"Raynor Three!"

In overflowing gladness, Bart hugged him. It was like a meeting with the
dead. He felt as if he had really come home. "But--but you remember me!"
he exclaimed, backing away, in amazement.

Slowly, the man nodded. His eyes were grave. "Yes. I decided it wasn't
worth it, Bart, to go on losing everything that meant anything to me.
Even if it meant I had to give up the stars, never travel again except
as a passenger, I couldn't go on being afraid to remember, never knowing
the consequences or responsibilities of what I'd done." His sad smile
was strangely beautiful. "The Multiphase sailed without me. I've been
here, hoping against hope that someday I'd know the rest."

Associations clicked into place in Bart's mind. The Multiphase. So
Raynor Three was the Mentorian who had smuggled David Briscoe off the
ship, and whose memories, wrung out by the Lhari captain of that ship,
had touched off so many deaths. But he had paid for that--paid many
times over. And now must he pay for this, too?

Raynor One strode toward them. "So it's really you. I thought it might
be a trap, but Three wouldn't listen. Word came from Antares that
Montano had been arrested and his ship confiscated for illegal landing
on Lharillis. I thought you were probably dead."

"We sent a boy to do a man's job," Raynor Three said, "and he came back
a man. But tell me--" He looked curiously at Ringg and Meta.