_The Hesperian Queen_ was not a small vessel. She was one of the newest, fastest, most fully automated models. Moreover, she was large and she glittered like a dwarf star. Lyddy would get a surprise when she came to see the ship. Mattern greeted the crew member on watch and went up to his luxuriously appointed cabin--suite, really. Inside, a chessboard was set up, as its counterpart was set up in his hotel room, one side in the light from a porthole, the other in a corner full of shadows. The pieces were not only in position, but a game had been started. Mattern sat down on the bright side and moved a piece. "Lyddy's aware of you," he told the shadows. "She has no idea of what you are, of course. But she knows you're around, kqyres. She's half seen you and it's beginning to bother her. It's beginning to bother me, too." * * * * * Part of the shifting grayness flowed over the board. When it receded, a knight had changed its place. "Truly, I have tried to be careful," a quiet, rather tired voice said out of a darkness at the heart of the shadows, an area that was tenuously substant. "Is it certain that you yourself have not in some way given her cause for suspicion?" "Quite certain. I've watched myself night and day." Mattern smiled ruefully. "Which is damned hard when you're on your honeymoon." "Is there anyone else who might have spoken of these things to her?" the kqyres asked. "No one." Then Mattern remembered the young spaceman he had met coming into the hotel, who seemed to have a look of Lyddy. But that was nonsensical. Looking _like_ her didn't mean talking _to_ her. In any case, what would Raines know that he could tell her? Silly to be so suspicious. The Golden Apple _was_ one of the few places in Erytheia City where one could get Earth smokesticks. "No one," Mattern repeated. "No one at all." The patterns shifted and darkened. "Then I must be getting careless. I am growing old." "Anyone can make a slip," Mattern said reassuringly. "Just try to be a little more careful, that's all." He moved a rook. The grayness crept out over the board, touched a bishop, hesitated, and moved to a pawn. _He is getting old_, Mattern thought pityingly, as he took the pawn. _Once I could never beat him. Now I win two games out of three._ "But you are content with the woman?" his partner asked anxiously. "You are not disappointed with her in any way? She pleases you as much today as she did when first you set eyes on her?" "Of course she does! You'd think it was you who'd been dreaming of her all these years, not me." "I suppose we shared those dreams...." "And you'd never seen her." Mattern stared intently at the shadow. "Are you disappointed, then?" "Of course not. You know that to me a human woman is merely an object of art. And she _is_ very beautiful. But I thought she might not have come up to your expectations. Reality often falls short of dreams." The shadow's voice tautened. "Has she changed much?"