ng as he hurried over. "You're looking more like a queen every
day!"

Her face lighted with a smile, making it suddenly young and beautiful.
"I'm so glad to see you again, George--"

"Ah ... good afternoon."

The voice was loud, unpleasantly gravelly. They turned, and Hunter saw a
tall, angular man of perhaps forty whose pseudogenial smile was not
compatible with his sour, square-jawed face and calculating little eyes.

He spoke to Rockford. "You're Ambassador Rockford, here to represent the
Terran Republic, I believe." He jerked his head toward Princess Lyla,
who was no longer smiling. "My wife, Princess Lyla."

"Oh, she and I have been friends since she was ten, Lord Narf."

"And this young man"--Narf glanced at Hunter--"is your aide, I presume.
Lyla, did you think to send anyone after their luggage?"

A servant was already carrying their luggage--and cases of Rockford's
beer--out of the helicopter. Hunter followed the other toward the
cabins. Narf, in the lead, was saying:

"... Ridiculously primitive here, now, but I'm having some decent
furniture and well-trained servants sent up from my Sea Island
estates...."

* * * * *

The cabin was large and very comfortable, as Rockford mentioned to
Princess Lyla.

"I'm glad you like it," she said. "Val Boran and Envoy Sonig are already
here and we'll meet for dinner in the central hall. I thought that if we
all got acquainted in a friendly atmosphere like that, it might help a
lot to...."

"That reminds me"--Narf glanced at his watch--"I promised this Boran he
could have a discussion with me--Vesta-Jardeen tariff policies. I
suppose he's already waiting. Come on, Lyla--it will do you no harm to
listen and learn a bit about interplanetary business."

For a long moment she looked at Narf silently, her eyes thoughtful, then
she said to Rockford, "If you will excuse us, please. And be prepared
for Alonzo to come bounding in the minute he learns you're here."

She walked beside Narf to the door and out it, the top of her dark hair
coming just even with his shoulder.

"And that," Rockford said as he settled down in the largest, softest
chair, "was king-to-be Narf, whose business ability is such that all his
inherited Sea Island estates are gone but the one Lyla saved for him and
who owes a total of ten million monetary units, to everyone from call
girls to yacht builders."

"And she is going to marry him?" Hunter asked. "Marry tha