"Me, Jettero?" she said.

The land yacht was stopped. Bang-Bang's voice, "Beachhead in sight! Hit the nets!"

Their viewers flared out but shortly came on again. They were walking from the vehicles up a flight of steps to an institutional sort of building, its bricks a shabby red in the vehicle lights.

Biggs was pounding on the door. "They go to bed wi' th' chickens heah. But ah c'n roust in aht." He pounded some more.

A sleepy man, still buckling his pants, came out. "Biggs? Wha's the fuss? Anothah cohthouse fiah?"

"Sweeney," said Biggs, "min" yo' tongue. You hahbor-in' a boy name Richard Roe heah?"

"Young Dick?" said Sweeney. "You heah to drag him

"Young Dick?" said Sweeney. "You heah to drag him back to the State Agriculture College? I c'n tell you now, Biggs, he won't go. He gets too lonesome fo' his pigs!"

"Wheah is he?" said Biggs.

"Why, he be down to the pig sheds, of co'se."

"Show th' way," said Biggs.

They went down a winding path to some concrete buildings. Sweeney turned on some floodlights and there were a lot of startled grunts and then complaints from the covered pens.

Sweeney took them up a flight of outside stairs and opened a door. He turned on an inside light. "Dick," he said, "they finally come to drag you back. Ah'm sorry, boy, but ah cain't go up ag'inst the law. It'd be man job."

Krak peeked in past Sweeney. It was a small room. The walls were plastered with cutout pictures of pigs, all colors and types. On a narrow mattress, fully clothed, except for shoes, a tall, blond boy had been asleep. He was trying to sit up now, defending his eyes against the light. He looked to be about an Earth eighteen. He looked amazingly like Delbert John.

"Ah won' go!" he said. "Ever' tahm ah leave heah, Sweeney, if only fo' one term, ah come back an' fin' man pigs ahl in neglec' an' pinin' away. You tell them fo'ks to jus' go away."

"They got guns, Dick," said Sweeney. "Guns!" cried the boy, leaping bolt upright. "Git away Pm heah with guns! You m'aht shoot a pig!"

The Countess Krak moved smoothly in. "I'd better handle this," she said. "Nobody is going to shoot your

Pigs."

"Whoosh!" said the boy, staring at her round-eyed. "Who be you? A angel or somethin'? Hey, who be this, Sweeney? Wow, she's pretty enough to be a pig!"

"I'm just a friend," said the Countess Krak. She pointed a finger at the boy's forehead. She said gently, "Just sit down on the mattress, please."

The boy sat suddenly, still staring.

The Countess Krak reached down and pulled off his left sock. She upended the foot and looked at the sole.

You couldn't see anything. It was too soiled!

"Bang-Bang," called the Countess Krak. "A bucket of water and a rag, please."

There was a scurrying on the stairs and shortly, with a clatter and slosh, Bang-Bang appeared. The Countess took the bucket of water, set it down and dipped a rag in it. She washed off the sole of the foot. It took a while to cut through the layers. The water in the bucket got black from repeated dips of the rag. The boy watched her in fascination, studying every move.

At length, she was satisfied and held the foot sole up to the light.

A DOLLAR SIGN!

Small and dim, it spread out on the heel.

"Well, theah she is," said Biggs in the door.

The boy sensed they had seen something. He grabbed his foot away from her and, with some contortion, looked at the sole.

"Well, golly be," he said. "I ain't never noticed that afore. It do look lahk a dollah ma'k. Is it some disease? Hoof-rot mebbe? What's it mean? Tell me quick!"

"It means," said the Countess Krak, "that you are not a nameless orphan foundling. It means that you are the son of the richest man in the world, Delbert John Rockecenter, found at long last."

He looked at her round-eyed. He saw that she meant it. And then it hit him. He fainted dead away!

The Countess beckoned to Heller. "Dear, take off your right boot."

Heller moved past Biggs and I saw where Sweeney had gotten the idea of guns: Heller had that decorated.45 glittering in his belt. I hoped that he would go away and leave an open field to Torpedo.

Heller removed his boot and sock. The Countess took his foot and held it alongside that of the Earth boy. Actually, they weren't a bad match: the real one on Rocke-center's son and the counterfeit dollar mark on Heller's. Residual dirt obscured any difference of the boy's.

Biggs saw them both. "Well, there she be twice. Un-identical twins reunited." He produced a police idento-polaroid he must have taken off the chief. He shot a picture of the feet together, then he shot one of Heller and then he shot one of the boy, not bothering with the fact that the youth still lay there unconscious.

"Now that this heah event is full recorded," said Biggs, "you fo'ks come along. Ah got somethin' else to show yuh." He went down the steps beckoning.

The Countess followed to the last two steps and then she stopped. "You go along, dear. I'll stay here. When he comes to, he'll need somebody to hold his hand."

"Wait a minute," said Heller. "I don't like to leave you here."

"Oh, I'll be all right. Now, listen, all of you, Mr. Biggs and Mr. Sweeney. You keep this find quiet, do you

hear? That poor boy is going to need weeks and weeks of coaching and training to take his proper place in the world. So no publicity. The papers always get things wrong."

"Nobody ever believes me anyway," said Sweeney.

"Yes, ma'am," said Biggs.

"Now, Bang-Bang," said the Countess Krak, "you follow Jettero in the jeep just so he can get back to the circus wagon over there on the other side of the farm." * "Yes, ma'am," said Bang-Bang. "I'll handle it."

They left her at the foot of the stairs in all that glaring floodlight. She would be all alone in an isolated part of the farm. And if Torpedo had any sense, he'd kill the boy, too! A setup if there ever was one! Even quiet enough for the corpse rape!

The men walked the considerable distance back to the main building. The drivers had pulled the motor homes over to the side of the drive. Sweeney went into the building to finish his sleep. Heller climbed into the Buick beside Biggs. They drove off and shortly lights showed up, following behind.

Biggs drove over bumpy roads for quite a while. Then he turned at a rural mailbox and went much slower, his lights pointing through an orchard and, as the entrance road twisted, playing back and forth across some decrepit farm buildings. He stopped and before them lay an old-fashioned, two-story, brick farmhouse.

"You probably don' remembah this place, Junior. It's passed to th' Hodges now through death duties an' taxes. But it's th' ol' Styles farm, yo' granpappy's on yo' mothah's side. Early tonaht I got me a hunch, so le's see ifn she bears fruit."

He got out of the car, walked up the porch steps and began to bang with an old brass knocker much corroded

with age. It took quite a while but finally a woman in a nightcap and dressing gown turned on the porch light, peeked through a window and opened the door.

"Whut you doin' here at this ungodly hour, Stonewall Biggs?" she said. "Don' you know it's the middle of the naht?"

"Miz Hodges," said Biggs, "ah do apologize. But have you clean yo' attic recently?"

"Biggs, you know danged well theah ain't no Yankee regoolation that anyone has to clean a attic. Don' tell me theah be a county one. Nobody nevah cleans no attic! An' if n you come here this time of naht to tell me to clean mah attic..."

"No, no," said Biggs, with great charm. "Ah sho'ly wouldn' insult th' fines' housekeeper fo' miles aroun' with that! But taxes can be reduced fo' unused space. An' ah jus' wanted t'see if you was ovahtaxed!" "Oh, well, tha's better." "So could ah have a look in yo' attic?" "He'p y'self so long as you let me go back to bed!" "Chahmed," said Biggs.