Captain George Hanlon jumped from the big tricycle and ran into the residence. None of the guards or servants tried to stop him, so dumb-founded were they by all that had been happening. Knowing the way from his controlling of the bird that had found Amir's rooms, Hanlon was soon there. He did not stop to see what was happening to the others, but ran across the bedroom to that far door, and rapped on it to attract the attention of the Ruler, hiding behind it.

"Everything is safe now, k'nyer," he called through the badly charred panels. "The assassin is dead. You can come out now."

"Is this some new trick?" a voice came thinly.

"No, sire, it is no trick, but the truth. You are safe now."

"Who are you?"

"I'm ..." Hanlon started to give his name, then remembered that the Ruler did not know anything about him. He quickly changed it to, "I'm Ergo Lona, the groom with whom you talked on the ride the other morning."

"Lona? Where did you disappear to—and why?" suspiciously.

"Endar discharged me, but I have been watching over you, just the same. On my honor, k'nyer, you may believe me."

After some further hesitation there was the sound of the padding being removed from the keyhole, the insertion and turning of the key. As the door opened a mere crack, Elus Amir peered cautiously out. But instead of the clothing of a groom or a countryman, he saw the brilliant space-blue and silver of an Inter-Stellar Corps uniform.

He started to pull shut the door, but Hanlon had stuck the toe of his boot in it.

"It's all right, k'nyer. I am Lona, the groom. I am also George Hanlon, a captain in the Terran Inter-Stellar Corps. We discovered that another attempt was being made on your life, and were lucky enough to get here in time to block it."

He took hold of the edge of the door and pulled it open, for the Ruler was so surprised by this revelation that he made no real effort to hold it shut. Amir came slowly, surprisedly into the bedroom, staring keenly at Hanlon.

"You don't look like Lona ... but the voice does seem to be the same. How does it happen the Federation has men here? Were you spying on me?"

"Not on you, sire, but on your enemies," Hanlon said earnestly. "Let me introduce you to Admiral New...."

He had half-turned back as he spoke, and now for the first time saw his father on the floor, a hand clutching his shoulder, from which a great stain of blood was drenching the uniform sleeve.

"Ring for your physician," Hanlon turned and commanded the Ruler. Then, realizing this was no way for him to be addressing a planetary head, he quickly but entreatingly added, "please, k'nyer."

Elus Amir called in one of the servants clustered outside, and commanded curtly, "Get the doctor here, immediately." Then he went over to the two on the floor. "Let me look," he half-pushed Hanlon aside, and stooped to peer closely at that wounded shoulder.

"Help me get him onto the bed," he said after a quick inspection. "I don't think any of the bone is gone—it's just a bad flesh burn."

Tenderly the two men raised the admiral, who protested weakly that he could get up by himself, and lifted him onto the bed. Amir himself began pulling off the admiral's tunic, while Hanlon helped.

By the time the doctor came running in, and took over the dressing of the wound, they had the arm and shoulder bared. But the elder Newton, in spite of his protestations, had fainted from the loss of blood and shock.

Amir sent the assembled servants away, retaining only his dresser, who helped him on with his day clothes.

The doctor worked swiftly, as Hanlon watched anxiously, applying ointments to the burn, and finally bandaging it.

"He's weak from all the blood he lost, and doesn't seem to have been in too good condition anyway," the doctor said at last. "I hope the man is strong enough to pull through."

"Then give him some plasma," Hanlon said frantically. "He needs it."

"I don't know what you mean," the doctor was bewildered by the word, for Hanlon had had to use the Terran word "plasma", not knowing any translation for it.

"A blood transfusion, then, or at least some glucose."

"I don't know anything about those, either ... say, you're not an Estrellan, are you?"

"No, we're Terrans. You mean you folks don't know anything about giving one person's blood to another?"

"Sorry, but I've never heard of such a thing. How is it done?" The doctor was apparently more interested in this new idea than in the admiral's desperate condition.

Hanlon felt faint. He staggered away from the bedside without answering, and went into the anteroom, where Hooper stood talking to Inver and some other officials, who had heard the commotion and had come to see what it was all about.

Hooper saw Hanlon's haggard face, and knew something was wrong. "Were we too late?" he gasped.

"Oh, no, we got Irad and saved Amir, but dad was blasted—shoulder. The doctor has fixed him up as best he can, but dad's in shock, and these backward fools never heard of plasma or blood transfusions."

Hooper jumped forward. "I can give a transfusion. What's your dad's blood type?" he asked as they hurried to the bedside.

"Same as mine," Hanlon was peeling off his coat as he spoke, his eyes lighting with relief.

Hooper rapped quick questions at the doctor, but the latter shook his head. More questions, and more negative answers, then Hooper turned disconsolately to Hanlon. "They don't even have anything I could use to give a transfusion; no hollow needles; not even hypodermics."

The doctor pulled on Hooper's arm. "Please, tell me what you mean by blood transfusions, and plasma. How do you give them? What for? And what did the other man mean when he said he had the same blood type as the wounded man?"

Hanlon went to sit beside his father's bedside, and sank into an apparent mood of despair.

Meanwhile, the Ruler had finished dressing, and with his son, Inver, went over to listen to what Major Hooper was telling the doctor.

"Will you please tell me what all is going on here?" Amir asked so plaintively that the S S man had trouble concealing a grin. But Hooper sobered instantly.

"The Federation's Inter-Stellar Corps, sire," he began his explanation, "found out about the fact that opposition to your desire to accept their invitation was becoming stronger—and dangerous to you and to the peace of your planet. They sent four of us here to study the situation and to protect you if possible. To do that it was necessary for us to disguise ourselves as natives of your world, so we could move about freely and unnoticed. That is why Captain Hanlon worked it so you would notice him, hire him as a servant of some sort here, and he would thus be able to watch over you and conditions in general from close at hand. We had found out that Adwal Irad was at the head of this opposition and crime wave, and that his plans included your death."

"But now you're all in uniform—and your disguises removed."

"Yes, k'nyer. We were planning to come as ourselves tomorrow—or rather, this morning—and seek an audience with you. We knew about the attempt to assassinate you that was made on your daily ride, and so were watching you more carefully than ever. When we saw Irad trying to get into your room, and his men he had planted in your guards keeping back the servants who wished to come to your assistance, we hurried here to help protect you. It was so apparent Irad was determined to complete the killing he failed at the other time."

Elus Amir, Ruler of Estrella, took that startling news with barely a tremor. He motioned them to a seat along the side of the bedroom, to continue his questioning.

The doctor was dismissed, although it was plain he wanted to stay and ask this Terran more about those strange and new methods of treating wounds.

So until dawn the Ruler and his son—now Second-In-Line following the death of Irad—sat talking to Major Hooper about the Federation of Planets, and the benefits Estrella would obtain from joining the other worlds.

"Such things as the advances in medicines in which your doctor is so interested, are but minor matters among the many we can and gladly will tell you if you wish," Hooper said.

The Corpsman was able to convince Amir of the falsity of the rumors and arguments Irad had spread, about how Estrella would lose her sovereignty if she joined, and that Terra would make slaves of her people.

"That is such a damnable thing to say, k'nyer," Hooper was almost angry, but very much in earnest. "You have only to send some trusted advisors to the various planets of the Federation—we will gladly furnish them transportation as we did before—and have them talk to the common people of any or all of our worlds. They will find that while we of Terra were the ones who developed space travel and sent people to colonize the first discovered and habitable planets, that the citizens of each world choose their own form of government, and that many of them are now even stronger than is Terra, the mother world. And there are peoples of several worlds who are natives and not Terrans or their descendants, whom we have not only not enslaved, but are helping to grow culturally so they may some day be advanced enough to join us as full-fledged equal members of the Federation, just as you, with your advanced civilization, were invited to do."

While all this conversation was going on in low tones across the room, George Hanlon sat by the side of his father's bed, almost in a trance, so deep was his concentration.

From what he had learned while breaking past the disintegrating barriers in Adwal Irad's mind, and from the techniques he had learned to apply in his previous excursions into other minds, he now found that, because his father was unconscious rather than merely asleep, he could, in a way, by-pass those barriers and get down into the depths of cell and gland in his father's mind and body, even though he could not fully penetrate the block into the memories, nor control the elder's actions.

Carefully Hanlon studied those depths, aided also by what he had learned in his healing of the caval, and from his intensive studies of human physiology and neurones and allied sciences. Using the totality of his admittedly meager knowledge, yet guided by things no human physician had so far learned, he at last began to trace the pattern of how human cells, tissues and nerves regenerated themselves, and how new blood leucocytes are made in the glands of the lymph and the spleen. He was able to trace the connectors between the minute organisms and the brain that directed their activities.

Then he set himself to the delicate task of activating those functions to begin and hasten the healing process.

Hour after hour he sat there, oblivious to all else taking place around him, his own body lolling almost lifelessly in the big chair while all his mental powers were engaged in the monumental and hitherto unheard-of task to which he had set himself.

The other three men concluded their conference at last, and got up, stretching hugely to pull themselves more awake after their half-night vigil.

Amir called in his servants, and ordered them to prepare and serve breakfast here for himself and his guests. Inver ran back to his own apartment to dress more completely for the day.

Hooper walked over to where Hanlon was sitting. "Asleep?" he half-whispered, doubtful because of the way the young man's body was sprawled in the deep chair.

George Hanlon stirred and sat up, flashing a smile. "You didn't need to whisper, Curt," he said. "I wasn't asleep. Just been helping dad get well."

The major stared at him in amazement. "What d'you mean?"

"You're half a doctor, Curt. Take a look at dad's wound."

Doubtfully, not fully understanding even yet what his companion meant, Hooper removed the bandage. He stared unbelievingly at the wounded shoulder. The deeper portions of that terrible burn were completely regenerated with healthy tissue. There was no sign of inflammation, no scarred tissue or fused flesh as usually shows in a fresh flamegun burn. The upper parts of the injury, too, were already beginning to heal toward the center.

"Why ... why," he was astounded. "That should've taken weeks. I never knew a wound to heal that fast."

"I found out how to speed up the cells and things," Hanlon said simply.

Admiral Newton roused as they talked, perhaps at the touch of Hooper's gentle hands removing the bandage. Now he opened his eyes, and after a moment to realize his surroundings and recall the events of his injuries, smiled at his co-workers.

"Hi, fellows. Everything under control?"

"Yes, sir, all O K," Hooper answered. "I think the Ruler is about ready to sign up."

"Good. Good work. Say, I feel fine. No pain—yet I seem to have a memory of being blasted ... of fainting." He frowned, then shrugged. "Couldn't have been much after all."

"It was very bad, sir," Hooper assured him gravely. "The burn was almost to the bone in your shoulder, and you lost a lot of blood. But now the wound is over half-healed."

"Great John. How long was I out?"

"Only a few hours, dad," Hanlon said.

"Oh, you found the kit, then?"

"What kit?"

"There's a complete emergency medi-surgical kit under the seat in my tricycle."

"Now he tells us," Hooper spread his hands and spoke in mock despair.

"Probably just as well," Hanlon said. "If we'd known about that I might never have felt the necessity of discovering how to heal wounds as I did."

"What're you talking about?" the admiral looked from one to the other in perplexity.

"The kid's too modest to tell you, sir," Hooper broke in, ignoring Hanlon's signal to keep quiet. "I don't pretend to know how he did it, but somehow or other he managed, with his mind, to stimulate and speed up the healing, so that at the rate it's been going, your wound should be all well in another twenty-four hours. I'll bandage it up again, and then, unless you're too weak, you can get up and help us eat breakfast the Ruler is having sent up for us all."

Young Inver, who had returned to the bedroom, was standing there, listening to all this. Now his expressive eyes lighted up, and he touched Hanlon's arm. When the young S S man turned to face him, Inver breathlessly asked, "Was that the way my caval got well so fast?"

Hanlon grinned at him. "I knew it was your favorite mount, and I didn't want to see it destroyed."

He turned quickly back to help his father get up. The admiral found that, while he was still a little shaky, he could stand up without dizziness. The Ruler had sent his uniform jacket out to be cleaned and mended, and this Newton donned. Soon the men were seated about the table the servants had set up, eating the splendid breakfast they brought and served.

Meantime, the five talked about the problem that so much interested them all, and that meant so much to all the peoples of their worlds.

"Our Colonial and Survey Bureaus are constantly seeking throughout space for other planets having intelligent races, and we feel sure yours will not be the last we'll find," Admiral Newton told the Ruler and his son. "It is egotistical and silly to think we Terrans are the only civilized peoples in the universe."

"Chances are we'll find others who are as far ahead of us in intelligence, science and technologies as you Estrellans are ahead of us in ethics," Hanlon added honestly.

Amir and Inver looked up in astonishment at that simple statement. "You ... you actually mean ... honestly ... that you Terrans do not believe you are the highest form of life in the universe?" Inver put their questioning into words.

"Great John, no!" Admiral Newton exploded. "Oh, I suppose," he added more slowly, "that there are some earth people who may still feel that way, but the majority of us do not, especially those who have travelled at all extensively. We used to think that; used to believe, hundreds of years ago, that we were the only intelligent life in the cosmos. But we know better now that we're spreading out. I, personally, have been on at least six planets that contain intelligent life that did not stem from Terra, although yours is the highest of the six, and none of the rest are yet at the point where they can be asked to affiliate with the Federation as equal members. But those others are being taught and coached as best we can—and as much as they want to be. In a few more generations they'll probably have reached the point where they will be ready to be seriously considered for equality status with us, as far as Federation membership is concerned."

"Just how do you determine the fitness of a race for membership in your Federation?" Inver leaned forward, his expressive eyes questioning. His father started to rebuke him for his forwardness, but the admiral interrupted.

"No, that's a good question, and we're glad to answer it—just as we're glad to answer any questions to which we know the answers. As to this one, we look first for signs of intelligence great enough to enable the people to govern themselves without continual warfare," he said earnestly. "Their knowledge of science and technology is not so important, we feel, although their ability to learn is. Some races will probably never have real need for machines of any sort—races like the plant-men of Algon, where Captain Hanlon was recently instrumental in freeing them from slavery."

He paused a moment to marshal his thoughts. "Then we look to see if they are making a conscious effort to advance in education and learning—no matter along what lines that may be," he continued. "We study their knowledge of and interest in ethical matters—their religion, and their belief in the general concept of right and wrong, of decency and observance of the rights of others. If they have these things, and have, above all, the desire and determination to continue their cultural growth, then we consider them worthy of equal Federation membership."

"And your wonderful people certainly measure up to all of those concepts," Hanlon added sincerely.