teresting?"

Hoddan rose, gloomily. The Lady Fani, with a sigh of polite resignation,
rose to accompany him. The Ambassador said suddenly:

"Hoddan! I forgot to tell you! They found out what killed that man
outside the power station!" When Hoddan showed no comprehension, the
Ambassador explained, "The man your friend Derec thought was killed by
deathrays. It develops that he'd gotten a terrific load on--drunk, you
know--and climbed a tree to escape the pink, purple, and green _duryas_
he thought were chasing him to gore him. He climbed too high, a branch
broke, and he fell and was killed. I'll take it up with the court when I
get back to Walden. No reason to lock you up any more, you know. You
might even sell the Power Board on using your receptor, now!"

"Thanks," said Hoddan politely. He added, "Don Loris has that Derec and
a cop from Walden here now. Tell them that and they may go home."

He accompanied the Lady Fani to the battlements. The stars were very
bright. They strolled. Remembering his Darthians, he felt very
unpopular.

"What was that the Ambassador told you?" she asked.

He explained without zest. He added morbidly that it didn't matter. He
could go back to Walden now, and if the Ambassador was right he could
even accomplish things in electronics there. But he wasn't interested.
It was odd that he'd once thought such things would make him happy.

"I thought," said the Lady Fani, in gentle melancholy, "that I would be
happier with you dead. You had made me very angry. No, no matter how!
But I found it was not so."

Hoddan fumbled for her meaning. It wasn't quite an apology for trying to
get him killed. But at least it was a disclaimer of future intentions in
that direction.

"And speaking of happiness," she added in a different tone, "this
Nedda...." He shuddered, and she said: "I talked to her. So then I sent
for Ghek. We're on perfectly good terms again, you know. I introduced
him to Nedda. She was vanilla ice cream with meringue and maple syrup on
it. He loved it! She gazed at him with pretty sadness and told him how
terrible it was of him to kidnap me. He said humbly that he'd never had
her ennobling influence nor dreamed that she existed. And she loved
that! They go together like strawberries and cream! I had to leave, or
stop being a lady. I think I made a match."

Then she said tranquilly:

"But seriously, you ought to be perfectly happy. You've everything you
ever said you wanted, excep