There
it stopped. A figure got down from the driver's seat and walked
purposefully in the gate.

Thereafter nothing happened at all until a second figure rolled and
toppled itself out on the ground from the seat beside the ambulance
driver's. That figure kicked and writhed on the ground. A policeman went
to find out what was the matter.

It was the ambulance driver. Not the one who'd driven the ambulance to
the Embassy gate, but the one who should have. He was bound hand and
foot and not too tightly gagged. When released he swore vividly while
panting that he had been captured and bound by somebody who said he was
Bron Hoddan and was in a hurry to get back to the Interstellar Embassy.

There was no uproar. Those to whom Hoddan's name had meaning were struck
speechless with rage. The fury of the police was even too deep for
tears.

But Bron Hoddan, back in the quarters assigned him in the Embassy,
unloaded a dozen cooled-off stun-pistols from his pockets and sent word
to the ambassador that he was back, and that the note ostensibly from
Nedda had actually been a police trap.

Getting ready to retire, he reviewed his situation. In some respects it
was not too bad. All but Nedda's share in trying to trap him, and having
a party the same night.... He stared morosely at the wall. Then he saw,
very simply, that she mightn't have known even of his arrest. She lived
a highly sheltered life. Her father could have had her kept completely
in ignorance....

He cheered immediately. This would be his last night on Walden, if he
were lucky, but vague plans already revolved in his mind. Yes.... He'd
achieve splendid things, he'd grow rich, he'd come back and marry that
delightful girl, Nedda, and end as a great man. Already, today, he'd
done a number of things worth doing, and on the whole he'd done them
well.

III

When dawn broke over the capital city of Walden, the sight was
appropriately glamorous. There were shining towers and curving
tree-bordered ways, above which innumerable small birds flew
tumultuously. The dawn, in fact, was heralded by high-pitched chirpings
everywhere. During the darkness there had been a deep-toned humming
sound, audible all over the city. That was the landing grid in operation
out at the spaceport, letting down a twenty-thousand-ton liner from
Rigel, Cetis, and the Nearer Rim. Presently it would take off for Krim,
Darth, and the Coalsack Stars, and if Hoddan was lucky he would be on