be.

Wherefore the conference went on, quietly and cooperatively, to its
planned end.

One minute after the Terran battleship _Perseus_ emerged into normal
space, the _Orion_ went into sub-space for her long trip back to Ardvor.

* * * * *

The last two days of that seven-day trip were the longest-seeming that
either Hilton or Sawtelle had ever known. The sub-space radio was on
continuously and Kedy-One reported to Sawtelle every five minutes. Even
though Hilton knew that the Oman commander-in-chief was exactly as good
at perceiving as he himself was, he found himself scanning the
thoroughly screened Strett world forty or fifty times an hour.

However, in spite of worry and apprehension, time wore eventlessly on.
The _Orion_ emerged, went to Ardvor and landed on Ardane Field.

Hilton, after greeting properly and reporting to his wife, went to his
office. There he found that Sandra had everything well in hand except
for a few tapes that only he could handle. Sawtelle and his officers
went to the new Command Central, where everything was rolling smoothly
and very much faster than Sawtelle had dared hope.

The Terran immigrants had to live in the _Orion_, of course, until
conversion into Ardans. Almost equally of course--since the Bryant
infant was the only young baby in the lot--Doris and her Sammy Small
were, by popular acclaim, in the first batch to be converted. For little
Sammy had taken the entire feminine contingent by storm. No Oman female
had a chance to act as nurse as long as any of the girls were around.
Which was practically all the time. Especially the platinum-blonde
twins; for several months, now, Bernadine Braden and Hermione Felger.

"And you said they were so hard-boiled," Doris said accusingly to Sam,
nodding at the twins. On hands and knees on the floor, head to head with
Sammy Small between them, they were growling deep-throated at each other
and nuzzling at the baby, who was having the time of his young life.
"You couldn't have been any wronger, my sweet, if you'd had the whole
Octagon helping you go astray. They're just as nice as they can be, both
of them."

Sam shrugged and grinned. His wife strode purposefully across the room
to the playful pair and lifted their pretended prey out from between
them.

"Quit it, you two," she directed, swinging the baby up and depositing
him a-straddle her left hip. "You're just simply spoiling him rotten."

"You think so