merely to keep the Council happy.

So Blade removed the artificial skin, then appeared before the Targans with the technical films in his hand.

«Here is everything you need to know for making the Kananites' power cells and solar converters. Once you put these in production, Targa's energy problems will soon be solved. You can go before your fellow Targans and tell them that Loyun Chard leads them to war only to satisfy his own ambitions. There is no more need to conquer other planets among the stars and loot them or die by the millions trying to do so. All they need to do is overthrow Chard, then turn their factories from making planes and lasers to making these.» He dropped the films on the table in front of the leaders.

For a while Blade wondered if he'd made a mistake. Some of the leaders seemed to favor an agreement. Others went on muttering suspiciously. Since one of the things they muttered was «holding that Kananite bitch Riyannah as a hostage,» Blade decided to leave.

As he headed toward the door, two of the leaders drew their guns and things got rather lively. Blade shot one man in the leg and clubbed another with the butt of his own pistol. Riyannah tripped up a third, then hit him over the head with a chair. Before anyone else could move, Blade and Riyannah were out of sight, on their way to the cave where their equipment was stored.