"Sorry, Pete. It's a good argument, but it just isn't good enough. I need lots of void to move in, Pete. I need the thunder of guns and the taste of flame. Can't get it out of my system. Maybe, when it's over...?"

Pete Folley swore.

"Graham told me it was no good arguing with you," he said in a low voice. "Okay, Blair, desert us. Run away and join the damned army. But don't come sniveling back to me when it's over. We'll fight our battles without you. When we've finished, there'll be no place for a guy who walked out on us."

Freedman felt a cold stab go up his back. He had never thought it would be like this. Jerry Graham, and now Pete. Old Folley who had raised him since he was a kid. He straightened his shoulders.

"If that's the way it is," he said.

"That's just the way it is," Folley said, and looked down at the desk top with brooding eyes.

Freedman turned and went out.

Blair Freedman's room was barren. His things were packed neatly into three trunks in the center of the floor. Freedman stood near the window looking down into the street. The car from the Warrior Patrol would be here shortly to pick him up.

He looked around the place for the last time. A queer feeling of homesickness swept over him. This room at the Setric Hotel had served him for the past ten years. Now he was leaving it to take over quarters in the splendid barracks of the Warrior Patrol of the Parma Air Force.

A knock sounded on the door. Thinking the boy had come up for his bags, he called:

"Come in."

Freedman didn't look up as the door opened. He heard footsteps near the door, then a quiet, feminine voice said:

"Do you usually ignore your visitors?"

Freedman straightened, his face red, to stare with surprise at the slim, honey-haired girl inside the door. She wore the uniform of the Space Merchants of Vestena. Her neat figure seemed molded into the scanty leather breeches and gold-cloth vest. A small light-gun hung loosely from the belt around her waist. Was it his imagination, or did the fingers of her right hand poise lightly over the gun?

"Hello," he said slowly. "I don't think I know you. I had expected...."

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