the solar system.

Throughout the system blood and steel had fallen from the sky and
ravished the planets, but now it fell no more.

And now this. Here in this forgotten portion of an almost completely
destroyed world it had not fallen at all.

Only in some place like this, alone, was safety for him.
Elsewhere--anywhere--imprisonment or, more likely, death. There was
danger, even here. Three of the crew of the space-cruiser knew. Perhaps,
someday, one of them would talk. Then they would come for him, even
here.

But that was a chance he could not avoid. Nor were the odds bad, for
three people out of a whole solar system knew where he was. And those
three were loyal fools.

The lifeboat came gently to rest. The hatch swung open and he stepped
out and walked a few paces up the beach. He turned and waited while the
two spacemen who had guided the craft brought his chest out and carried
it across the beach and to the corrugated-tin shack just at the edge of
the trees. That shack had once been a space-radar relay station. Now the
equipment it had held was long gone, the antenna mast taken down. But
the shack still stood. It would be his home for a while. A long while.
The two men returned to the lifeboat preparatory to leaving.

And now the captain stood facing him, and the captain's face was a rigid
mask. It seemed with an effort that the captain's right arm remained at
his side, but that effort had been ordered. No salute.

The captain's voice, too, was rigid with unemotion. "Number One ..."

"Silence!" And then, less bitterly. "Come further from the boat before
you again let your tongue run loose. Here." They had reached the shack.

"You are right, Number ..."

"No. I am no longer Number One. You must continue to think of me as
_Mister_ Smith, your cousin, whom you brought here for the reasons you
explained to the under-officers, before you surrender your ship. If you
_think_ of me so, you will be less likely to slip in your speech."

"There is nothing further I can do--Mister Smith?"

"Nothing. Go now."

"And I am ordered to surrender the--"

"There are no orders. The war is over, lost. I would suggest thought as
to what spaceport you put into. In some you may receive humane
treatment. In others--"

The captain nodded. "In others, there is great hatred. Yes. That is
all?"

"That is all. And, Captain, your running of the blockade, your securing
of fuel _en route_, have constituted a deed of high valor.