Part 4

"I could get my teeth fixed up in this sector," he said at last, "but I'd need to go to the Near Planets, maybe even Earth, to have my leg fixed. It'd take a long time and passage costs a hell of a lot. People don't go that far just for a junket, you know. For most of 'em, it's a once-in-a-lifetime deal."

"Of course," Njeri said. "Your wealth is dearly won; you wouldn't want to squander it. However, wouldn't a considerable economy be effected if you went in your own ship?"

"The _Valkyrie_!" Len was shocked into laughter. "She'd never make it to Earth! She'd crumple up like an old paper bag!"

"She will not last much longer, in any case," said Njeri.

Len had been thinking that himself for some time--wondering how soon he would have no ship left at all, and what he would do then.

"It would be wise," the kqyres suggested, "for you first to get enough money to pay for a new ship. Only a few more trips should be necessary. Then go to whatever planet you deem most suitable for the necessary improvements, and finally return to Lyddy--a man worthy not only of her but of any woman."

"It'll take so long," Mattern said, tempted, and yet driven wild by the idea of Lyddy, so close to attainment.

"At your age, what are a few more trips?"

Len gave in.

* * * * *

Actually, it took five trips into hyperspace merely to pay for the new vessel, a much larger and more elaborate model than Len had planned on buying. "In the long run," his partner told him, "the best is most economical. A sound, spaceworthy vessel such as this one will last out your lifetime. And you can call her the _Hesperian Queen_, after Lyddy."

"Why?" Len asked. "Is that what Lyddy is short for?"

"It is the same as naming it after her," the kqyres said shortly. "Only it's a little more subtle."

"Oh." Somehow the kqyres made Len feel stupid, _uncouth_ almost, even though he was the human being and the other nothing but hyperextraterrestrial.

The treatments were even costlier than anticipated, and it took many more trips to pay for them. Expenses were increased by the fact that he had to commute back and forth from his sector of space to the planet where he was being treated, since he couldn't afford to neglect his business now that his costs were mounting.

He had his leg straightened on Earth. That world was as colorful, as complex, as intoxicating as it was claimed to be. One series of marvels after another presented themselves before his inexperienced eyes like scenes in a vision show--except that he was actually there, breathing, tasting, feeling a part of this vast sophistication. Earth had many beautiful women, and he enjoyed the favors of those in Lyddy's profession, but only to prove to himself that she was much more wonderful.

He decided there was no point bothering with the other planets; he might as well have his teeth and everything else taken care of on Earth, too. "Very wise of you," the kqyres approved. "The best is always the soundest, and, hence, most worth waiting for. Like Lyddy."

"Yes," Mattern agreed, "she is the best. And the most beautiful."

"Of course," the kqyres said. "Tell me more about her."

And Mattern talked, far into the night. What he couldn't remember of her by now, he imagined, so that the picture should be complete, not only for the xhind but for himself.

When his leg and his teeth had been fixed, "Why stop at that?" the kqyres asked. "If it had not been for the way that stepfather of yours treated you as a child--" for Len had found himself telling his companion not only about Lyddy but about everything--"you would be a fine-looking man today. It would be no difficult task to have you restored to what you should rightfully be."

* * * * *

Mattern would not, of course, do such a thing out of vanity. But the more presentable he made himself, the more he would be offering Lyddy. So it would be worth the extra time, especially since he could spend so much of it on Earth. Lyddy had come from Earth; it would be a bond between them later.

Doctors and cosmetologists got to work on him. Each treatment seemed to be lengthier than the preceding one, and more expensive. He could, however, easily afford it--all he had to do was make more trips. The kqyres not only told him what cargoes to take but advised him on the investments to make with his profits.

They did very well together. As far as Mattern was concerned, they did fabulously well, because he had to make enough on his side to counterbalance the entire expenses of a planet on the other. The thought impressed him. _I am, in a sense, equal to the mbretersha_, he thought, _and she is a monarch._ As a result, he walked a little more erect than even the operations had rendered him.

The dangers of his trade grew less and less frightening as he came to know his way between the universes, even though, at the same time, he began to realize how great those dangers were. He had not conceived of their immensity before. The reason there were asteroid belts in so many of the solar systems, he learned now, was that the xhindi had traded with other intelligent races in earlier eras, and there had been accidents. Those races were now extinct.

The xhindi themselves ceased to be monstrous in his eyes. He grew to accept their appearance as perfectly natural in their universe. Toward the kqyres, he came to feel something of what he had felt toward Schiemann, except that where Schiemann had looked up to him and relied on him, he found himself increasingly dependent on Njeri. He told him all his hopes and ambitions, and the kqyres listened attentively. Mattern tried to explain to him how he himself felt about Lyddy, and the kqyres tried to understand.

The kqyres taught Mattern how to play chess. "But that's our game!" Mattern said. "I mean we play it in our universe!"

"In ours also," the xhind smiled. "Who knows whether it came from our universe to yours, or yours to ours? Nor does it matter. It is an old game and a good one."

Mattern became increasingly skillful at it. He was pleased that there was an intellectual activity in which he could engage as an equal with the kqyres, and the kqyres seemed pleased, too.

* * * * *

When the treatments were over, Mattern looked in a mirror. He was straight; he was handsome. His skin was clear, his eyes bright. He looked less than his age. Now he could go back to Lyddy, assured that most women would find his physical appearance more than acceptable.

But he found himself hesitating. Only his physical appearance would be truly acceptable. There was something still lacking in him. His body was right, but the way he stood, the way he moved, the way he spoke, all these were wrong.

"I'm not finished yet," he said stumblingly to the kqyres, "not quite straightened out. I ought to be more--well, more smooth."

"You do lack polish," the kqyres admitted, "although you are far less awkward, shall we say, than when we first met."

"That's because of you, Njeri!" Mattern declared, with genuine gratitude. "You've taught me a lot!" And he looked at his outlandish friend with a great affection.

The kqyres seemed quite moved; he flickered like a pin-wheel. "You have been an exceedingly apt pupil, Mattern. When first I saw you, I did not think it possible that I should ever consider you a companion. However, I have found myself taking an increasing pleasure in your company. Sometimes I even forget you are a human."

Mattern could not speak; he was so overwhelmed by the tribute.

"The passage of time disclosed to me that there were sensitivities and perceptions beneath that--forgive me, but we know how misleading first impressions can be--boorish exterior. The very fact that you are conscious of your own deficiencies _proves_ that you are more than the mere clod you still, on occasion, seem to be--"

"Can't I improve myself that way, too?" Mattern asked plaintively. "Can't I make myself worthy of Lyddy in every way?"

"Of course you can," the kqyres beamed. "Were you to apply yourself specifically to the acquisition of culture, I am sure you could become as polished as any human being can hope to be. But it will take time."

"Well," Mattern said, "Lyddy's waited so long, she can wait a little longer. Things worth having are worth waiting for."

Under Njeri's tutelage, Mattern cultivated the arts and the amenities. As he used his ship for a permanent residence, it was there that he housed his growing collection of costly rare objects of art, and his library, notable for its first editions--not only of tapes, but of books. His uniforms were cut by the best terrestrial tailors and he took kinescope courses in the liberal arts and social forms from the outstanding universities of Earth. The provincial twang vanished from his speech; he developed a taste for wine and conversation. Nobody, seeing him, could ever have fancied him once a poor wizened space rat.

* * * * *

As the years went by, he grew to become as much of a ruler in his way as the mbretersha in hers. She ruled one planet, he told himself, but he had a business empire farflung over many planets--all of which, to some extent, he did rule through his investments. He would have worlds to lay at Lyddy's feet now, he thought complacently. No man could offer any woman more.

The first _Hesperian Queen_ didn't have a chance to last out his lifetime; he kept trading her in for another and yet another model, as better, faster, more luxurious starships were developed. Finally, he outbid the Federation Government itself for plans of the latest-model spacecraft. When the government protested, he graciously gave them copies free of all charge. "I merely wanted to be sure that I had the best ship available," he explained. "I have no objection to your having it also. But I knew that you could not afford to be as generous as I can."

He never had more than one ship, because it was too dangerous to run more than one cargo at a time. His crew was always as small in number as possible. He would have preferred none at all; actually, all spaceships could run themselves, for the controls were completely automatic. But regulations said there had to be a crew, both for the sake of "face"--many extraterrestrials couldn't seem to recognize the authority of machines--and because a power failure was not inconceivable.

So the _Hesperian Queen_ carried four men. And, whenever she made the Jump through hyperspace, even the crew--though conditioned on Earth--was drugged. Mattern carried on alone. And if, when the crewmen awakened, they found that a day had passed when only an hour should have gone by, they knew better than to ask questions.

So the years went by--busy, pleasant, profitable years. The image of Lyddy was always before him, inspiring him to further efforts. _Someday soon I will go back to her_, he would tell himself. On his latest birthday, he looked in the mirror closely. At twenty-four, he had appeared forty; at forty, he could have passed for thirty. Sixteen years had gone by since that night with Lyddy. Now he was worthy of her or anyone.

"I think it's time I went back for her," he told the kqyres.

"For whom?" the kqyres asked; then added hastily, "Oh, yes, of course, Lyddy. We'll do that right after we come back from the Vega System. There's a little Earth-type planet out there--"

"_Before_ we go to Vega," Mattern interrupted. "Now."

"But why the hurry? You've waited so long already--"

"I've waited too long. I'm not young any more."

"Neither is she," observed the kqyres. "Perhaps she is too old now, Mattern."

"She can't be too old," Mattern said. The tridi in his locker was Lyddy, and the picture was young; therefore, Lyddy must still be young.

"She may have married someone else. She may have numerous children clustering about her knee."

"Then I will take her away from her husband and children," Mattern declared. "Can you imagine that a little thing like that would stop me?"

"She may have lost her beauty," the kqyres said. "She may have left Hesperia. She may have suffered a disfiguring accident."

* * * * *

Mattern realized then that Njeri was deliberately trying to keep him from going back to Lyddy. Either he felt that she would interfere with the smooth operation of their business, or he was jealous of a third intruding into their company.

"I have done everything I did for the sake of winning Lyddy," Mattern said, biting off the words. "If all hope of her is gone, then my whole reason for working with you is gone. I will never go back to hyperspace."

"There are other women--"

"Not for me!"

"The business itself means nothing to you?" There was an aggrieved note in the kqyres' voice.

"It's just a living," Mattern said, "just a way of getting Lyddy. You know that was why I went into it. I thought you'd been listening to me all these years."

"I thought perhaps with the deepening of your interests--"

"They have only made me love her the more profoundly."

The kqyres took the equivalent of a deep breath. "You do not have a house or any regular place of residence. You cannot expect a lady to live permanently on a spaceship."

"I will build her a house."

"Will it not show her how carefully you have prepared for her if, first, you build her a palace worthy--"

"I have no time to build palaces."

"There is a tiny planet that circles the dim sun you call Van Maanen's star," the alien persisted. "It is always twilight there. The beings who live on that planet build crystal towers miles high and as fragile as spun glass, in dusk colors the rainbow never dreamed of."

"If she wants a crystal tower, I will have one built for her. But first I will ask her."

"Very well," the kqyres sighed, "since nothing else will satisfy you, let us return and fetch her."

And when they got to Erytheia City, Lyddy was still there, not only unmarried, but--in spite of all the years--unchanged.

VII

And now Mattern had been her husband for several months. He had begun to know her, and he realized that she could never be let known the truth about his life and his work. She would be frightened, and, if there was any emotion left over in her, angry.

He told the kqyres: "I've been thinking of taking Lyddy to Burdon. She might find distractions there that will take her mind off--things it shouldn't be on. What do you think of the idea?"

"I cannot tell," the kqyres replied doubtfully. "I have a curious feeling...."

"That _what_?" Mattern prompted him anxiously. It was the first time he had seen the kqyres definitely at a loss, although it had seemed to him of recent months that the xhind's assurance was beginning to ebb.

"... that I am getting too old for my work," the kqyres finished.

"Nonsense!" Mattern cried. The kqyres was his tower of strength; he _would_ not conceive of any weakness in him. It would mean that he would be forced to rely upon himself. _And yet_, he thought, _I am certainly old and experienced enough by now to begin relying upon myself. In fact, I'm getting a little old and tired, too._

"You know," he said to his partner, "maybe we both ought to retire."

"What do you mean?"

"You've been at this long enough and I've got all the money I want. We can see each other sometimes; no reason why I couldn't go into hyperspace just to visit."

The kqyres paled to pearl. "Now that you have Lyddy, you don't want anything else at all?"

"Now that I have Lyddy, what else is there to want?"

The kqyres flickered anxiously. "But the mbretersha has commanded--"

Mattern smiled. "Her commands don't hold good in this universe. You know that. When I was a kid, she could fool me into believing she had a hold over me. But the hold is a psychological one; that's the only thing that could carry over from universe to universe. And I'm strong enough to break it now."

Although he was not quite serious, it might be, he thought, that the hyperspace trade and the trips to Ferr had spoiled him for everyday life, made him too restless for the mundanities of any world. And it was time for him to settle down now.

He let the kqyres win the game, and then he stood up. "I'd better start getting things ready for the trip to Burdon."

"You've definitely decided to go?"

"Yes," Mattern said, pleased with himself, "definitely."

He went to the control room and got out the forms that would need to be filled out before the ship could leave port. Suddenly he remembered his puzzlement about the young spaceman--what was his name?--Raines? He pressed a button on the file, and the boy's records flashed up at him. At first they seemed to be in order: _Alard Raines, aged twenty-five, educated on Earth_, well and good. But _born on Earth_ ... Mattern was almost positive that could never have been, not from the way the young man spoke. And one false statement meant that the whole record was false.

However, he could not challenge the discrepancy before they left for Capella. If he spoke to Raines, he'd probably have to dismiss him then and there. It would be difficult to find a suitable replacement in Erytheia City. He might have to send for someone from Earth, which would take months, perhaps a year. First he'd take the _Queen_ to Burdon, he decided, and then he would fire Raines.

* * * * *

Nearly three weeks went by before they could leave. Mattern found himself looking forward with some impatience to Burdon. When Lyddy had a house of her own that she could take an interest in, he told himself, things would be different; she would be different. This way she was bored much of the time, and boredom is contagious.

"I've 'vised ahead to Capella, dear," he told her as they boarded ship, "and rented a furnished multiplex, so we'll have some place to stay."

"Yes, honey," she said, with a strange lack of interest. She didn't even seem surprised at the size of the ship. Underneath her elaborate makeup, she was pale; her body was trembling. She saw that an explanation was necessary. "It's been so long since I made the Jump. Silly of me to be so nervous, but you do hear things about hyperspace...."

"You're safer in my ship than anywhere else."

"Yes, I know." Was she merely expressing trust in him, or was there more to her words than that?

At first he was just vaguely suspicious. Then, the second day out, he noticed that Lyddy and Raines seemed to be together a good deal more of the time than chance would account for, and his suspicions secured a focus. The two had some kind of unspoken understanding, he thought, watching them as much out of curiosity as anger. _I have become chilled with the years of alien company_, he thought. _I am incapable of true passion; perhaps that is what she seeks in another._

But, though he might find excuses for her, he would not condone her. A bargain was a bargain. At the end of the first week, he said to her one evening, as he sat on the edge of the bed, watching her brush her long, thick gilded hair, "Darling, I'm a little worried about one of my crewmen."

Lyddy didn't turn from the jeweled dressing table he'd had especially installed for her. "Which one?" she asked.

"Young Raines. Do you know which he is?"

"Yes." She paused. "There's only one young one. Why are you worried about him? Do you think he's sick or something?" But that was the question she should have asked _before_ asking the man's identity.

Mattern let a moment elapse, then said, "His papers appear to be forged."

He glanced at the reflection of her face, but it held neither relief nor fear, merely its usual sweet emptiness. "Maybe he needed a job real bad," she said.

"Maybe," her husband agreed, "but why use forged papers?"

"He might of gotten into some kind of trouble--you know how boys are."

"I'd hardly care to employ the kind of spaceman who gets into trouble serious enough for him to lose his papers. You have to do something pretty drastic to get them taken away, you know."

She said nothing.

* * * * *

He went on, "What I'm beginning to suspect is that he isn't really a trained spaceman at all, that he didn't go to any of the Earth space schools."

"Do you have to go to an Earth space school to be a spaceman? Can't you study somewhere else?"

"Earth's the only place where they give the conditioning." He told the truth, figuring she wouldn't understand.

She turned to look at him. "That's so the men shouldn't--see the things outside when they go through hyperspace, isn't it?"

Mattern was somewhat taken aback. "How did you know? It's not public information."

She shrugged and turned back to the dressing table. "I've known a lot of spacemen, hon."

Her face was pale, but why just now? He wondered just what Raines had told her--how much the boy actually knew. Naturally there could be only one possible reason he had chosen Lyddy as his confidante.

"There's something between you and Raines, isn't there?" he asked.

There was a slight delay. Then her laughter shrilled through the cabin. "Don't be silly, hon; I hardly know the man! All I've done was speak to him a couple of times!" She got up and put her soft arms around her husband. "You're jealous, Len," she said, and there was complacency mixed with the fright in her eyes.

He felt a pang of disgust, but tried not to let it show. Gently, he put her away from him.

"But that's so silly," she murmured. "How could I prefer a dumb pimply kid to you?"

In theory, that was quite true, but Len knew women had strange tastes. And possibly "a dumb pimply kid" _had_ more to offer her emotionally and, in reverse, intellectually, than he had. It was not impossible that she was telling the truth, but Mattern could not, of course, believe her. And there was no point in making a further issue of it now. When they reached Burdon, he would fire Raines simply on the basis of the forged papers. No need to bring Lyddy into it at all. So that problem would be easily solved, but what of the others?

He went to play chess with the kqyres. "I trust you have got over your whimsical notion to retire," the xhind said hopefully.

"No," Len told him maliciously, "I've practically made up my mind to quit. There doesn't seem to be any point to it any more."

"The woman _has_ changed! That's the whole trouble, isn't it? Even though it's not apparent, in some way she has changed?"

"No," Len said again, "she hasn't changed at all. In fact, I think that's what the trouble is. She hasn't changed, but _I_ have."

"I never thought of that," the kqyres confessed.

* * * * *

The night of the Jump, Mattern turned in at the kqyres' suggestion. "For once, your men can take care of the ship," the xhind said, "since there will be no trading stop." Lyddy would be drugged, but Mattern would not need drugs, for hyperspace held no more horrors for him. Or so he thought.

But that night he was awakened by the sound of a screaming so hideous that, if he hadn't known voices don't change during the hyperjump, he would be tempted to think it was one result of the law of mutability--so monstrous were these shrill, worse-than-animal cries.

* * * * *

He rushed out of his cabin.

In the corridor stood Lyddy, still screaming, her face contorted with terror that only the sight of Alard Raines standing there in his normal shape let Mattern know that they had already passed the Jump.

The shrieking separated into words. "I saw it! It was horrible!" And she made an ugly noise in her throat. "You were right, Alard. It's true! There's a monster on board and it did something _awful_ to me...." Her voice ebbed to a bubble as she looked down at her body beneath the thin veil of fabric and found the same voluptuous curves she had started out with.

Mattern sighed. "Better come into my cabin, Lyddy." And then he jerked his head at Raines. "You come, too." He paused in the doorway when he saw there was no need for privacy. "Where are the other crewmen?"