"that his boss is
here--Bart Steele--and wants to see him right away."

It had a sort of disrupting effect. She seemed to go blurred at the
edges. After a minute, blinking carefully, she spoke into the
vision-screen, and reported, numbly, "Go on up, Mr. Steele."

He wasn't expecting a welcome. He said so as the elevator rose. "After
all, if I'd never come back, he'd doubtless have inherited the whole
Eight Colors line, unencumbered. I don't expect he'll be happy to see
me. But he's the only one I can turn to."

The elevator stopped, opened. They stepped out, and a man stepped
nervously toward them. For a moment, expecting Raynor One, Bart was
deceived; then as the man's face spread in a smile of welcome, he
stopped in incredulous delight.

"Raynor Three!"

In overflowing gladness, Bart hugged him. It was like a meeting with the
dead. He felt as if he had really come home. "But--but you remember me!"
he exclaimed, backing away, in amazement.

Slowly, the man nodded. His eyes were grave. "Yes. I decided it wasn't
worth it, Bart, to go on losing everything that meant anything to me.
Even if it meant I had to give up the stars, never travel again except
as a passenger, I couldn't go on being afraid to remember, never knowing
the consequences or responsibilities of what I'd done." His sad smile
was strangely beautiful. "The _Multiphase_ sailed without me. I've been
here, hoping against hope that someday I'd know the rest."

Associations clicked into place in Bart's mind. The _Multiphase_. So
Raynor Three was the Mentorian who had smuggled David Briscoe off the
ship, and whose memories, wrung out by the Lhari captain of that ship,
had touched off so many deaths. But he had paid for that--paid many
times over. And now must he pay for this, too?

Raynor One strode toward them. "So it's really you. I thought it might
be a trap, but Three wouldn't listen. Word came from Antares that
Montano had been arrested and his ship confiscated for illegal landing
on Lharillis. I thought you were probably dead."

"We sent a boy to do a man's job," Raynor Three said, "and he came back
a man. But tell me--" He looked curiously at Ringg and Meta.

Bart introduced them, adding, "I came for help, really. I'm facing
charges, and I'm afraid you are, too."

Raynor One said harshly, "A trap, after all, Three! He trapped you, and
he's led the Lhari to you!"

"No," Raynor Three said, "or he wouldn't be walking around free and
unguarded a