s
again, with new forged papers? You can't go by the _Swiftwing_--it
doesn't carry passengers--but there's another route you can take."

Bart sprang up. "No," he said, "I know a better way. Let me go on the
_Swiftwing_--in Dad's place--_as a Lhari_!"

"Bart, no," Raynor Three said. "You'd never get away with it. It's too
dangerous." But his gold eyes glinted.

"Why not? I speak Lhari better than Dad ever did. And my eyes can stand
Lhari lights. You said yourself, it's going to be a dangerous job just
calling off all the arrangements. So let's _not_ call them off. Just let
me take Dad's place!"

"Bart, you're only a boy--"

"What was Dave Briscoe? No, Raynor. Dad left me a lot more than Vega
Interplanet, and you know it. I'll finish what he started, and then
maybe I'll begin to deserve what he left me."

Raynor Three gripped Bart's hand. He said, in a voice that shook, "All
right, Bart. You're your father's son. I can't say more than that. I
haven't any right to stop you."

CHAPTER SEVEN

"All right, Bart, today we'll let you look at yourself," Raynor Three
said.

Bart smiled under the muffling layers of bandage around his face. His
hands were bandaged, too, and he had not been permitted to look in a
mirror. But the transition had been surprisingly painless--or perhaps
his sense of well-being had been due to Raynor Three slipping him some
drug.

He'd been given injections of a chemical that would change the color of
his skin; there had been minor operations on his face, his hands, his
feet.

"Let's see you get up and walk around."

Bart obeyed awkwardly, and Raynor frowned. "Hurt?"

"Not exactly, but I feel as if I were limping."

"That's to be expected. I changed the angle of the heel tendon and the
muscle of the arch. You're using a different set of muscles when you
walk; until they harden up, you'll have some assorted Charley horses.
Have any trouble hearing me?"

"No, though I'd hear better without all these bandages," Bart said
impatiently.

"All in good time. Any trouble breathing?"

"No, except for the bandages."

"Fine. I changed the shape of your ears and nostrils, and it might have
affected your hearing or your breathing. Now, listen, Bart: I'm going to
take the bandages off your hands first. Sit down."

Bart sat across the table from him, obediently sticking out his hands.
Raynor Three said, "Shut your eyes."

Bart did as he was told and felt Raynor Three's long fingers work