Roal Hartford moved away from the doorway and picked his way among the tables. He was not here in the guise of Captain Roal Hartford of the SBI. His matted beard and space-worn garb was like that of the dozen meteor miners scattered through the tavern room. Miners who kept going day after day because of the yarns of occasional fabulous treasure found floating on the spaceways. But no one of them had ever seen such treasure--they had only heard of it, and kept going in the hopes of some day making a strike that would in turn create new fables of vast treasure. Roal moved with the shambling gait of one worn and haggard by months among the meteors. When he sat down at a table he rested his head on his hands a moment until one of the shy little Martian girls came to take his order. The Martians were like withered flowers. The little creature beside him must not be more than twenty of her planet's years, Roal thought, but her skin was like old and dried leather. The bones could be seen through the flesh almost. Only her eyes were bright and they peered at Roal with a staring glance that gave him uneasiness. All the Martians were that way. He thought it was as if he were a deadly enemy and they looked at him as if they were sure of eventual victory over him. He shrugged the thought away. In the hundred years of Terrestrial association the Martians had not been guilty of a single overt act. At first, of course, there had been conflict, but a century of peace stood to assure continued amicable relations. "Valcoso," Roal ordered. Silently, the Martian moved away and Roal turned his eyes to the surroundings in the room. While he had pretended to be resting he had kept his glance on Alayna. It seemed incredible that after a year on the starways he should suddenly find her like this. He had listened to a thousand tales of spacemen who had sworn to having visited the phantom tavern, Starhouse, of hearing the song of Alayna, who could shake the stoutest of spacemen with the tenderness of her songs in that husky, almost inaudible voice. He had thought of a thousand things that she might be, but he had never pictured her like this. He had even begun to doubt the reality of her existence. Now he had found her he didn't know what he was going to do. She was slender and sweet, and she could not possibly be the mistress of death and insanity that was sweeping through the planets and outposts. Surely she could not be the lure that enticed men into the gripping tentacles of the drug, _harmeena_. But every clue he had picked up bore a thread that linked with the Queen of the Silver Stars. Miners with shattered minds had spoken in their last hours of Alayna, and in their croaking voices had tried to sing her songs before they died. Because of her they died with smiles upon their lips. But, because of her, many of them died.