"The stars tell me that we
are drifting toward the northeast," he replied, "but where we
are, or what lies in our path I cannot even guess. A week since I
could have sworn that I knew what lay behind each succeeding
ridge that I approached; but now I admit in all humility that I
have no conception of what lies a mile in any direction. Tara of
Helium, I am lost, and that is all that I can tell you."
He was smiling and the girl smiled back at him. There was a
slightly puzzled expression on her face--there was something
tantalizingly familiar about that smile of his. She had met many
a panthan--they came and went, following the fighting of a
world--but she could not place this one.
"From what country are you, Turan?" she asked suddenly.
"Know you not, Tara of Helium," he countered, "that a panthan has
no country? Today he fights beneath the banner of one master,
tomorrow beneath that of another."
"But you must own allegiance to some country when you are not
fighting," she insisted. "What banner, then, owns you now?"
He rose and stood before her, then, bowing low.
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