I had a choice of moves now: I could tip-toe across to the register and try to wiggle through it without waking up the brontosaurus on the bed ... or I could try for the balcony door a foot from where he slept ... or I could stay put and wait him out. The last idea had the virtue of requiring no immediate daring adventures. I could just curl up on the floor, or, better still, on the padded couch.... A weird idea was taking shape in my mind like a genie rising from a bottle. I felt in my pocket, pulled out the two small cylinders that represented two men's memories of hundreds of years of living. One belonged to Foster, the one with the black and golden bands; but the other was the property of a stranger who had died three thousand years ago, out in space.... This cylinder, barely three inches long, held all the memories of a man who had been Foster's confidant when he was Qulqlan, a man who knew what had happened aboard the ship, what the purpose of the expedition had been, and what conditions they had left behind on Vallon. I needed that knowledge. I needed any knowledge I could get, to add a feather-weight to my side of the balance when the showdown came. The cylinder would tell me plenty, including, possibly, the reason for Ommodurad's interest in Foster. It was simple to use. I merely placed the cylinder in the receptacle in the side of the machine, took my place, lowered the helmet into position ... and in an hour or so I would awaken with another man's memories stored in my brain, to use as I saw fit. It would be a crime to waste the opportunity. The machine I had found here was probably the only one still in existence on Vallon. I had blundered my way into the one room in the palace that could help me in what I had to do; I had been lucky; I couldn't waste that luck. I went across to the soft-cushioned chair, spotted the recess in its side, and thrust the plain cylinder into it; it seated with a click. I sat on the couch, lay back, reached up to pull the headpiece down into position against my skull.... There was an instant of pain--like a pre-frontal lobotomy performed without anesthetic. Then blackness. CHAPTER XVIII _I stood beside the royal couch where Qulqlan the Rthr lay and I saw that this was the hour for which I had waited long, for the Change was on him...._ _The time-scale stood at the third hour of the Death watch; all aboard slept save myself alone. I must move swiftly and at the Dawn watch show them the deed well done._ _I shook the sleeping man; him who had once been the Rthr--king no more, by the law of the Change. He wakened slowly, looked about him, with the clear eyes of the newborn._ _"Rise," I commanded. And the king obeyed._