hospital if they had understood his teleray. Let
them splurge on their reception! He was unimpressed. When the time
came for questions to be answered he would conveniently forget why he
had been sent to Vinin. Nothing they could do would drag it out of
him.

The crowd thinned and Dirrul was taken inside the building, where his
Vininese host awaited him. Sighing deeply the Vininese stood up.
"These public displays do take so much of our time," he said, "but
it's over now." This last seemed to amuse him and he repeated it
softly before adding, "The Chief's ready to see you."

Remembering the note and the flimsy possibility that it might suggest
a way out, Dirrul answered quickly, "But, sir, I really ought to clean
up first."

"You Agronians have such weird notions of propriety!"

"I would feel more presentable to your Chief if--if I could have a
bath. Perhaps I might even borrow a change of clothing."

The Vininese fingered his chin thoughtfully. "It might be more
amusing. Yes, the Chief can wait a few minutes longer for you to
satisfy your vanity."

He summoned a blank-faced liveried servant and asked for a clean
worker's suit for Dirrul. Then he took Dirrul to the wall tube and
they shot noiselessly to an upper floor. As he left Dirrul at the
door of a luxurious suite, the Vininese said, "When you change your
clothes, my friend, don't forget to take the disk out of your tunic.
The Chief will want it when you see him."

When he was sure he was alone Dirrul spread open the note. It was a
crude drawing of a hearing aid and beneath it a cryptic sentence
written in Agronian,

_I lost mine and so has Glenna now._

The signature was unmistakably Hurd's but the note made no sense.
Hurd's hearing was as sound as Dirrul's. He had never used a
mechanical device--how could he have lost it then? _So has
Glenna_--that must be the key. Hurd somehow knew about the vagabond
raiding party that had rescued Glenna from the mental hospital. He
must have escaped from the Vininese earlier himself. He was probably
hiding somewhere in the capital.

Working on this hypothesis Dirrul made a guess that the thing Hurd had
lost was his illusion about the Vininese system. The hearing aid
symbolized what Hurd had been told about it, as opposed to the reality
which he saw with his own eyes.

But such an interpretation didn't ring entirely true. It was too
involved for an idea which could have been better expressed in four
words--_