Lors stepped inside and the door hummed shut behind him. The vestibule was little more than a box-like room, containing a small visi-screen. He pressed the small, black button at the base of the dark screen and kept his finger on it while the lines waved. "Firstspacer Lors to see the Commander," he said, as the rotund face of his future father-in-law waved and blurred into focus. "Come in, Lors! Come in!" Zark's voice was a bellow of pleasure. The heavy door swung open and Lors stepped into the room to click his heels and slap his right hand against the black holster before the Commander's desk. "Firstspacer Lors reporting, sir," he said, as Zark got up from the chair and came toward him. "Lors, Lors, my son! How are you?" They grabbed each other by the shoulders and laughed like children. Lors, despite his love for Beth Danson and the trouble that was undoubtedly coming up, was happy as a Terran child at Christmas to see the older man. "Lors! Let me look at you! It's been eons since Thista! Jela's fair dying to get her hands on you again." He winked at Lors. "And I imagine you are, too." "She's here?" A ray of panic touched him and he hoped that it didn't show. "Not that I know of, unless a ship came in. The last I heard, she was waiting for a ship to take her off the base on Mars. She swears she'll get you this time, or she's going back home to find an old mushshell gatherer." Lors laughed with Zark, who released him to pull a flask of wine from his desk. As he poured two tumblers of the milk-white wine, he winked at the young spacer. "From the home planet," he grinned. "Mallowine. I'll wager you haven't tasted it in a long time." "Not since Thista," Lors assured him, accepting the tumbler. He held up the glass for a toast. "To you, sir, and your daughter. May she be saved from marrying a mushshell gatherer." Commander Zark chuckled and they drank, the soft, mellow taste of the wine lingering fondly in their mouths long after the drink had found its way into their stomachs. "Now then, Lors. Tell me what that fool of an Imry did to you." He told the Commander everything, watching the older man nod his head from time to time, the stubby fingers of his hands forming a pyramid before his lips as he slumped in his chair. Lors left nothing out, except his love for Beth Danson. He couldn't bring himself to tell about that. When he had finished, Commander Zark's eyes were hot with angry indignation. "I'll see that Imry cannot get a command on a planet with a pure ammonia atmosphere for this trick! I'll see him tortured by Thistians!" The old man stopped his tirade as quickly as he had begun it. "You know what this means, Lors?" "I'm afraid to guess."