ion, almost unused. He dressed slowly, savoring the luxury of
clean clothes. The buttons gave him trouble; his left hand looked and
behaved almost like a real one, but in the three years since he got it,
there had been no chance to handle buttons.

Then he mastered the trick and stepped back to study the final results.
He didn't look bad. Maybe a little gaunt and in need of a good haircut.
But his face hadn't aged as much as he had thought. The worst part was
the pasty white where his beard had covered his face, but a few days
under Meloa's sun would fix that. Maybe he could spend a month with
Ronda at a beach. He still had most of his share of his salary--nearly
a quarter million Meloan credits; even if the rumors of inflation were
true, that should be enough.

He stared at his few possessions, then shrugged and left them. He
headed up the officers' lift toward the control room, where he could
see Meloa swim into view and later see the homeport of Kordule as they
landed.

The pilot and navigator were replacements, sent out to bring the old
ship home, and their faces showed none of the jubilation of the crew.
They nodded at him as he entered, staring toward the screens without
expression. Aside from the blueness of their skins and the complete
absence of hair, they looked almost human, and Duke had long since
stopped thinking of them as anything else.

"How long?" he asked.

The pilot shrugged. "Half an hour, captain. We're too low on fuel to
wait for clearance, even if control is working. Don't worry. There'll
be plenty of time to catch the next ship to Earth."

"Earth?" Duke glowered at him, suspecting a joke, but there was no
humor on the blue face. "I'm not going back!" Then he frowned. "What's
an Earth ship doing on Meloa?"

The navigator exchanged a surprised look with the pilot, and nodded as
if some signal had passed between them. His voice was as devoid of
expression as his face. "Earth resumed communication with us the day
the truce was signed," he answered. He paused, studying Duke. "They're
giving free passage back to Earth to all terran veterans, captain."

Nice of them, Duke thought. They were willing to let the men who'd
survived come back, just as they hadn't forbidden anyone to go. Very
nice! They could keep their world--and all the other coward planets
like them! When the humanoid world of Meloa had been attacked by the
insectile monsters from Throm, Earth could have ended the invasion in a
y