*

Mrs. Bullone was a fat little mouse of a woman. She stood almost in the
center of the guest room of her home, hands clasped across the paunch of
a long, dull silver gown. She had demure gray eyes, grandmotherly gray
hair combed straight back in a jeweled net--and that shocking baritone
husk of a voice issuing from a small mouth. Her figure sloped out from
several chins to a matronly bosom, then dropped straight like a barrel.
The top of her head came just above Orne's dress epaulets.

"We want you to feel at home here, Lewis," she husked. "You're to
consider yourself one of the family."

Orne looked around at the Bullone guest room: low key furnishings with
an old-fashioned selectacol for change of decor. A polawindow looked out
onto an oval swimming pool, the glass muted to dark blue. It gave the
outside a moonlight appearance. There was a contour bed against one
wall, several built-ins, and a door partly open to reveal bathroom
tiles. Everything traditional and comfortable.

"I already _do_ feel at home," he said. "You know, your house is very
like our place on Chargon. I was surprised when I saw it from the air.
Except for the setting, it looks almost identical."

"I guess your mother and I shared ideas when we were in school," said
Polly. "We were _very_ close friends."

"You must've been to do all this for me," said Orne. "I don't know how
I'm ever going to--"

"Ah! Here we are!" A deep masculine voice boomed from the open door
behind Orne. He turned, saw Ipscott Bullone, High Commissioner of the
Marakian League. Bullone was tall, had a face of harsh angles and deep
lines, dark eyes under heavy brows, black hair trained in receding
waves. There was a look of ungainly clumsiness about him.

_He doesn't strike me as the dictator type_, thought Orne. _But that's
obviously what Stet suspects._

"Glad you made it out all right, son," boomed Bullone. He advanced into
the room, glanced around. "Hope everything's to your taste here."

"Lewis was just telling me that our place is very like his mother's home
on Chargon," said Polly.

"It's old fashioned, but we like it," said Bullone. "Just a great big
tetragon on a central pivot. We can turn any room we want to the sun,
the shade or the breeze, but we usually leave the main salon pointing
northeast. View of the capital, you know."

"We have a sea breeze on Chargon that we treat the same way," said Orne.

"I'm sure Lewis would like to be left alone for a