For an instant Roal himself was lost in that dream. He thought of far Earth, which he had not seen for so long. The conquest of space seemed suddenly futile. It was nothing but a vain waste of lives and energy and brought no one happiness. Yet why should a man live except for happiness? Someone like Alayna could be happiness for him, he thought. The Queen of the Silver Stars could be happiness.
He dragged his mind abruptly out of the dream world of Alayna's song. He was Captain Roal Hartford of the Solar Bureau of Investigation. His world was the world of dope peddlers, thieves, and murderers that infested the starways. He was a little cog in a great machine and he knew that he had to keep going to keep the machine from breaking down. It wouldn't do for him to wonder why the machine should be kept running at all.
Alayna's song ended, but the silence hung on for an instant. Then slowly the spacemen and gamblers turned back to one another, avoiding each others' eyes until they were sure their own were dry.
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.