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dimples. She looked sixteen and in her first party dress. “You are very gracious. No, she’s not even a relative. That was many, many years ago.” Her face turned thoughtful. “Would you like to call me ‘Ettarre’?”
    “Is that one of your names?”
    “It is much like one of them, allowing for different spelling and accent. Or it could be ‘Esther’ just as closely. Or ‘Aster.’ Or even ‘Estrellita.’”
    “‘Aster,’” I repeated. “Star. Lucky Star!”
    “I hope that I will be your lucky star,” she said earnestly. “As you will. But what shall I call you?”
    I thought about it. I certainly was not going to dig up “Flash”—I am not a comic strip. The army nickname I had held longest was entirely unfit to hand to a lady. At that I preferred it to my given name. My daddy had been proud of a couple of his ancestors—but is that any excuse for hanging “Evelyn Cyril” on a male child? It had forced me to Team to fight before I learned to read.
    The name I had picked up in the hospital ward would do. I shrugged. “Oh, Scar is a good enough name.”
    “‘Oscar,’” she repeated, broadening the “O” into “Aw,” and stressing both syllables. “A noble name. A hero’s name. Oscar.” She caressed it with her voice.
    “No, no! Not ‘Oscar’—‘Scar.’ ‘Scarface.’ For this.”
    “Oscar is your name,” she said firmly. “Oscar and Aster. Scar and Star.” She barely touched the scar. “Do you dislike your hero’s mark? Shall I remove it?”
    “En? Oh, no. I’m used to it now. It lets me know who it is when I see myself in a mirror.”
    “Good. I like it, you wore it when I first saw you. But if you change your mind, let me know.” The gear against the wall went whush , chunk! She turned and took a long strip from it, then whistled softly while she studied it.
    “This won’t take long,” she said cheerfully and wheeled the apparatus over to the table. “Hold still while the protector is connected with you, quite still and breathe shallowly.” She made half a dozen connections of tubes to me; they stuck where she placed them. She put over her head what I thought was a fancy stethoscope but after she got it on, it covered her eyes.
    She chuckled. “You’re pretty inside, too, Oscar. No, don’t talk.” She kept one hand on my forearm and I waited.
    Five minutes later she lifted her hand and stripped off the connections. “That’s all,” she said cheerfully. “No more colds for you, my hero, and you won’t be bothered again by that flux you picked up in the jungle. Now we move to the other room.”
    I got off the table and grabbed at my clothes. Star said, “You won’t need them where we are going. Full kit and weapons will be provided.”
    I stopped with shoes in one hand and drawers in the other. “Star—”
    “Yes, Oscar?”
    “What is this all about? Did you run that ad? Was it meant for me? Did you really want to hire me for something?”
    She took a deep breath and said soberly, “I advertised. It was meant for you and you only. Yes, there is a job to do…as my champion. There will be great adventure…and greater treasure…and even greater danger—and I fear very much that neither one of us will live through it.” She looked me in the eyes. “Well, sir?”
    I wondered how long they had had me in the locked ward. But I didn’t tell her so, because, if that was where I was, she wasn’t there at all. And I wanted her to be there, more than I had ever wanted anything. I said, “Princess…you’ve hired yourself a boy.”
    She caught her breath. “Come quickly. Time is short.” She led me through a door beyond the Swedish-modern couch, unbuttoning her jacket, unzipping her skirt, as she went, and letting garments fall anywhere. Almost at once she was as I had first seen her at the plage .
    This room had dark walls and no windows and a soft light from nowhere. There were two tow couches side by side, black they were and looking like biers,