Passing from the study to the apartment set aside for his slumbers, the two men intercepted Pala, speeding a parting guest, and she spoke to her husband. "Laira, wife of Gazar--Koryphu. Thou hast not forgotten." "Nay." Koryphu bent before the matron in greeting. "Yet it is long since I have given her salutation." For a moment the face of the caller regarded him almost blankly and then she smiled. "Ah, but--old friends should not be forgotten." She glanced at Jason. Koryphu made the introduction, and she sank to a knee before Zitu's Mouthpiece. "Hupor, my obedience to thee. It came to my ear you were present in Scira, and somewhat of the reason. Zitu uphold you in a troubled hour." "And spare them to you," said Jason, bowing. And yet when he stretched out on his couch and drew its silken coverings about him, the thought came again as it had come while he watched Laira rise, that life on Palos or earth was very much the same thing, and those with friends were, after all, those on whom those in power smiled. The next day he spent with Mutlos, arranging for Koryphu's departure and explaining his purpose in the airplanes, the last of which arrived. The evening passed in meeting many of the Cathurian officials, bidden by Mutlos to the occasion and a feast at which Koryphu and Pala were among the more prominent guests. No secret had been made of his mission. In fact, word of it had been given out. For the time being Koryphu found himself again a person of importance--one in whom Tamarizia herself had given evidence of faith. Watching him under circumstances more or less trying to a man of inferior metal, Croft found himself pleased by his demeanor--satisfied that he would see the meeting with Kalamita carried off with what it held of success. Well pleased then, he gave orders that the planes depart in the morning, and that later Koryphu and his escort should leave for the north. Taking tablets, he wrote rapidly a message to Kalamita, setting forth the fact that the bearer was his representative in person, and gave it to Koryphu after pressing his signet into the waxen surface with instructions to place it in her hands. It was the last move. In so far as it could serve the meeting on which Kalamita counted for far more than it was fated to bring her was arranged. Stretching himself on the couch in the sumptuous chamber in Mutlos's palace, to which he had been led, he freed his consciousness from his body and went in search of the woman herself, to find her in the midst of a wayside camp of Zollarian soldiery, asleep on the pads of her gnuppa-drawn conveyance, beside which the giant Gor of the galley mounted watch.