feeling as she came out into the big lobby, arching up
above its balconies, a feeling as though she had been away in a distant
land for a very long time and was just returning to the world she had
known all her life. In this returning, she looked upon things with new
ideas, and they did not appear the same as before.

This was the same spacious lobby across which she had walked to register
when she came to Solis Lacus from Mars City a few days ago. It was the
same lobby in which, looking down from the balcony, she had seen Dark
Kensington arriving. It was the same lobby in which she had sat with
Dark and talked for so long. But it seemed a strange place, a different
place, one that looked like the lobby she remembered but in which she
had never walked before.

Nuwell was standing across the lobby with the two police officers from
Ophir, beside a long wooden box that rested on the floor next to the
registration counter. Behind the counter, Quelman Gren, the manager of
Chateau Nectaris, was sorting the day's mail.

Nuwell saw her, detached himself from the others and came across the
lobby to meet her. As he approached, she experienced the same feeling
toward him that she had felt toward the lobby: he was like someone she
had known, but a different person.

There was a worried frown on Nuwell's face, and he managed to get
something of disapproval in his greeting kiss.

"It's lucky I called Ophir and had those men sent over here," were his
first words. "If they hadn't gotten here when they did, that rebel might
have killed you and escaped. I told you, Maya, not to try to handle a
situation like that."

"It was very astute of you to send them over," answered Maya dryly. "I
should have thought of it myself."

"That's exactly why you shouldn't try to handle such things alone," said
Nuwell, apparently somewhat mollified.

Maya looked into his face, a handsome, youthful face bearing a slightly
peeved expression, and she thought two things: she thought of the long
and intensive training she had undergone as a terrestrial agent, and she
contemplated just how effectively Nuwell might have handled Dark's
capture, had Nuwell been in her place.

"Come on, Maya, let's clear this up, so we can get out of here and get
back to Mars City," said Nuwell, and led her across the lobby to the two
policemen and the wooden box.

The two men from Ophir greeted her with a certain embarrassment, and
seemed relieved when she smiled wanly