"Go on."
"I've been talking to Obd Doll and his men. They're pretty disgusted at the mess Cyn Cryver led them into with his plotting. They'd like to go back home and start their world going again under new leadership... sane, conservative leadership."
"In other words," said Gordon ironically, "Shorr Kan's leadership."
He nodded. "It does so happen, that not only do they not hold it against me that I captured them, but they think I'd be just the man to bring things to order on their world. They think they can convince their people."
"Go on," said Lianna.
"The favor I ask, Highness, is simply that you let me take Obd Doll and his men with me in that cruiser, and send word to the barons... without mentioning me, of course... to let the ship through."
"So that you can start new trouble in the Marches?" cried Lianna. "You... !"
"Please, Highness!" said Shorr Kan, looking pained. "I'm all through with that now, an older and wiser man. All I want is a little planet where I can live at peace, nothing more."
"Oh, Lord!" said Gordon. "You ought to put that to music."
"I think," said Lianna, "that you will raise a racket in times to come, all through the Marches, and I will live to regret this day. But I am a queen, and a debt is a debt. Take your people and go."
Shorr Kan gallantly kissed her hand. He shook Gordon's, and turned away. He stopped when he saw Hull Burrel glaring at him. He went up to the Antarian and took him by the hand.
"It's hard to part this way, old friend," he said. "We've been through a lot together, and I know how you must feel to see me go."
Hull's coppery face flushed scarlet and he began to make inarticulate growling noises. But Shorr Kan wrung his unwilling hand and said, "Don't try to express your sorrow at my leaving, Hull. No tears, old friend, no weakness! Farewell."
He went away with a jaunty stride, heels clicking on the marble floor. Gordon, turning to Lianna, was amazed to see a half-smile on her face.
"At last I see what it is in that devil that attracts you," she said. "One hardly ever meets a man who is perfect at anything... but Shorr Kan is the perfect rogue."
In a short while, a small dispatch cruiser went skyward from the royal spaceport, and they watched it streak away across the flaring heavens.
And the white sun went down.
THE END
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