Miran looked blankly at the Earthman, though he knew well enough that he was keenly interested in the so-called demons. "Oh, it is located close to the palace of the king himself, but not on the hills. It landed on the plain." "Hmm. And the strangers will be burned during the Festival of the Eye of the Sun?" "If they have lived, they will be." Green didn't like to think about their dying. If they had, then his problem was solved. He stayed upon this planet and did the best he could here. There was one thing he had to admit. That was that having Amra as his wife made such an event not so calamitous as it might have been. She'd keep him so interested that time would pass swiftly, even on this barbarous place. In that case, he thought, why was he hesitating about taking her to Earth, if he got the chance? No matter where he was she'd see that life was a whirlpool of action. And she'd only begun to disclose the deeps within her. Give her an education, and what a creature might evolve! What's the matter with you, Green? he said to himself. Don't you know your own mind? Are you so capable at handling physical events but a complete muckup when it comes to psychical? Why...? "Look out!" cried Miran, and Green threw the helm hard aport to avoid crashing into a small freighter. The captain, standing on the foredeck behind his own helmsman, leaned over the rail and shook his fist at Green and cursed. Green cursed back but after that he didn't allow himself to begin thinking about Amra until he had steered the 'roller into the 'break. The rest of the day he was busy getting cleared with the port authorities. Fortunately he had a letter from the officer of the island-fortress. It explained why he happened to be in possession of a foreign craft and also recommended that Green be given a chance to sign up in the Estoryan 'roller-fleet if he wished. Even so, he had to tell his story so many times to an admiring and amazingly credulous audience that it was dusk before he could get free. Outside the customs building he found Grizquetr waiting for him. "Where's your mother?" he asked. "Oh, she knew you'd be tied up for a long time, so she went ahead and got a room in an inn. They're very hard to get during the Festival, almost impossible. But you know Mother," said Grizquetr, winking. "She gets what she goes after, every time." "Yes, I'm afraid so. Well, where's this inn?" "It's clear across town, but it's within sight of the wall that's built around the demons' skyship." "Wonderful! Rooms must be twice as difficult to get there as on the edge of town. How did Amra do it?" "She gave the innkeeper three times his asking price, which was high enough. And he found a pretext to quarrel with a man who had long ago reserved a room, threw him out and gave it to us!" "Ah? And where did she get this money?" "She sold a ruby to a jeweler who kept shop close to the 'break. He's sort of shady, I guess, and he didn't give Mother what the ruby was worth."