"Laapet? The lady's name?"

She nodded. She backed away a little, down on her elbow again. She had been upsetting that close; even with everything else charging through my brain, I noticed it. Had she?

"I was at the Celestial when the first news from Ul broke," Deborah said. "I was about to go to bed, as a matter of fact, when the Martian innkeep hammered on my door and told me about the disaster. I packed my gear right away and got transportation for rescue headquarters. I figured the biggest picture-wise things would be happening there. Besides, I wanted to help if I could.

"I hadn't gone very far from the Celestial when my vehicle was stopped by a Martian."

I listened to her story incredulously. It was eerie and unbelievable. There in the merciless cold of the white-lighted night desert Deborah had made the first crossing into the secret, private world of the Martians.

The man who intercepted her appeared out of the night, without warning. Tall and slender in a cloak of soft furs, his feet in fine leather quilted boots, the tall glittering oxygen cone crested with the phoenix-like emblem of the ruling group—he was regal, and tragic with uncertainty. He had no taste for his mission but he was urgent.

He frightened Deborah with his intensity but she trusted him. The way you always trusted the Martians. She left her chauffeur to wait for her and went with him in his machine. They drove into the desert for a long while in silence. He did not tell her what to expect, but it was obviously important and secret. He was without attendants. He did not even have a driver but operated his own vehicle.

"I could not understand why I had been chosen," Deborah said. "But I had the feeling that I was very unimportant, in myself."

They came to the rendezvous spot where one of the larger and better land machines waited—like a black monument rising from the white sand. Inside, Laapet waited. He had taken her to his sister, Pundra Doh's wife.

The compartment was luxurious and dimly lit. Laapet sat behind semi-opaque hangings, shy, frightened and all but invisible. But desperate. Her two children were in Ul and she was beside herself with anxiety for them.

Deborah's face was very soft and saddened. I understood something, suddenly, something I had not come close to before. Laapet was not a stowaway to Deborah, or a diplomatic 

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