e. The woman doctor told him he'd had a bad time, as though
he didn't know that. He wondered if she expected him to thank her
for keeping him alive.

"You'll be up and around in a few weeks," his cousin added. "I've
seen to it that everything at Traskon New House will be ready for
you by then."

"I'll never enter that house as long as I live, and I wish that
wouldn't be more than the next minute. That was to be Elaine's
house. I won't go to it alone."

* * * * *

The dreams troubled his sleep less and less as he grew stronger.
Visitors came often, bringing amusing little gifts, and he found
that he enjoyed their company. He wanted to know what had really
happened, and how Dunnan had gotten away.

"He pirated the _Enterprise_," Rovard Grauffis told him. "He had
that company of mercenaries of his, and he'd bribed some of the
people at the Gorram shipyards. I thought Alex would kill his chief
of security when he found out what had happened. We can't prove
anything--we're trying hard enough to--but we're sure Omfray of
Glaspyth furnished the money. He's been denying it just a shade
too emphatically."

"Then the whole thing was planned in advance."

"Taking the ship was; he must have been planning that for months;
before he started recruiting that company. I think he meant to do
it the night before the wedding. Then he tried to persuade the
Lady-Demoiselle Elaine to elope with him--he seems to have actually
thought that was possible--and when she humiliated him, he decided
to kill both of you first." He turned to Otto Harkaman, who had
accompanied him. "As long as I live, I'll regret not taking you
at your word and accepting your offer, then."

"How did he get hold of that Westlands Telecast and Teleprint car?"

"Oh. The morning of the wedding, he screened Westlands editorial
office and told them he had the inside story on the marriage and
why the Duke was sponsoring it. Made it sound as though there was
some scandal; insisted that a reporter come to Dunnan House for a
face-to-face interview. They sent a man, and that was the last they
saw him alive; our people found his body at Dunnan House when we
were searching the place afterward. We found the car at the
shipyard; it had taken a couple of hits from the guns at Karvall
House, but you know what these press cars are built to stand. He
went directly to the shipyard, where his men already had the
_Enterprise_; as soon as he arrived,