I was lying in a clean bed in a sunny room, propped up on pillows. It was a little like another room I had awakened in not so long before, but there was one important difference. Barbro sat beside my bed, knitting a ski stocking from red wool. Her hair was piled high on her head, and the sun shone through it, coppery red. Her eyes were hazel, and her features were perfect, and I liked lying there looking at her. She had come every day since my return to the Imperium, and read to me, talked to me, fed me soup and fluffed my pillows. I was enjoying my convalescence.
They had let me sleep for twelve hours before Richthofen, Goering, and several lesser lights of the various intelligence services had gathered in my room to hear my report.
They had listened when I told them of my meeting with Bale, and when I finished two of Goering's men left the room at a whispered word from him. I told them all that had happened—three times. Details that seemed unimportant, Richthofen cautioned me, might be useful; so I left out nothing.
They took the news calmly, I thought. After the others left, I eyed Richthofen quizzically. "You don't seem very surprised to learn that one of your top intelligence men is a traitor to the Imperium," I said.
Richthofen looked serious. "No, Brion, we had begun to fear something of the sort. Inspector Bale has disappeared. He has not been seen for almost a week. We missed him first a day before your signal. We feared foul play, and began an investigation; a number of interesting facts turned up, including several brief disappearances in the past, which had been unreported. With Bale chief of the shuttle service and the patrol activities, he could move about freely; no one checked on him. In fact, we had most of our information on B-I Two through Bale. He could easily arrange matters to suit himself.
"There were also discrepancies in the supplies of M-C drive components requisitioned and on hand. Your experience is pretty well borne out by our findings. We found several of his top aides also missing and collected a few others who seemed involved in some odd bits of business."
"That's bad," I said. "I was counting on nabbing him here."
"Doubtless he feared to return, after your escape," Richthofen said. "Perhaps that will be the end of his activities here."
I doubted that. I discussed the measures that might be taken to set up some sort of monitor post in the B-I Two world, to help in eventually reestablishing order there. I felt an obligation to Brion to do that. And I also asked what was being done to bring my parents in. Richthofen reassured me that plans were well under way.
There still remained no solution to the grim threat to the Imperium. Bale was still free to raid at will; only his movement in the ferrying of supplies was impeded by the alerted M-C scouts now under Goering's direction. So far no activity had been reported.
There was nothing more I could do now, Richthofen assured me. Aside from daily visits by him and Goering, one call by the King, whom I still called General, and the soothing and exciting presence of Barbro for several hours each day, I was left alone to recuperate.
If you are good, Brion," Barbro said, "and eat all of your soup today, perhaps by tomorrow evening you will be strong enough to accept the King's invitation to sit in the royal box and listen to the orchestra at the Emperor Ball."
"Did the doctor say that?" I asked. "I thought it was just a sort of rhetorical invitation."
The King wants very much for you to come and the doctor says you are making splendid progress. Wouldn't you like to go?"
"And just sit?" I said.
"But I will be sitting with you, Brion."
"OK," I said. "It's a deal."
"I think it will be even better sitting above looking down on the lovely people," Barbro said. "It is the most brilliant ball of the year; the only time that all the three Kings and the Emperor with their ladies are there together. And it is only once in three years that the Emperor Ball is held at Stockholm. I have already been to several, so I will not mind sitting this time to watch. And we will see more." She had a lovely smile.
I smiled at her; that was the way she made me feel. "What is the occasion?" I asked.
"It is the anniversary of the signing of the Concord which resulted in the creation of the Imperium," she said. "It is a very happy time."
I was thinking. There seemed to be something I wasn't figuring out. I had been leaving all the problems to the intelligence men, but I knew more than they did about Bale.
I thought of the last big affair, and the brutal attack. I suspected that this time every man would wear a slug-gun under his braided cuff. But the fight on the floor had been merely a diversion, designed to allow the crew to set up an atomic bomb.
I sat bolt upright. That bomb had been turned over to Bale. There would be no chance of surprise attack from a shuttle this time, with alert crews watching around the clock for traces of unscheduled M-C activity; but there was no need to bring a bomb in. Bale had one here.
"What is it, Brion?" Barbro asked, leaning forward.
"What did Bale do with that bomb?" I said, staring at her, "the one they tried to set off at the dance? Where is it now?"
"I don't know, Brion," Barbro said. "Shall I call Baron Richthofen and ask him?" I liked the way she didn't flutter and look helpless.
"Yes," I said, "please do."
I waited impatiently while she got through to Imperial Intelligence, spoke to Manfred. She put the trumpet-shaped earpiece back on its brass hook and turned to me.
"He doesn't know, Brion," she said. "Already an attempt has been made to discover what was done with it, but nothing has been learned."
I had to realize that the Imperial officials still didn't fully understand the bomb's power. But I felt certain that the thing was still here in the Imperium, and that Bale would find a way to use it. He could wipe out the city, if the bomb were a big one; and I had an idea it was.
Another thought struck me.
"When do the royal parties arrive for the Emperor Ball?" I asked.
"They are already in the city," Barbro said, "at Drottningholm."
I felt my heart start to beat a little faster. Bale wouldn't let this opportunity pass. With the three kings here in the city, and an atomic bomb hidden somewhere, he had to act. At one stroke he could wipe out the leadership of the Imperium, and follow-up with a full-scale assault; and against his atomic weapons, the fight would be hopeless.
"Call Manfred back, Barbro," I said. "Tell him that bomb's got to be found fast. The kings will have to be evacuated from the city; the ball will have to be canceled."
Barbro spoke into the phone, looked back at me. "He has left the building, Brion," she said. "Shall I try to reach Herr Goering?"
"Yes," I said. I started to tell her to hurry, but she was already speaking rapidly to someone at Goering's office. Barbro was quick to catch on.
"He also is out," Barbro said. "Is there anyone else. . . "
I thought furiously. Manfred or Hermann would listen to anything I might say, but with their stags it would be a different matter. To call off the day of celebration, disturb the royal parties, alarm the city, were serious measures; no one would act on my vague suspicions alone. I had to find my friends in a hurry; or find Bale. . .
Imperial Intelligence had made a search, found nothing. His apartment was deserted, as well as his small house at the edge of the city. And the monitors had detected no shuttle not known to be an Imperium vessel moving in the Net recently.
There were several possibilities; one was that Bale had returned almost at the same time as I had, slipping in before the situation was known, while some of his own men still manned the alert stations. A second was that he planned to come in prepared to hold off attackers until he could detonate the bomb. Or possibly an accomplice would act for him.
Somehow I liked the first thought best. It seemed more in keeping with what I knew of Bale, shrewder, less dangerous. If I were right, Bale was here now, somewhere in Stockholm, waiting for the hour to blow the city sky-high.
As for the hour, he would wait for the arrival of the Emperor, not longer.
"Barbro," I said, "when does the Emperor arrive?"
"I'm not sure, Brion," she said. "Possibly tonight, but perhaps this afternoon."
That didn't give me much time. I had to get out of here, do something. I jumped out of bed, and staggered. Barbro stood up quickly and put out her hand to steady me. "Are you sure you are strong enough to get up, Brion?"
"Here I come, ready or not," I said. "I can't just lie here, Barbro. Maybe I can think better if I get outside. Do you have a car?" I was fumbling at my pajama buttons. I had to have some clothes. I started for the closet.
"Yes, my car is downstairs, Brion. Sit down and let me help you." She went to the closet and I sank down. I seemed always to be recuperating lately. I had been through this shaky-legs business just a few days ago, and here I was starting in again. Barbro turned, holding a brown suit in her hands.
"This is all there is, Brion," she said. "It is the uniform of the Dictator, that you wore when you came here to the hospital."
"It will have to do," I said. I didn't bother to be shy about stripping and pulling on the wrinkled clothes in front of Barbro, and she didn't act coy; she helped me dress, and we left the room as fast as I could walk. A passing nurse stared, but went on. I was dizzy and panting already.
The elevator helped. I sank down on the stool, head spinning. I rubbed my chest; it was still sore from Beau Joe's attentions.
I felt something stiff in the pocket, and suddenly I had a vivid recollection of Gaston giving me a card as we crouched in the dusk behind the hideout near Algiers, telling me that he thought it was the address of the Big Boss's out-of-town headquarters. I grabbed for the card, squinted at it in the dim light of the ceiling lamp as the car jolted to a stop.
"Tegeluddsvägen 71" was scrawled across the card in blurred pencil. I remembered how I had dismissed it from my mind as of no interest when Gaston had handed it to me; I had hoped for something more useful. Now this might be the little key that could save an Empire.
"What is it, Brion," Barbro asked. "Have you found something?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe just a dead end, but maybe not." I handed her the card. "Do you know where this is?"
She read the address. "I think I know the street," she said. "It is not far from the docks, in the warehouse district."
"Let's go," I said.
We turned away from the reception desk and headed for a small side entrance at the end of the hall. It was a long trip, but I was getting over the dizziness. I had to pause to rest at the door, then made it to the curb. I sat on a stone bench under a linden tree and waited. In less than a minute Barbro swept around the corner in a low-slung red cabriolet. I got in and we swung east, moving fast.
There were few cars on the streets of the Imperium's Stockholm. Ownership of an automobile had not become a national mania, a caste-mark. We roared across a bridge, continued on into Kungsgatan, cut around an immense green limousine under the bridge, and angled across Stureplan towards Humlegården. An excited policeman blew a whistle, and a trolley jingled a bell indignantly, but we were picking up speed again.
For four days I had idled in bed while somewhere the bomb lay waiting; and now I was forced to leap off on a wild hunch, because there was no time left. If I could have contacted Manfred or Hermann, even checked on the Emperor's arrival time, we could have planned this, prepared for emergency; but now there was only this, a wild dash and a fervent hope that we were right, and not too late.
We squealed around a corner, slowed in a street of gloomy warehouses, blind glass windows in looming brick-red facades, with yard-high letters identifying the shipping lines which owned them.
"This is the street," Barbro said. "And the number was seventy-one?"
"That's right," I said. "This is fifty-three; it must be a block or two farther along."
"Sixty-nine there," Barbro said. "The next one must be it, but I don't see a number." The car eased to a halt.
"Let's get out," I said. I stepped out onto a gritty sidewalk, shaded by the bulk of the buildings, silent. There was a smell of tar and hemp in the air and a hint of sea water.
I stared at the building before me. I couldn't make out any identifying number. Barbro went around the car, walked a few feet farther on, came back.
"That must be the one, Brion," she said. "The next one is seventy-three."
There was a small door set in the front of the building beside the loading platform. I went up to it, tried it; locked. I leaned against it and rested.
"Barbro," I said. "Get me a jack handle or tire tool from your car." I hated to drag Barbro into this, but I had no choice. I couldn't do it alone.
She came back with a flat piece of steel eighteen inches long. I jammed it into the wide crack at the edge of the door and pulled. Something snapped, and with a jerk the door popped open.
It was dark inside. We went in and I pulled the door shut behind us. A stair ran up into gloom above. A side door opened from the short hall onto a vast space piled with crates. What we wanted must be up the stairs. That would be quite a climb for me. Barbro gave me an arm, and we started up.
We went three flights, a few steps at a time. I was soaked with sweat, and thought seriously about losing my dinner. I sat down and breathed hard through my nose. The hard work helped to keep my mind off the second sun that might light the Stockholm sky at any moment. We went on.
Five flights up, we reached a landing. The door we faced was red-stained wood, solid, and with a new lock. It looked like maybe we were on to something.
I tried the steel bar again, with no luck. Then Barbro went to work with a long pin with a large sapphire on the end of it. That was no good either. I looked at the hinge pins. They didn't look as good as the lock.
It took fifteen minutes, every one of which took a year off my life, but after a final wrench with the steel bar, the last pin clattered to the floor. The door pivoted out and fell against the wall.
"Wait here," I said. I started forward, into the papered hall.
"I go with you, Brion," Barbro said. I didn't argue.
We were in a handsome apartment, a little too lavishly furnished. Persian rugs graced the floor, and in the bars of dusty sunlight that slanted through shuttered windows, mellow old teak furniture gleamed, and polished ivory figurines stood on dark shelves under silk scrolls from Japan. An ornate screen stood in the center of the room. I walked around a brocaded ottoman over to the screen and looked behind it. On a light tripod of aluminum rods rested the bomb.
Two heavy castings, bolted together around a central flange, with a few wires running along to a small metal box on the underside. Midway up the curve of the side, four small holes, arranged in a square. That was all there was; but it could make a mighty crater where a city had been.
I had no way of knowing whether it was armed or not. I leaned toward the thing, listening. I could hear no sound of a timing device. I thought of cutting the exposed wires, which looked like some sort of jury-rig, but I couldn't risk it; that might set it off.
Barbro stood behind me. "Brion," she said. "You have found it!"
"Yes," I said. "Here it is; but when does it go up?" I had an odd sensation of intangibility, as though I were already a puff of incandescent gas. I tried to think. We had to get this thing out of here.
"Start searching the place, Barbro," I said. "You might come across something that will give us a hint. I'll phone Manfred's office and get a squad up here to see if we can move the thing without blowing it."
I dialed Imperial Intelligence. Manfred wasn't in, and the fellow on the phone was uncertain what he should do.
"Get a crew here on the double," I yelled. "Somebody who can at least make a guess as to whether this thing can be disturbed."
He said he would confer with General Somebody. I yelled some more, but after all, who was I to this bureaucrat? Even here they had a few.
"When does the Emperor arrive?" I asked him. He was sorry, but he was not at liberty to discuss the Emperor's movements. I slammed the receiver down.
"Brion," Barbro called. "Look what's here."
I went to the door which opened onto the next room. A two-man shuttle filled the space. Its door stood open. I looked inside. It was fitted out in luxury; Bale provided well for himself even for short trips. This was what he used to travel from the Home line to B-I Two; and the fact that it was here should indicate that Bale was here also; and that he would return to it before the bomb went off.
But then again, perhaps the bomb was even now ticking away its last seconds, and Bale might be far away, safe from the blast. If the latter were true, there was nothing I could do about it; but if he did plan to return here, arm the bomb, set a timer and leave via the shuttle in the bedroom—then maybe I would stop him.
"Barbro," I said, "you've got to find Manfred or Hermann. I'm going to stay here and wait for Bale to come back. If you find them, tell them to get men here fast who can make a try at disarming this thing. I don't dare move it, and it will take at least two to handle it. If we can move it, we can shove it in the shuttle and send it off; I'll keep phoning. I don't know where you should look but do your best."
Barbro looked at me. "I would rather stay here with you, Brion," she said. "But I understand that I must not."
"You're quite a girl, Barbro," I said.
I was alone now, except for the ominous sphere behind the screen. I hoped for a caller, though. I'd better get ready for him. I went to the door which leaned aslant against the rough brick wall outside and unlatched it, maneuvered it into place and dropped the pins back in the hinges, then closed and relatched it.
I went back to the over-stuffed room, started looking through drawers, riffling through papers on the desk. I hoped for something, I didn't know what; something that might give a hint of what Bale planned. I didn't find any hints, but I did find a long-barreled twenty-two pistol, and a tiny thirty-two, tucked away under clothing in a dresser drawer. The twenty-two was a revolver, loaded. That helped. I put it in my pocket and tossed the automatic under the couch. I hadn't given much thought to what I would do when Bale got here; I was in no condition to grapple with him; now I had a reasonable chance.
I picked out a hiding place to duck into when and if I heard him coming, a storeroom in the hall, between the bomb and the door. I found a small liquor cabinet and poured myself two fingers of sherry.
I sat in one of the fancy chairs, and tried to let myself go limp. I was using up too much energy in tension. My stomach was a hard knot. I could see the edge of the bomb behind its screen from where I sat. I wondered if there would be any warning before it detonated. My ears were cocked for a click, or a rumble from the silent grey city-killer.
The sound I heard was not a click; it was the scrape of shoes on wood, beyond the door. I sat paralyzed for a moment, then got to my feet, stepped to the storeroom and eased behind the door. I loosened the revolver in my pocket and waited.
The sounds were closer now, gratingly loud in the dead silence. Then a key scraped in the lock, and a moment later the tall wide figure of Chief Inspector Bale, traitor, shuffled into view. His small bald head was drawn down between his shoulders, and he looked around the room almost furtively. He pulled off his coat, and for one startled instant I thought he would come to my storeroom to hang it up; but he threw it over the back of a chair.
He went to the screen, peered at the bomb. I could easily have shot him, but that wouldn't have helped me. I wanted Bale to let me know whether the bomb was armed, if it could be moved. He was the only man in the Imperium who knew how to handle this device. I thought of holding a gun on him, and forcing him to disarm it; but I had learned that that only works in the movies. He could easily be fanatic enough to set it off instead, if he knew his plot had failed.
I watched him. He leaned over the bomb, took a small box from his pocket, and stared at it. He looked at his watch, went to the phone. I could barely hear his mutter as he exchanged a few words with someone. He went into the next room, and as I was about to follow to prevent his using the shuttle, he came back. He looked at his watch again, sat in a chair, and opened a small tool kit which lay on the table. He started to work on the metal box with a slender screwdriver. This, then, was the arming device. I tried not to breathe too loud, or to think about how my legs ached.
Shocking in the stillness, the phone rang. Bale looked up startled, laid the screwdriver and the box on the table, and went over to the phone. He looked down at it, chewing his lip. After five rings it stopped. I wondered who it was.
Bale went back to his work. Now he was replacing the cover on the box, frowning over the job. He got up, went to the bomb, licked his lips and leaned over it. He was ready now to arm the bomb. I couldn't wait any longer.
I pushed the door open, and Bale leaped upright, grabbing for his chest, then jumped for the coat on the chair.
"Stand where you are, Bale," I said. "I'd get a real kick out of shooting you."
Bale's eyes were almost popping from his head, his head was tilted back, his mouth opened and closed. I got the impression that I had startled him.
"Sit down," I said, "there." I motioned with the pistol as I came out into the room.
"Bayard," Bale said hoarsely. I didn't say anything. I felt sure now that the bomb was safe. All I had to do was wait until the crew arrived, and turn Bale over to them. Then we could carry the bomb to the shuttle, and send it off into the Blight. But I was feeling very bad now.
I went to a chair, and sank down. I tried not to let Bale see how weak I was. I leaned back, and tried breathing deep through my nose again. If I started to pass out I would have to shoot Bale; he couldn't be left free to threaten the Imperium again.
It was a little better now. Bale stood rigid, staring at me.
"Look, Bayard," he said. "I'll bring you in on this with me. I swear I'll give you a full half share. I'll let you keep B-I Two as your own, and I shall take the Home line; there's plenty for all. Just put that gun aside. . . " He licked his lips, started toward me.
I started to motion with the gun, squeezed the trigger instead. A bullet slapped Bale's shirt sleeve, smacked the wall. He dropped down into the chair behind him. That was close, I thought. That could have killed him. I've got to hold on.
I might as well impress him a little, I thought. "I know how to use this pop gun, you see," I said. "Just a quarter of an inch from the arm, firing from the hip; not bad, don't you agree? Don't try anything else."
"You've got to listen to me, Bayard," Bale said; "Why should you care what happens to these popinjays? They've kidnapped you, sent you off into danger, and offered nothing in return except a scrap of paper. Don't you see they're all using you, making you a tool in their game? They've filled you full of rubbish about the glorious Imperium. Well, I propose to bring it down with raw power; the power of that bomb. I can use power as well as the next man; and I'll share it all with you. We can rule as absolute monarchs. . . "
Bale went on, but I was thinking. Why indeed should I fight for the Imperium? I wasn't sure I could answer that. I only knew that I believed in its high purpose, and its decency, and the courage and élan of its people. I had wanted something that I could give my loyalty to without reservation. I had given years of my life to the service of my own country, back in the sickly twilit world I came from. I had seen the shabbiness, the pettiness, the trivial venality, and I had tried to believe in my service in spite of what I saw. In the end I had resigned rather than go along; and the granite walls of the Embassy chancery could not have looked down on me more coldly than my ex-colleagues on the day I left them. I wondered if I were merely dramatizing myself; but nothing could change the facts that I remembered; the duty I had tried to do, and the ease with which the little crooked men had prevailed.
Here I found men like Winter, who had died without hesitation when he saw that his duty demanded it; Richthofen and all his crew, who had ridden a hay-wired rig into the horror of the Blight, to keep faith with a man from another world; and Barbro, the incomparable. . .
You could laugh at them if you wished, a cynical laugh at gaudy uniforms, and hereditary titles, and pomp and ceremony; the laugh of the smugly unillusioned at the bright romantic; but no one could laugh at the officers who had charged with sabres into machine-gun fire at the attack on the palace, or the women who had stood their ground behind them.
I didn't have to explain; I didn't have to apologize. This world of the Imperium had won my loyalty, and I would fight for it to the death against a narrow maniac like Bale.
". . . take one moment, and we're off. What about it?"
Bale was looking at me, with a look of naked greed. I didn't know what he had been saying. He must have interpreted my silence as weakness; he got up again, moved toward me. It was darker in the room, I rubbed my eyes. I was feeling very bad now, very weak. My heart thumped in my throat, my stomach quivered. I was in no shape to be trying to hold this situation in check alone.
Bale stopped, and I saw that he suddenly realized that I was blacking out. He crouched, and with a snarl jumped at me. I would have to kill him. I fired the pistol twice, and Bale reeled away, startled, but still standing.
"Hold on, Bayard, for the love of God," he squealed. He saw that I was still alive enough to kill him. I raised the pistol, aimed again and fired. I saw a picture jump on the wall. Bale leaped aside. I didn't know if I had hit him yet or not. I was losing my hold, but I couldn't let him get away. I fired twice more, peering from my chair and I knew it was the light in my mind fading, not in the room. Bale yelled; I saw that he didn't dare to try for the door to the hall or the room where the shuttle waited. He would have to pass me. He screamed as I aimed the pistol with wavering hands, and dived for the other door. I fired and heard the sound echo through a dream of blackness.
I wasn't out for more than a few minutes; I came to myself, sitting in the chair, the pistol lying on my lap. The screen had fallen over, and lay across the bomb. I sat up, panicky; maybe Bale had armed it. And where was Bale? I remembered only that he had dashed for the next room. I got up, grabbed for the chair again, then got my balance, made my way to the door. There was a strange sound, a keening, like a cat in a distant alley. I looked into the room, half expecting to see Bale lying on the floor. There was nothing. The light streamed through an open window, and a curtain flapped. Bale must have panicked and jumped, I thought. I went to the window, and the keening started up again.
Bale hung by his hands from the eave of the building across the alley, fifteen feet away. The sound came from him. The left leg of his trousers had a long stain of blackish red on it, and drops fell from the toe of his shoe, five stories to the brick pavement below.
"Good God, Bale," I said. "What have you done?" I was horrified. I had been ready to shoot him down, but to see him hanging there was something else again.
"Bayard," he croaked, "I can't hold on much longer. For the love of God. . . "
What could I do? I was far too weak for any heroics. I looked around the room frantically for an inspiration; I needed a plank, or a piece of rope. There was nothing. I pulled a sheet off the bed; it was far too short; even two or three would never make it; and I couldn't hold it even if I could throw it and Bale caught it. I ran to the phone.
"Operator," I called. "There's a man about to fall from a roof. Get the fire department here with ladders, fast; seventy-one Tegeluddsvägen, fifth floor."
I dropped the phone, ran back to the window. "Hold on, Bale," I said. "Help's on the way." He must have tried to leap to the next roof, thinking that I was at his heels; and with that hole in his leg he hadn't quite made it.
I thought of Bale, sending me off on a suicide mission, knowing that my imposture was hopeless as long as I stood on my own legs; of the killer shuttle that had lain in wait to smash us as we went in; of the operating room at the hideout, where Bale had planned to carve me into a shape more suitable for his purpose. I remembered Bale shooting down my new-found friend and brother, and the night I had lain in the cold cell, waiting for the butcher; and I still didn't want to see him die this way.
He started to scream suddenly, kicking desperately. He got one foot up on the eave beside his white straining hands; it slipped off. Then he was quiet again. I had been standing here now for five minutes. I wondered how long I had been unconscious. Bale had been here longer now than I would have thought possible. He couldn't last much longer.
"Hold on, Bale," I called. "Only a little while. Don't struggle."
He hung, silent. Blood dripped from his shoe. I looked down at the alley below and shuddered.
I heard a distant sound, a siren, howling; whoop, whoop. I dashed to the door, opened it, listened. Heavy footsteps sounded below.
"Here," I shouted, "all the way up."
I turned and ran back to the window. Bale was as I had left him. Then one hand slipped off, and he hung by one arm, swinging slightly.
"They're here, Bale," I said. "A few seconds. . . "
He didn't try to get a new hold. He made no sound. Feet pounded on the stairs outside, and I yelled again.
I turned back to the window as Bale slipped down, silent, his tie fluttering gaily over his shoulder. I didn't watch. I heard him hit—twice.
I staggered back, and the burly men called, looked out the window, milled about. I made my way back to the chair, slumped down. I was empty of emotion. There was noise all around me, people coming and going. I was hardly conscious of it. After a long time I saw Hermann, and then Barbro was leaning over me. I reached for her hand, hungrily.
"Take me home, Barbro," I said.
I saw Manfred.
"The bomb," I said. "It's safe. Put it in the shuttle and get rid of it."
"My crew is moving it now, Brion," he said.
"You spoke of home, just now," Goering put in. "Speaking for myself, and I am sure also for Manfred, I will make the strongest recommendation that in view of your extraordinary services to the Imperium you be dispatched back to your home as soon as you are well enough to go, if that is your wish. I hope that you will stay with us. But it must be for you to make that decision."
"I don't have to decide," I said. "My choice is made. I like it here, for many reasons. For one thing, I can use all the old clichés from B-I Three, and they sound brand new; and as for home." I looked at Barbro:
"Home is where the heart is."