"Yuma!"

George thrashed.

Lauren was arguing politics with him over the breakfast table. He won a point more by sheer force of the argument than facts. Smiling, she lifted the pitcher of orange juice, flourished it and poured it into his coffee. The cup overflowed onto the counter.

"Yuma!"

George was a pragmatic man with a limited sense of the absurd, so irritation hit him first. Then, because Lauren had been a good teacher, the humor finally kicked in. He glanced up, fighting a smile. She was laughing.

"Goddamn! Yuma!"

Lauren's perfect face burst like a warm bubble.

"Yuma! You got visitors!"

George took in a deep breath that tasted of damp and old food. He opened his eyes to see Besseh standing over him in the semi-dark. The Karee looked scared.

"You get up," Besseh said as he pulled on George's arm. "They think you dead. You get up and talk."

George's mouth felt funny. He swiveled his legs from the cot, but his knees wouldn't hold him.

"Ambassador Hatterly?" a resonant voice asked. Blinking, George looked up. His aide and the Chief of Intelligence stood just in the curtain staring at him. George lifted a slow hand and ran it over his face. There was stubble on his cheeks. "How long?" His lips didn't work right.

"Sir?"

"How long have I been here?"

"Presumably eighteen hours, sir," the intelligence officer said. "That's how long you've been missing." The officer had flat, suspicious eyes and he kept his hand near the weapon at his belt.

"George. We've been looking all over hell and gone for you," his aide told him. "Jesus Christ. We nearly started an interplanetary incident."

The ambassador coughed. He licked his lips. They felt glued. With practical, professional solicitude, Besseh brought him a drink. George had raised it to his mouth when the intelligence chief stepped forward. "Don't!' he snapped.

"You don't know where that cup's been," his aide sighed, "or even what's in it. You know the hygiene around here."

George took a sip, anyway, much to the intelligence officer's alarm. It was fresh water.

Taking another sip, George turned to the subdued and frightened Besseh. At one time George had wanted the Karee to be cowed. Now he found it painful. Besseh had crawled into himself and was looking at some neutral spot on the floor, what the Sisters at Sacred Heart School used to call "custody of the eyes;" only the nun's institutional shyness came from duty. Besseh's came from fear. The magician knew what the humans were capable of. The mind was powerful, but sometimes the body was stronger.

"...can never tell what these people can do with drugs and the like," the intelligence officer was saying. "Anyway, to extract information by kidnapping is a crime in anyone's book."

"I wasn't kidnapped. You know that."

The officer closed his mouth with a nearly audible snap.

"I came here of my own accord." He smiled weakly. "Besseh Yo is merely... a blameless tool."

"Guard!" the intelligence officer ordered. "Get this stinking Karee out of here!"

George watched in silence as an embassy officer shoved the magician out of the room. "You can't arrest Besseh," he said when the Karee was gone.

The aide sat down on the cot next to George. "Look. Let's be reasonable, okay? The magician does its little magic number on you. You don't know what you'd say. Shit, George. This was stupid."

"That Karee has to disappear. Hence you were kidnapped. That's what we'll tell the League. No questions about that. They don't like the Karee, either," the intelligence man said.

George was only half listening. Suddenly his gaze lost its focus. "Oh, my God. I can't remember how I met her."

"Huh?" asked the aide.

"I can't remember." He stood. Vertigo hit him and he nearly toppled. His aide grabbed his arm. "Get Besseh in here!" George shouted. He was terrified and it came out in his voice. "Get Besseh in here quick!"