"I don't know if there's one in port or not. All we do is pick up you infants who get lost and can't find your way home. Where are you?" "Out in the desert somewhere. I'll keep a carrier on for a direction finder if you can make it in an hour or so." "Well, just between the two of us I hope your battery runs down and we can't find you." Calvin cut off amid Roal's grin. The Commander would be burning up the channels right now ordering a plane to pick him up as quickly as possible, Roal knew. There was nothing to do but wait, leaving the transmitter on to guide the ship. It didn't matter whether its power lasted or not. Once they got a bearing on him, they could find him as long as he stayed right there. The sun was almost unendurable with his lack of water. He scooped out a deep spot in the sand until he came to a layer still cool from the night's radiation. He sat in the trench and covered himself up to his neck, then covered his head with his cloak. In relative comfort he could wait a considerable time, even if one of the treacherous sand storms should come up. He let his mind drift back to the events of the previous night. The antidote of the SBI chemists had been only partially successful, he knew now. There had been no such fanciful, absorbing visions of peace and loveliness as he had heard described by others, but the effects he had seen were enough for him. The demon attacks had been the natural conflict between the drug and the antidote. The strange mystery of the phantom tavern and its mysterious Queen of the Silver Stars was no nearer solution than before, however. He knew only that they did exist and that was something. But who was the fabled Alayna? Why was she playing the role of temptress in that ghastly place against her will? For Roal was certain that if she was not there against her will she was at least held by some force that overpowered her own real desires. The Starhouse was a den of evil and vice, lust and violent death. But Alayna? Roal shook his head and wondered if he had been merely overcome by the same illusions that seized all who went to the Starhouse. Was Alayna herself only a part of the dream of peace and happiness that Starhouse doled out with the deadly drug _harmeena_? Or was her loveliness and hidden tenderness something real? Roal remembered the slight, almost hidden gesture of loathing she had made when she rose before the hungry eyes of the patrons of Starhouse, the instinctive shrinking beneath his cloak when he had placed it about her. He remembered the throaty song of hers in which she painted dreams of green Earth and lovers under blue skies. That dream was not part of her act. That dream was Alayna. It was the only real thing in the whole ugly fabric of Starhouse. He was going to gamble on that.