"The Chief Executioner? But why should he—Aaah!" Loala's gray-green eyes widened slightly. "Then it was you whose information warned us of the rebel uprising at Loovil, and enabled our forces to quell it? Well done, brave Steve of Emmeity! But still I do not understand. Why did you not report this directly to me?"
"Because," explained Steve, "upon my return to Sinnaty I was seized by guards and taken before the Chief Executioner. When I told Okuno of the dreadful secret I had learned at Loovil, he commissioned me to proceed immediately to Daan, that I might point out amongst the group recently exiled—"
"The Slumberers!" Excitement brightened Loala's eyes. "Now I understand! Then what we heard rumored was true? The Slumberers were amongst those captured at Loovil, and exiled to Daan? And you, O Steve, you can identify them?"
"I can," declared Steve boldly. Then, in a softer voice, "I can and will, O loveliest daughter of Daan."
And again, as before, Loala proved herself mistress of all things save her own truly feminine emotions. At the tone of his voice, her features softened. Her eyes met his approvingly, and she whispered, "You have done well, Steve of Emmeity. I think the time is not far off when you shall have won that which you claim to desire. Do you—" There was a calculated allure in her sidelong glance—"Do you still find the prize worth striving for?"
"More so than ever, O Mistress of every delight," avowed Steve ardently ... and moved a step nearer her. "Must I continue to prove myself? Surely by now I have earned—"
It was a bold gambit he offered, one which might have boomeranged against his plans. But he was gambling on the inherent coquetry of the woman Loala. His psychology was good, for, as he had expected, she withdrew before him, and her lips lifted in a smile of light amusement.
"Not so quickly, O most presuming human," she laughed archly. "There is still your important mission to be accomplished. After that, well—then perhaps we shall see...."
To say that the following ten days, during which the spacecruiser Oalumuo blazed its way across thirty-odd million miles of trackless ether, were uneventful would be but to demonstrate the relativity of all things.