ghed again. "Here in Trans-Einsteinian space there is neither size
nor time as we once knew it. I could leave her on a giant planet, a statue
ten miles long for the ages to marvel at. Or I could cast her adrift to
make the trillion-mile-long trip with the suns until the last explosion
when space will dissolve and be born again. So give up now. Bother me no
more. Space and its treasures are mine for the taking, and I have waited
too long."

Then the topaz globe twitched as a bubble vanishes. And it was gone. Out
there was nothing but the night.

* * * * *

Ato set a course for Aldebaran. His watch finished, Jack Odin sat alone in
the lounge and watched the star upon the screen. It did not seem to be much
larger. A single brilliant jewel of flame that beckoned them on.

Gunnar had long since gone to bed, grumbling that the way order and
military discipline were maintained aboard ship they probably couldn't whip
their way out of a child's wading pool. Odin was thinking of all the things
that had happened to him since that night when Maya and the dwarfs had
brought the helpless Grim Hagen to the old Odin homestead. Lord, how long
had it been? Out here, where time could not be measured, and perhaps did
not exist at all, it seemed futile to count the weeks and the months.

He stared at the single star upon the screen until he was half asleep.
Behind it Maya's face, outlined in black curls, seemed to peer at him--and
her pouting lips parted as she smiled.

He stared and shook his head. The dream-vision vanished from the screen.
Someone had entered the room.

It was Nea. Dressed in slacks once more, she slouched over to his chair and
drew a hassock up beside it. As she looked at him, Jack Odin saw that her
eyes were tired--tired--tired. As though they had not rested for months.

"You ought to be asleep," he warned. "Now that your work is finished--"

"And is it finished?" she asked. "Is anything ever finished?" Nea drooped
upon the hassock. Resting her chin upon her hands she looked up at the
screen.

"That is where we are going?" she asked.

"Ato is certain that Grim Hagen is headed for Aldebaran," Odin answered.

"One star out of millions. What difference does it make?"

"You have been working too hard--"

"Oh, damn!" she said angrily. "There is more to the work than you and the
others guessed. Now, we are going to rescue a cousin of mine and to punish
another cousin. The old rat-