The guard raised his voice. A crowd was gathering, popeyed and jabbering, and with the increase of audience, the guard's sense of importance increased in direct ratio.

"Where did he escape from?" he declaimed in high sarcasm. "Why, I suppose you've heard of the Mule, now."

All jabbering stopped, and Bayta felt a sudden iciness trickle down into her stomach. The clown had eyes only for her-he still quivered in the guard's brawny grasp.

"And who," continued the guard heavily, "would this infernal ragged piece be, but his lordship's own court fool who's run away." He jarred his captive with a massive shake, "Do you admit it, fool?"

There was only white fear for answer, and the soundless sibilance of Bayta's voice close to Toran's ear.

Toran stepped forward to the guard in friendly fashion, "Now, my man, suppose you take your hand away for just a while. This entertainer you hold has been dancing for us and has not yet danced out his fee."

"Here!" The guard's voice rose in sudden concern. "There's a reward"

"You'll have it, if you can prove he's the man you want. Suppose you withdraw till then. You know that you're interfering with a guest, which could be serious for you."

"But you're interfering with his lordship and that will will be serious for you." He shook the clown once again. "Return the man's fee, carrion." be serious for you." He shook the clown once again. "Return the man's fee, carrion."

Toran's hand moved quickly and the guard's stun pistol was wrenched away with half a finger nearly following it. The guard howled his pain and rage. Toran shoved him violently aside, and the clown, unhanded, scuttled behind him.

The crowd, whose fringes were now lost to the eye, paid little attention to the latest development. There was among them a craning of necks, and a centrifugal motion as if many had decided to increase their distance from the center of activity.

Then there was a bustle, and a rough order in the distance. A corridor formed itself and two men strode through, electric whips in careless readiness. Upon each purple blouse was designed an angular shaft of lightning with a splitting planet underneath.

A dark giant, in lieutenant's uniform, followed them; dark of skin, and hair, and scowl.

The dark man spoke with the dangerous softness that meant he had little need of shouting to enforce his whims. He said, "Are you the man who notified us?"

The guard was still holding his wrenched hand, and with a pain-distorted face mumbled, "I claim the reward, your mightiness, and I accuse that man"

"You'll get your reward," said the lieutenant, without looking at him. He motioned curtly to his men, "Take him."

Toran felt the clown tearing at his robe with a maddened grip.

He raised his voice and kept it from shaking, "I'm sorry, lieutenant; this man is mine."

The soldiers took the statement without blinking. One raised his whip casually, but the lieutenant's snapped order brought it down.

His dark mightiness swung forward and planted his square body before Toran, "Who are you?"

And the answer rang out, "A citizen of the Foundation."

It worked-with the crowd, at any rate. The pent-up silence broke into an intense hum. The Mule's name might excite fear, but it was, after all, a new name and scarcely stuck as deeply in the vitals as the old one of the Foundation that had destroyed the Empire and the fear of which ruled a quadrant of the Galaxy with ruthless despotism.

The lieutenant kept face. He said, "Are you aware of the identity of the man behind you?"

"I have been told he's a runaway from the court of your leader, but my only sure knowledge is that he is a friend of mine. You'll need firm proof of his identity to take him."

There were high-pitched sighs from the crowd, but the lieutenant let it pass. "Have you your papers of Foundation citizenship with you?"

"At my ship."

"You realize that your actions are illegal? I can have you shot."

"Undoubtedly. But then you would have shot a Foundation citizen and it is quite likely that your body would be sent to the Foundation quartered as part compensation. It's been done by other warlords."

The lieutenant wet his lips. The statement was true.

He said, "Your name?"

Toran followed up his advantage, "I will answer further questions at my ship. You can get the cell number at the Hangar; it is registered under the name 'Bayta'."

"You won't give up the runaway?"

"To the Mule, perhaps. Send your master!"

The conversation had degenerated to a whisper and the lieutenant turned sharply away.

"Disperse the crowd!" he said to his men, with suppressed ferocity.

The electric whips rose and fell. There were shrieks and a vast surge of separation and flight.

Toran interrupted his reverie only once on their way back to the Hangar. He said, almost to himself, "Galaxy, Bay, what a time I had! I was so scared"

"Yes," she said, with a voice that still shook, and eyes that still showed something akin to worship, "it was quite out of character."

"Well, I still don't know what happened. I just got up there with a stun pistol that I wasn't even sure I knew how to use, and talked back to him. I don't know why I did it."

He looked across the aisle of the short-run air vessel that was carrying them out of the beach area, to the seat on which the Mule's clown scrunched up in sleep, and added distastefully, "It was the hardest thing I've ever done."

The lieutenant stood respectfully before the colonel of the garrison, and the colonel looked at him and said, "Well done. Your part's over now."

But the lieutenant did not retire immediately. He said darkly, "The Mule has lost face before a mob, sir. It will be necessary to undertake disciplinary action to restore proper atmosphere of respect."

"Those measures have already been taken."

The lieutenant half turned, then, almost with resentment, "I'm willing to agree, sir, that orders are orders, but standing before that man with his stun pistol and swallowing his insolence whole, was the hardest thing I've ever done."

14. THE MUTANT

The "hangar" on Kalgan is an institution peculiar unto itself, born of the need for the disposition of the vast number of ships brought in by the visitors from abroad, and the simultaneous and consequent vast need for living accommodations for the same. The original bright one who had thought of the obvious solution had quickly become a millionaire. His heirs by birth or finance were easily among the richest on Kalgan.

The "hangar" spreads fatly over square miles of territory, and "hangar" does not describe it at all sufficiently. It is essentially a hotel for ships. The traveler pays in advance and his ship is awarded a berth from which it can take off into space at any desired moment. The visitor then lives in his ship as always. The ordinary hotel services such as the replacement of food and medical supplies at special rates, simple servicing of the ship itself, special intra-Kalgan transportation for a nominal sum are to be had, of course.

As a result, the visitor combines hangar space and hotel bill into one, at a saving. The owners sell temporary use of ground space at ample profits. The government collects huge taxes. Everyone has fun. Nobody loses. Simple!

The man who made his way down the shadow-borders of the wide corridors that connected the multitudinous wings of the "hangar" had in the past speculated on the novelty and usefulness of the system described above, but these were reflections for idle moments distinctly unsuitable at present.

The ships hulked in their height and breadth down the long lines of carefully aligned cells, and the man discarded line after line. He was an expert at what he was doing now and if his preliminary study of the hangar registry had failed to give specific information beyond the doubtful indication of a specific wing one containing hundreds of ships his specialized knowledge could winnow those hundreds into one.

There was the ghost of a sigh in the silence, as the man stopped and faded down one of the lines; a crawling insect beneath the notice of the arrogant metal monsters that rested there.

Here and there the sparkling of light from a porthole would indicate the presence of an early returner from the organized pleasures to simpler or more private pleasures of his own.

The man halted, and would have smiled if he ever smiled. Certainly the convolutions of his brain performed the mental equivalent of a smile.

The ship he stopped at was sleek and obviously fast. The peculiarity of its design was what he wanted. It was not a usual model and these days most of the ships of this quadrant of the Galaxy either imitated Foundation design or were built by Foundation technicians. But this was special. This was a Foundation ship if only because of the tiny bulges in the skin that were the nodes of the protective screen that only a Foundation ship could possess. There were other indications, too.

The man felt no hesitation.

The electronic barrier strung across the line of the ships as a concession to privacy on the part of the management was not at all important to him. It parted easily, and without activating the alarm, at the use of the very special neutralizing force he had at his disposal.

So the first knowledge within the ship of the intruder without was the casual and almost friendly signal of the muted buzzer in the ship's living room that was the result of a palm placed over the little photocell just one side of the main air lock.

And while that successful search went on, Toran and Bayta felt only the most precarious security within the steel walls of the Bayta Bayta. The Mule's clown who had reported that within his narrow compass of body he held the lordly name of Magnifico Giganticus, sat hunched over the table and gobbled at the food set before him.

His sad, brown eyes lifted from his meat only to follow Bayta's movements in the combined kitchen and larder where he ate.

"The thanks of a weak one are of but little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in this past week, little but scraps have come my way and for all my body is small, yet is my appetite unseemly great."

"Well, then, eat!" said Bayta, with a smile. "Don't waste your time on thanks. Isn't there a Central Galaxy proverb about gratitude that I once heard?"

"Truly there is, my lady. For a wise man, I have been told, once said, 'Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.' But alas, my lady, I am but a mass of empty phrases, it would seem. When my empty phrases pleased the Mule, it brought me a court dress, and a grand name for, see you, it was originally simply Bobo, one that pleases him not and then when my empty phrases pleased him not, it would bring upon my poor bones beatings and whippings."

Toran entered from the pilot room, "Nothing to do now but wait, Bay. I hope the Mule is capable of understanding that a Foundation ship is Foundation territory."

Magnifico Giganticus, once Bobo, opened his eyes wide and exclaimed, "How great is the Foundation before which even the cruel servants of the Mule tremble."

"Have you heard of the Foundation, too?" asked Bayta, with a little smile.

"And who has not?" Magnifico's voice was a mysterious whisper. "There are those who say it is a world of great magic, of fires that can consume planets, and secrets of mighty strength. They say that not the highest nobility of the Galaxy could achieve the honor and deference considered only the natural due of a simple man who could say 'I am a citizen of the Foundation,' were he only a salvage miner of space, or a nothing like myself."

Bayta said, "Now, Magnifico, you'll never finish if you make speeches. Here, I'll get you a little flavored milk. It's good."

She placed a pitcher of it upon the table and motioned Toran out of the room.

"Torie, what are we going to do now about him?" and she motioned towards the kitchen.

"How do you mean?"

"If the Mule comes, are we going to give him up?"

"Well, what else, Bay?" He sounded harassed, and the gesture with which he shoved back the moist curl upon his forehead testified to that.

He continued impatiently, "Before I came here I had a sort of vague idea that all we had to do was to ask for the Mule, and then get down to business just business, you know, nothing definite."

"I know what you mean, Torie. I wasn't much hoping to see the Mule myself, but I did think we could pick up some firsthand knowledge of the mess, and then pass it over to people who know a little more about this interstellar intrigue. I'm no storybook spy."

"You're not behind me, Bay." He folded his arms and frowned. "What a situation! You'd never know there was a person like the Mule, except for this last queer break. Do you suppose he'll come for his clown?"

Bayta looked up at him. "I don't know that I want him to. I don't know what to say or do. Do you?"

The inner buzzer sounded with its intermittent burring noise. Bayta's lips moved wordlessly, "The Mule!"

Magnifico was in the doorway, eyes wide, his voice a whimper, "The Mule?"

Toran murmured, "I've got to let them in."

A contact opened the air lock and the outer door closed behind the newcomer. The scanner showed only a single shadowed figure.

"It's only one person," said Toran, with open relief, and his voice was almost shaky as he bent toward the signal tube, "Who are you?"

"You'd better let me in and find out, hadn't you?" The words came thinly out the receiver.

"I'll inform you that this is a Foundation ship and consequently Foundation territory by international treaty."

"I know that."

"Come with your arms free, or I'll shoot. I'm well-armed."

"Done!"

Toran opened the inner door and closed contact on his blast pistol, thumb hovering over the pressure point. There was the sound of footsteps and then the door swung open, and Magnifico cried out, "It's not the Mule. It's but a man."

The "man" bowed to the clown somberly, "Very accurate. I'm not the Mule." He held his hands apart, "I'm not armed, and I come on a peaceful errand. You might relax and put the blast pistol away. Your hand isn't steady enough for my peace of mind."

"Who are you?" asked Toran, brusquely.

"I might ask you you that," said the stranger, coolly, "since you're the one under false pretenses, not I." that," said the stranger, coolly, "since you're the one under false pretenses, not I."

"How so?"

"You're the one who claims to be a Foundation citizen when there's not an authorized Trader on the planet."

"That's not so. How would you know?"

"Because I am am a Foundation citizen, and have my papers to prove it. Where are yours?" a Foundation citizen, and have my papers to prove it. Where are yours?"

"I think you'd better get out."

"I think not. If you know anything about Foundation methods, and despite your imposture you might, you'd know that if I don't return alive to my ship at a specified time, there'll be a signal at the nearest Foundation headquarters so I doubt if your weapons will have much effect, practically speaking."

There was an irresolute silence and then Bayta said, calmly, "Put the blaster away, Toran, and take him at face value. He sounds like the real thing."