«Yes,» said Baliza «We've got better things to do than hunt the Golden Munfan. Also, if no one knows that Blade saved us again, nobody will say anything against the High Command or the Intelligence people.»

«What's there to say against me?» said Sidas.

«A lot, when my father's not around to tell me I should be more respectful to a superior,» said Baliza.

Sidas grunted. «All right.»

Blade smiled. He was pretty sure what Baliza had to say and could almost feel sorry for Sidas. Baliza still wasn't happy about the lack of coordination between her mission and Blade's, even though everybody had been lucky. She was going to have some things to say about desk-bound superiors. They would probably be the same things he'd said in his younger days, when he'd felt he was carrying the can for their mistakes.

That evening Sidas threw a party, for everyone who was in on the secret.

It was a highly informal party, with nobody standing on rank. Even Ezarn finally got used to talking to Monitor Bekror and taking a glass of beer from a tray held by his High Commander. He still looked a bit as if he'd been hit over the head and hadn't quite recovered. Blade expected the man would sooner or later get used to the fact that his old comrade Voros was really the Sky Master Blade: Ezarn wasn't stupid, he was impossible to frighten, and having an assured future (in the Monitor Bekror's guards, with a farm of his own) probably wouldn't hurt either.

Cheeky ate so much that finally he vomited all over Baliza's tunic. She washed him off, put him to bed, then went around the rest of the evening bare to the waist. For the first time in his life Blade found himself trying not to look at such a good-looking, woman parading around half-bare. However, he finally remembered that this was Kaldakan custom. Blood kin had a complete right to be casually nude around each other.

«It's good to see her that way,» Bekror told Blade as they both refilled their cups. «I wouldn't care to have some unnatural fear crawling in her mind when I marry her.»

Blade looked at his cup, to see if somebody had spiked his drink. Or maybe he'd just drunk too much?

«I thought you said you wanted to marry Baliza,» he said slowly.

«I did,» said Bekror. «If she'll have me.»

«And if she won't?»

«She's the best woman I've known for a long time. She's not the only one. If she says no, I'll let her go. I value my peace of mind too much.»

«Not to mention your ribs, skull, and back teeth,» added Blade.

«Them, too.»

They talked freely after that. Bekror wanted a wife who would outlive him and be able to take care of his estates and any children she had by him.

«About the taking care, I'm not worried,» said Blade. «About the outliving-well, she's got one of my worst habits. She'll always run to find out what's happening, no matter how dangerous it might be.»

«She'll have a double dose of it, then. Her mother was like that.» They both drank to Kareena's memory. «What do you suggest my doing about it?»

«Learn to live with it, or you'll have to learn to live without her,» said Blade flatly.

«That's all?»

«That's all. And you didn't really need my advice, did you?»

Blade wanted out of this embarrassing situation of advising a prospective son-in-law who was almost old enough to be his own father, about a daughter whom the other man surely knew much better than he did! Inter-Dimensional family reunions were a headache.

Blade, Feragga, and Baliza left the party by midnight, while they were all still sober enough to fly. They were going south, to meet the one man Blade wanted to see who hadn't been at the party. It would have caused too much talk, to recall Bairam from his exile in the south.

Feragga was going south with them, to wait out the crisis in Doimar. «I'm going back as soon as I'm sure I'll be heard instead of shot at,» she said bluntly. «And if that doesn't happen-if I have to stay in Kaldak-I'm not going to ask anyone to come. Anybody who wants to come to me from Doimar, that's up to them.»

«We risked-«Baliza began, but her father put a hand on her shoulder.

«I know what you risked, and I know what you did. That destruction of the cliff-it wasn't your fault, but the Seekers died. My Seekers, more than Detcharn's.

«I'm grateful to be alive. I'm still not grateful enough to be a traitor, and there's nothing you can do to change my mind on that. Nor you either, Blade,» she said with a grin. «I've still got a soft heart for you, but not a soft head.»

Blade had the feeling that before long the Kaldakans were going to wish they'd left Feragga in Doimar! He couldn't completely share the feeling-he was too glad she was alive. But he wasn't at all surprised at her refusal to be a traitor. That was one more thing he could have told the Kaldakans in advance, if he hadn't been so carefully hiding his identity.

He made a mental note to talk with Feragga about the use of rockets for space flight. If the Doimari got turned in that direction, it might keep them peaceful and would certainly help the whole Dimension recover. If only his son Detcharn had thought of that himself! His name might be honored in the history of this world, instead of cursed.

To their surprise, Geyrna met them at the lifter field. «Do you mind if I come along?» she said.

«Not if you don't mind telling me why,» said Baliza.

«I want to talk to Feragga,» Geyrna said. «The Koldak Council of Nine is going to ask why she won't jump through hoops for them. I'd like to have an answer for them. It may not save my seat, but it will save my conscience.»

«How did you guess what I've just been telling these people?» demanded Feragga. «You aren't a mind-speaker, are you?»

Geyrna grinned sourly. «Just natural shrewdness-no, if I had that, I might still have a husband. And that's the other reason I'm going south. I want to try putting things back together with Bairam. He shouldn't have gone drinking the way he did, but-well, I did give him some reasons. Maybe they would have been reasons for any man, not just Bairam. I don't know. I want-«She squeezed her eyes shut as Baliza embraced her.

They would need two pilots for the flight south. Blade and Baliza tossed a coin for it, and Baliza won the first watch. As the lights of Kaldak faded behind them, Blade crawled aft and curled up on a pile of old parachutes. Cheeky curled up on his chest, one paw twined in Blade's beard. Blade couldn't remember when he'd last had a good night's sleep. While he was as tough as a diesel locomotive, he also knew the need to sleep when he could.

The worst might be over, but he refused to assume it was until he woke up back in Home Dimension.

Chapter 28

Something was wrong.

There was a blanket over Blade, and there hadn't been one in the lifter. Instead of the stiff parachutes, there was a cool sheet under him, smooth and with a smell that practically shouted, «Hospital!» Had the lifter crashed.

Perhaps. But Kaldak didn't have hospitals like that.

Blade opened his eyes, then sat up. He was in the familiar room in the Complex's private hospital where he spent a couple of days for observation after each trip. That was the rule, whether he came back wounded or not. The doctors wanted their piece out of him, and that was all there was to it!

He looked around the room. Hanging on the wall was the Kaldakan soldier's uniform he had worn on the flight to see Bairam in his place of exile in the south. Why the Complex's scientists hadn't yet absconded with it to conduct their experiments was a mystery, but then it was as hard now to believe what he was seeing as it had been to believe he was back in Kaldak. However, there was just as little point in ignoring what his senses were shouting to him.