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 went across to the soft cushioned chair, spotted the recess in its side, and thrust the plain cylinder into it. I sat on the couch, lay back, reached up to pull the head-piece down into position, against my skull.... There was an instant of pain--like a pre-frontal lobotomy performed without anesthetic. Then blackness. * * * * * _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._ _"Follow me," I said. He made to question me, after the manner of those newly wakened from their Change. I bade him be silent. Like a lamb he came and I led him through shadowed ways to the cage of the Hunters. They rose, keen in their hunger, to my coming, as I had trained them._ _I took the arm of Qulqlan and thrust it into the cage. The Hunters clustered, taking the mark of their prey. He watched, innocent eyes wide._ _"That which you feel is pain, mindless one," I spoke. "It is a thing of which you will learn much in the time before you." Then they had done, and I set the time catch._ _In my chambers I cloaked the innocent in a plain purple robe and afterward led him to the cradle where the life boat lay...._ _And by virtue of the curse of the Gods which is upon me one was there before me. I waited not but moved as the haik strikes and took him fair in the back with my dagger. I dragged his body into hiding behind the flared foot of a column. But no sooner was he hidden well away than others came from the shadows, summoned by some device I know not of. They asked of the Rthr wherefore he walked by night, robed in the colors of Ammaerln of Bros-Ilyond. And I knew black despair, that my grand design foundered thus in the shallows of their zeal._ _Yet I spoke forth, with a great show of anger, that I, Ammaerln, vizier and companion to the Rthr, did but walk and speak in confidence with my liege lord._ _But they persisted, Gholad foremost among them. And then one saw the hidden corpse and in an instant they ringed me in._