The houselights dimmed suddenly. A shower of colored lights played upon the raised stage. Soft nostalgic music poured from an unseen source. Soundlessly, a series of colored crystal screens slid back. At the back of the stage was a shadowy figure half-concealed by clouds of gossamer stuff blown wildly by concealed fans. Slowly, with infinite insolence, the figure moved to the point of the triangular stage. She stood motionless, waiting, while the babel of unearthly tongues died away in silence. The music grew louder. Veil by veil she flung off the filmy draperies until she stood revealed. Klathgar.... She wore the conventional garb of a woman of the ancient desert dwellers, jewelled copper breast-plates, a circlet of beaten bronze binding her wealth of red-violet hair, her eyes glittering like emerald fire; and the long divided skirt concealed little of her shapely body. Leashed, beside her, was the restless, slithering shadow of a red sand-leopard. Against the wavering, eerie melody, and a patterned off-beat throb of tom-toms, she began to sing. Her voice was rich, throaty, and the song a poignant love song of the ancient desert people. For a moment Heydrick forgot where he was and who _she_ was. The hopeless yearning and infinite tragedy of the music played unpleasantly with his soul-memories. The weird denizens of the Spacerat's Roost sat enthralled. The song ended upon a note of earth-sick despair, a haunting melancholy for things that will never again be as they were, never, if the planets swing round a dead sun in an empty sky. The singer bowed, half-contemptuously, to the storm of applause, then retired. Heydrick drew the identification space-photo from his pocket and studied it. There was no doubt. Despite the heavy make-up, the features were the same. Ria Tarsen and Klathgar were the same. In moments the girl was back. She had shed her glamor-costume and was nearly naked in the briefest of skirts, legs shimmering in painted stockings, high-breasts caught in a tight sheen of semi-translucent material. This time she sang a bawdy song, "If Asteroids were Asterisks," about a girl who went for a rocket-ride with an octopus man, and had to hitch-hike home from the Moons of Jupiter. The crowd went wild. The number finished with a rowdy burlesque dance which went considerably beyond the bounds of good taste, but was screamingly funny. * * * * * The girl ducked out the wings, and Heydrick nodded to the waiter. The octopus man winked one of his three eyes and vanished. He came back through the door to the dressing rooms, and the girl was with him. He pointed to Heydrick. Klathgar looked at him insolently. A puzzled frown wrinkled her face. Lithe as a sand-leopard, she moved among the crowded tables, still clad in the gaudy costume of her last number.