Chapter 14

The low rainbow building of Eight Colors, near the spaceport of Procyon Alpha, had not changed; and when Bart went in, as he had done a year ago, it seemed that the same varnished girl was sitting before the same glass desk, neon-edged and brittle, with the same chrome-tinged hair and blue fingernails. She looked at Bart in his Lhari clothing, at Meta in her Mentorian robe and cloak, at Ringg, and her unruffled dignity did not turn a hair.

“May I help you?” she inquired, still not caring.

“I want to see Raynor One.”

“On what business, please?”

“Tell him,” said Bart, with immense satisfaction, “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 and with all his memories intact. Tell me about it, Bart.” And when Bart had given a quick narration of the Lhari judgment, he nodded, slowly.

“That’s all we ever wanted. Don’t think you failed, Bart. The horrible part was only the way they were trying to keep it secret.”

Ringg interrupted, “Do not judge the Lhari by them, Raynor Three,” and Raynor Three said in good Lhari, “I don’t, feathertop. Raynors have been working with Lhari since the days of Rhazon of Nedrus. But I wanted an open, official statement of Lhari policy--not secret murders by fanatics. I had confidence in the Lhari as a people, but not in individuals. What good did it do to know that the Lhari council in another galaxy would have condemned the murders and manhunts, when they were going on in this one, day after day?

“Don’t you see, Bart?” he continued, “you didn’t fail--not if we’re going to have the publicity of a test case, publicly heard. That means the Lhari are prepared to admit, before our whole galaxy, that humans can survive warp-drive without cold-sleep. That’s all David Briscoe was trying to prove, or your father either--may they rest in peace. So, whatever happens, we’ve won.”

“If you two idealists will give me a minute for cold realities,” Raynor One said, “there’s this. Among other things. Bart’s not yet of legal age. You may not know this, Bart, but your father appointed me your legal guardian. When I turned you over to Three, I’m afraid, I assumed legal responsibility for all the consequences. I ought to have kept you under my own supervision.”

Bart smiled at Raynor One’s stern face. “I crossed two galaxies, and faced the Lhari High Council, without you to hold my hand. I can face the Trade Federation.”

“Naturally I will be responsible for your defense,” Raynor One said stiffly.

“But I don’t need a defense,” Bart said, turning to Raynor Three and meeting his eyes. “I’m going to tell the truth, and let it stand. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they don’t hold you responsible for my actions.”

“Another thing. Some lunatic from Capella arrived here and all but accused me of having you murdered. Do you know a Tommy Kendron?”

“Do I know him!” Bart interrupted with a joyful yell. “Tommy’s here? Quick--where do I get in touch with him?”

An hour later they were all gathered at Raynor Three’s country house. The talk went on far into the night. Tommy wanted to know everything, and both Raynors wanted to know every detail of Bart’s year among the Lhari, while Meta and Ringg were both curious about how it had begun.

Bart tried to forget that the next day might bring trouble, even imprisonment. The Lhari Council had told him to talk as much as he liked about his voyage, and this might be his only chance. When he had finished, Tommy leaned forward and gripped Bart’s hand tightly.

“You make them sound like pretty decent people,” he said, looking at Ringg. “A year ago, if you’d told me I’d be here with a Lhari spaceman and a bunch of Mentorians, I’d never have believed it.”

“Nor I, that I would be as friend under a human roof,” Ringg replied. “But a friend to Bart is my friend also.” He touched the faint discolored scars on his brow, saying softly, “But for Bart, I would not be here to greet anyone, man or Lhari, as friend.”

“So,” said Tommy triumphantly, “you haven’t failed, even if you didn’t discover the secret of the Eighth Color--”

But a sudden, blinding light burst over Bart as Ringg moved his hand to the scars. Once again he searched a cave beneath a green star, where Ringg lay unconscious and bleeding, and played his Lhari light fearfully over a waterfall of colored minerals. And there was one whose color he could not identify--red, blue, violet, green, none of these--the color of an unknown star in an unknown galaxy, the shimmer of a landing Lhari ship, the color of an unknown element in an unknown fuel--

“The secret of the Eighth Color,” he said, and stood up, his hands literally shaking in excitement. “I’m an idiot! No, don’t ask me any questions! I could still be wrong. But even if I go to a prison planet, the Eighth Color isn’t a secret any more!”

When the others had gone back to the city, he sat with Raynor Three in the room where the latter had told him of his father’s death, where he had first seen his terrifying Lhari face. They spoke little, but Raynor Three finally asked, “Were you serious about not wanting a defense, Bart?”

“I was. All I want is a chance to tell my own story in my own way. Where everyone will hear me.”

Raynor Three looked at him curiously. “There’s something you’re not telling, Bart. Want to tell me?”

Bart hesitated, then held out his hand and clasped his kinsman’s. “Thanks--but no.”

Raynor Three saw his hesitation and chuckled. “All right, son. Forget I asked. You’ve grown up.”

It was good to sleep in a soft human-type bed again, to eat breakfast and shave and dress in ordinary human clothing again. But Bart folded his Lhari tights and the cloak tenderly, with regret. They were the memory of an experience no one else would ever have.

Raynor Three let him take the controls as they flew back to the spaceport city; and a little before noon they entered the great crystal pylon that was the headquarters of the Federation Trade Bureau on Procyon Alpha. Men and Lhari were moving in the lobby; among them Bart saw Vorongil, Meta at his side. He smiled at her, received a wan smile in return.

Would Vorongil feel that Bart had deceived him, betrayed him, when he heard Bart today?

In the hearing room, four white-crested Lhari sat across from four dignified, well-dressed men, representatives of the Federation of Intergalactic Trade. The space beyond was wholly filled with people, crowded together, and carrying stereo cameras, intercom equipment, the creepie-peepie of the on-the-spot space commentator.

“Mr. Steele, we had hoped to make this a quiet hearing, without undue publicity. But we cannot deny the news media the privilege of covering it, unless you wish to claim the right to privacy.”

“No, indeed,” Bart said clearly. “I want them all to hear what I’m going to say.”

Raynor One came up to the bench. “Bart, as your guardian, I advise against it. Some people will call this a publicity stunt. It won’t do Eight Colors any good to admit that men have been spying on the Lhari--”

“I want press coverage,” Bart repeated stubbornly, “and as many star-systems on the relay as possible.”

“All right. But I wash my hands of it,” Raynor One said angrily.

Bart told his story simply: his meeting with the elder Briscoe, his meeting with Raynor One--carefully not implicating Raynor One in the plot--Raynor Three’s work in altering his appearance to that of a Lhari, and the major events of his cruise on the Swiftwing. When he came to the account of the shift into warp-drive, he saw the faces of the press reporters, and realized that for them this was the story of the year--or century: humans can endure star-drive! But he went on, not soft-pedaling Montano’s attempted murder, his own choice, the trip to the Lhari world--

One of the board representatives interrupted testily, “What is the point of this lengthy narrative? You can give the story to the newsmen without our official sanction, if you want to make it a heroic epic, young Steele. We have heard sufficient to prove your guilt, and that of Raynor, in the violation of treaty--”

“Nevertheless, I want this official,” Bart said. “I don’t want to be mobbed when they hear that I have the secret of the star-drive.”