wait it out."

And wait they did, but not too long. That night there was a call for Manning over a closed circuit on the visiscreen and a clerk in the Milky Way Union read a spacegram to him. It was from Nottyl Nadyl and merely said: "I suggest that tomorrow you make an early visit to your hunting lodge." That was all.

Early the following morning, Manning went to the hunting lodge. Despite Fanya's assurance, he was a little nervous about leaving her there to face whatever the jolly Algolian counselor had in mind. He grew even more fidgety when he heard a small ship landing near the house. He almost held his breath, waiting for the next step.

When it came he almost jumped out of his chair. It was the rapid firing of a sub-atomic gun, guaranteed to bring down anything up to a Marfakian Lair-Lizard which weighed seventy tons. It hardly seemed possible that a frail creature like the blonde could withstand a round of shots from that gun.

Manning ran from the lodge and dashed frantically toward the house, the light gravity of the asteroid permitting him to cover twenty feet at a leap. Even so, he was no more than halfway to the house when he saw a small ship leaving the asteroid with a rush.

Reaching the house, he ran into the living room and stopped, horrified at what he saw. Fanya Sera was sprawled on the floor. The room and a good portion of the furniture had been wrecked by the shots that had been fired.

He was shocked out of his grief by the sound of soft laughter. Then Fanya was sitting up, smiling at him.

"You're not hurt?" he asked in astonishment.

"Not at all," she said. "I just thought it more dramatic to fall this way and let him think he had killed me. Oh, I may have a few small bruises, but that'll be all. See."

She opened the front of her dress and stood up. There were a series of small red spots, running from her navel to her collar bone, but so far as he could see, that was all the damage. Knowing that she was unharmed, however, Manning found it difficult to confine his gaze to the region of the bruises.

The blonde laughed again and slowly closed her dress.

"Now what do we do?" she asked.

"Ordinarily that would be a stupid question," Manning said drily. "As it is, however, we merely wait until Mr. Nadyl has time to get back to his office and then I will 

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