ng bells rang again. The glare intensified until the glow in the
sky was unendurable, but Bart looked anyhow, making out the strange
shape of the Lhari ship from the stars.

It was huge and strange, glowing with colors Bart had never seen before.
It settled down slowly, softly: enormous, silent, vibrating, glowing;
then swiftly faded to white-hot, gleaming blue, dulling down through the
visible spectrum to red. At last it was just gleaming glassy Lhari-metal
color again. High up in the ship's side a yawning gap slid open,
extruding stairsteps, and men and Lhari began to descend.

Bart ran down a ramp and surged out on the field with the crowd. His
eyes, alert for his father's tall figure, noted with surprise that the
ship's stairs were guarded by four cloaked Lhari, each with a Mentorian
interpreter. They were stopping each person who got off the starship,
asking for identity papers. Bart realized he was seeing another segment
of the same drama he had overheard discussed, and wished he knew what it
was all about.

The crowd was thinning now. Robotcabs were swerving in, hovering above
the ground to pick up passengers, then veering away. The gap in the
starship's side was closing, and still Bart had not seen the tall, slim,
flame-haired figure of his father. The port on the other side of the
ship, he knew, was for loading passengers. Bart moved carefully through
the thinning crowd, almost to the foot of the stairs. One of the Lhari
checking papers stopped and fixed him with an inscrutable gray stare,
but finally turned away again.

Bart began really to worry. Captain Steele would never miss his ship!
But he saw only one disembarking passenger who had not yet been
surrounded by a group of welcoming relatives, or summoned a robotcab and
gone. The man was wearing Vegan clothes, but he wasn't Bart's father. He
was a fat little man, with ruddy cheeks and a fringe of curling gray
hair all around his bald dome. _Maybe he'd know if there was another
Vegan on the ship._

Then Bart realized that the little fat man was staring straight at him.
He returned the man's smile, rather hesitantly; then blinked, for the
fat man was coming straight toward him.

"Hello, Son," the fat man said loudly. Then, as two of the Lhari started
toward him, the strange man did an incredible thing. He reached out his
two hands and grabbed Bart.

"Well, boy, you've sure grown," he said, in a loud, cheerful voice, "but
you're not too grown-up to giv