She stood for a moment under the darkened trees and called back, "Thank you for a wonderful evening. Good luck, you two! And Jet! I really approve!"She was gone.

On the way back to the Apparatus hangar, we were given a routine challenge by night sky surveillance and I had to reach over and catch Heller's hand: he was automatically reaching for his own identoplate and I gave him mine. We mustn't leave a trace of identity on this night!

We landed at the hangar. The guardsmen's air-transport was parked there. Snelz and his men were sitting around in the dim hangar depths, chuckling and drinking a late snack. The Countess slipped out in her helmet and gas cape and sped to the tug.

Heller still sat under the wheelstick. My driver was coming toward us with some big boxes and Heller was waiting for him. The driver wasn't moving very fast so Heller turned to me in the back.

"I think I owe you a bit of an apology," he said. "I didn't realize this afternoon that I was forcing your promotion party on you at an inopportune moment.

"You don't have to go back there tomorrow to pay your check. When we arrived and the floorman held out his hand for payment to get us a good table, I couldn't help but see you flinch. I realized you must be broke and that pushing the party off on you came under the heading of a dirty trick.

"So I slipped into the manager's office and grabbed him and put my identoplate on a blank dinner check." I think my heart stopped beating.

"I couldn't tell you straight out in front of the waiters and the girls but I passed the message to you a couple of times that it was cared for. I didn't want your evening spoiled." Ske was there now with the boxes and Heller told him to return the comedy cop uniforms to the party costumer tomorrow and take the chorder-beat back to the club at the same time.

He got out and called back to me, "It was a great party. I hope you did enjoy it. Good night!" He was gone.

I knew what that identoplate would spell. It would hit the newssheets and Homeview. The Grand Council would know we had not left.

They would be all over Endow.

Lombar would be all over me! It might even imperil Lombar's whole Blito-P3 hidden operations!

A sudden surge of rage hit me. I felt like killing Heller!

I was instantly sick at my stomach.

Chapter 6

After a night of nightmares, burdened with an aching head, my upset stomach refusing even the thought of hot jolt, I sat, at noon the following day, on a pile of rusted hullplates, dully watching the almost unforgivable bustlings in the Apparatus hangar.

I was expecting the worst. I got something worse than the worst.

My driver, returning from the return of the comedy cop uniforms and the chorder-beat, walked over to me. From his smug smile, I should have been more prepared.

He didn't hand me the headache pills I had requested him to get. He did not deliver any of the medicine I had begged him to bring back for my stomach.

He simply dropped the newssheet in my lap. He walked away and I was left to suffer over it alone.

There was a huge photo of Heller holding Hightee high above the crushing crowd! Somehow the lighting made the steelman stars vanish and it was Heller, recognizable, vivid, unmistakable!

The story was not some back-page filler that might be missed. It was headlines!

GUNSHOTS IMPERIL LIFE OF HIGHTEE HELLER!

FAMED BROTHER RESCUES HV STAR FROM FLYING BLASTS RIOT POLICE BRAVE STORM OF HOSTILE SHOTS ENRAGED MOB SEEKS POSSIBLE ASSASSIN Last night at the Artistic Club in Joy City, a routine fan orgy of worship for Hightee Heller, Voltar's most popular Homeview star, was turned into a riot of blazing guns and charging battle police when an unknown maniac, using military multiblast weapons, threatened the lives of thousands.

Braving the avalanche of deadly fire, Jettero Heller, Royal officer and famed combat engineer, with superhuman strength, lifted his sister out of the path of the deadly hail.

Battle police, in a baton charge, fought furiously to establish order, suffering an unknown number of casualties.

By purest chance, a Homeview camera team, that visits the Artistic Club routinely, recorded part of the riot and has been beaming it continuously since 3:00 A.M. on the interplanetary Homeview all-home channels.

Interviewed at dawn in her home on Pausch Hills, Hightee Heller, with the true courage of an artist, disclaimed personal injury. "Please assure my billions of fans that I am perfectly all right," was the only comment she would make. But this reporter detected possible eye bruises.

Jettero Heller could not be found or interviewed. It had been generally believed that he was engaged in a secret mission for the Grand Council and had long since departed Voltar. A spokesman for the Crown, contacted at dawn, attempted to refute the continued presence of Heller on Voltar, stating, "We have it on the most reliable authority that Jettero Heller left Voltar some time ago. The matter will be brought before the Grand Council in its morning meeting." Police Chief Chalp of Joy City modestly accepted credit for bringing the riot under such swift control. "My men are everywhere," he said. "They are always ready for anything." When this reporter suggested that the riot might have been a publicity stunt, arranged to bring higher recognition to the Artistic Club, the manager angrily pointed out that he had no faintest knowledge that Jettero Heller or his sister were in the club last night and that, in any event, he would never dream of imperilling the life of the idol of billions.

The gang who shot up the club have not been traced.

(See our special features, today and tomorrow: HIGHTEE HELLER, HUMAN OR GODDESS? and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JETTERO HELLER, THE MODEST HERO WHO BECAME THE IDOL OF THE FLEET.) I sat there numbly. They had it all wrong. I was not a gang!I was just one man.

It was all Snelz's fault, I finally worked out. If he hadn't made that silly pact with Heller to be at all times on duty, guarding, he would never have rented those comedy cop uniforms just so he could be handy. Snelz was too conscientious. Just because he had heard shots, glass breaking and screams was no reason to believe Heller needed any help. The idea of charging in for a silly thing like that! Snelz had caused all this. I realized I would have to discipline him.

But the very futility of doing anything at all settled over me. I was just a chip of wood in the roaring river of fate. It would do no good to point out that they were all secretly against me.

I just sat there and waited for the axe to fall, finally, completely and forever. Numb.

In midafternoon, I hardly even stirred when a big lorry drove up to the hangar. The signs on it said: Educational Aids Company.

Delight your students even if they are children.

Entertainment is the backbone of Enlightenment.

Two laborers got down from the truck and boosted a long box out of the back.

Somebody called for Heller and he came down from the top of the hull where they had been restoring plates and shielding and trotted over to the newcomers. He was all bright and alert, red racing cap on the back of his head. A lot heknew about the sorrows of life. The axe was hanging over him, too. The thought vaguely cheered me but I soon slumped again under renewed pains in my stomach.

He directed them to carry the box in through the airlock. I knew where it was going: into that lower hold storeroom.

Half an hour after that, I still had not stirred. I dully watched a new lorry drive up. It said: Mineral Resources Equipment Company.

If you think our equipment is too expensive, buy some and manufacture your own purchase price. Sold only under government license to qualified and discriminating metalologists.