He'd been in some brannigans, all right. Even met some super-heroes along the way. But for the most part, it was routine detective work. That suited Jonny just fine.

A large shadow was visible through the mottled glass of the door, beyond the black lettering in reverse. Well, at least it was in reverse on this side. "Come in, sir," said Jonny, taking his feet off the desk blotter.

The man who entered was a successful businessman, all three-piece suit, walking cane, hat, and manila folder in hand, and white hair and mustache framing a mildly disapproving stare. "Mr. Double?" he said.

"That's me, just like it says on the door," said Jonny Double, smiling a bit and rising to shake the man's hand. He could play it cool when he wanted, but he liked to sell himself a bit to the clients. "Mr. Ferris?"

"Yes," said Carl Ferris. He shook Double's hand perfunctorily. "I need, I, uh, that is... I need a couple of persons found, Mr. Double."

"You have their particulars in there?" Double pointed to the folder.

Ferris walked over to the desk and opened the folder on top of it. Jonny went behind it to have a look. Two photos were clipped to separate interior sides of the folder, each in front of some typed pages. Jonny raised an eyebrow. The girl in one photo was a looker, all right. Black hair, a face like Helen of Troy's, and, he guessed, a body to match. The guy was in a suit, smiling a bit like James Coburn in a Flint movie. He looked tough.

"This is your daughter?" said Jonny Double, indicating the girl.

"Of course," said Ferris. "And this is Hal Jordan, my test pilot. Probably my former test pilot."

Jonny scratched the back of his neck. "You want me to find out where they've run off to together, and why?"

"You have to find out, Mr. Double. You have to find out."

The detective looked at Carl Ferris and decided this was what Philip Marlowe felt when he looked at General Sternwood.

"Let's get started," said Jonny.

The Zamaron craft came in for a landing at the field nearest the imperial palace, or what passed for it. Hal Jordan telepathed, [Watch out. We'll probably have to fight our way to Carol.]

[Which is no less than what we expected, Hal,] replied Katma Tui. [Watch out, yourself... and we'll watch each other's back.]

The Zamaron pilots were still unconscious, and bound by green bands in the back portion of the craft. Katma would free them before she left the planet. But, unless more complications came up than even they had expected, she didn't think they'd spend that long a time there.

The scenario was pretty simple. Hal wanted to go to Carol, try to convince her one last time to give up the Star Sapphire bit and come back to live with him on Earth as his wife. Whatever the decision, Hal said he'd abide by it.

Of course, thought Katma as she threw open the door with a burst of green ring-energy, that was assuming there was more of Carol Ferris to reach in Star Sapphire than he had found in their last encounter. The last time Hal Jordan had met Star Sapphire, she was a power-hungry bitch, formed from the union of Carol's subconscious with the Predator, that weapon-wielding villain which the sapphire had spawned from her aggressive traits.

That much had negated Carol's life-long love for Hal, either as himself or as Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

Sometimes, Katma thought as she sent a projected image of herself through the hatch door, reality really bit.

Several blasts of yellow light went through the image, dissipating it. Evidently the Zamarons were locked and loaded, as John sometimes put it. Luckily, the Ring was only limited by yellow, the 24-hour time limit, and the user's imagination, and Kat had a fairly good imagination.

She pointed her ring-hand at her chest and sent a verdant beam into her body. Within instants, she saw the interior of the craft get bigger, incredibly so. Then it went by so quickly that it appeared a colorless blur. In order to shrink herself to subatomic size, the process had to be done very quickly. Katma had instructed the ring to stop when she got to a certain point, and covered her eyes and ears with a radar-like device. The sight of atoms her own size would be quite disorienting.

Katma Tui was surrounded by a protective green aura, since there was no air to breathe at this low a level of existence. She was hanging suspended in subatomic space, the atoms of the craft and the planet's atmosphere and everything material about it represented on her green viewscreen as spheroids of varying size and distance.

She telepathed a question to the ring. [Have I fallen below the level of the ship's atoms, and above those of the ground?]

[Yes,] it replied, in the neutral tones programmed into it by the Guardians of the Universe.

A welcome voice resounded in her mind. [Kat, where are you? We saw something that looked like you get torn to pieces by the Zamarons. Was that a hologram?]

[I'm fine, Hal,] she answered. [Just give me a moment.]

She commanded her emerald circlet to expand her once again, and the process was reversed. From the subatomic universe, she expanded to molecular size, then to that of microscopic organisms, then beyond that to pinpoint size, to barely visible, to, finally, that of an adult Korugarian female sprawled on the landing field, overshadowed by the Zamaronian plane above her. Katma let out a gasp of air and nullified her protective aura and radar-goggles.

The Zam guardians were visible, uniformed and equipped with ray-weapons, standing behind a yellow portable shield. Katma considered what would be the best method to take them down. But, as she did so, a green beam from an invisible source lanced out at them from the side. Either Hal or John, she told herself. Well, best sit back and see how they would handle it. She might pick up something new.

As it was, the unseen Lantern's beam solidified into a huge spade, rammed into the ground just below the Zamaron guard detachment, and scooped them all up, turning them and the asphaltic-covered ground they stood on upside down. The women, with a series of simultaneous shouts, pratfell into the hole. Katma grinned.

The beam of a second Green Lantern shot forth and went into the new excavation, then retracted, drawing the Zamarons' ray-weapons with it. With that, Hal Jordan and John Stewart made themselves visible and landed near the hole. John kept watch for other Zamarons, who were even now headed across the field, weapons at the ready. He held his ring hand up threateningly. They hung back.

"We don't have any interest in fighting you," Hal was saying. "All we want is an audience with your Queen Carol."

One of the guardwomen answered him. "Do you think we'd let three of our queen's deadliest enemies into her very presence, armed with your rings? We seek to protect her, not to sacrifice her."

John Stewart said, "If you think we'd kill her, then you don't know anything about the Lantern Corps. And you sure don't know a thing about this guy here." He indicated Hal with his thumb.

Hal Jordan stood with his hands on his hips, resolute. "The only reason I've come to your world is love. I mean to give your queen one last chance to be the woman I once loved... the woman I could love again. If she refuses me, then we're all gone. We won't bother her again."

Another Zamaron said, "We have finally gotten her to accept the duties of queenship, and you wish to take her from us already? I know one thing of you Lanterns, then... you are insane!"

Katma Tui stepped up, now her full height. "Perhaps, woman. But love has a way of making us that, sometimes." She glanced at Hal, meaningfully, then turned back to the guards. "You will admit us to the queen's presence. You will allow us to retain our rings. Otherwise, we will storm the palace ourselves and force our way into her presence. Choose now, ladies: which alternative?"

There was silence on the part of the women guards, most of whom looked uneasily at one another.

"Fine, then," said Kat. "We'll do the second."

Hal said, "Hold on, Kat. Before we act in haste--"

That was when a fairly large hologram of the head of Star Sapphire, in mask and tiara, appeared in the air above them. A second later, they heard her voice, transmitted through speakers at a nearby terminal building.

"This is your queen, Star Sapphire, speaking," she said, in a tone of cool but haughty grandeur. "I command that you bring the three Green Lanterns to me forthwith. I expect them within the hour. That is an order, and that is all."

The hologram faded. John Stewart looked at Hal. "I've got a fix on that transmission."

Hal smiled. "Then Carol'd better expect us within the minute."

Katma said to the guards, "Don't bother taking us. We'll take care of it ourselves." With that, she and the other two Lanterns rose into the sky, arced into horizontal positions, and flew off, John Stewart at the point.

The guards looked after them for a few seconds, then wondered what in blazes to put in their reports to save themselves from disciplinary action.

"Just tell the truth," suggested Lania. "The bosses know about Green Lanterns."

"Best idea anyone's come up with so far," agreed her sergeant, and the contingent of them headed for the terminal.

Jonny Double was searching the house of Carol Ferris, a magnificent beachfront three-story place which had been unoccupied for long enough to attract the attention of cops and realtors. He considered his own three-room digs, and then shrugged.

All the luxuries that made upscale life worth living were inside, at an annual price of more than what most people make in their lifetimes. Well, he'd seen women of similar status run off with men who couldn't buy enough furniture to fill one of these rooms. Not often, true. They also usually ended up coming back to the ones who kept them in such splendor, after their flings.

The case seemed simple enough. Carol Ferris had run off with her lover, this hotdog test pilot. Her for love, him for money. Carl Ferris didn't want the guy's hands in his wallet. Maybe. But maybe it wasn't that simple.

Jordan had, according to Ferris, lived with Carol for some time in this place. But he must've moved out, because none of his effects were here. Not even a pair of jockey shorts in a drawer.

However, most of Carol's clothes were still there. Even the unmentionables. Her three cars were also still in the garage. Had the both of them fled danger, rather than eloped? Possibility. The place looked like she'd just never come back from work.

Double pushed two rows of clothes aside from a closet rack and stopped dead when he saw what was on the wall behind them.

It was a picture of Hal Jordan, in his flight gear. A head shot, smiling.

The picture, and the wall around it, was scored with triple diagonal cut-marks that formed an X, meeting in the center of the photo. The cuts were evenly-spaced, as if three barber's razors had been strapped together to do the job.

Jonny put his handkerchief over his hand before reaching out to touch the picture. Nothing behind it, nothing on the back of it. He took it out of the frame. Nothing but the seal of the photography place that did the enlargment.

Did Carol Ferris do this? Or even Hal Jordan, if he didn't like himself much?

More likely, somebody else had. Somebody from whom Jordan and Carol were fleeing. If they had time to flee. He didn't see any bloodstains, and some of the thick rugs in the place would have been hard to scrub clean. Impossible, for anything less than a cleaning service.

Alternate scenario: Carol Ferris had slashed the picture, Jordan had fled her. A possibility, true, but somehow it didn't feel as right to him as the other.

Jonny Double stuck the picture under his arm and headed for the door. He'd checked the grounds, but a second, more thorough, check was called for.

He just didn't know if he was looking for one grave or two.

Hal Jordan didn't like anything about the palace.

In another context, he might have. The Zamarons were not really enemies, more rivals than anything else. They had never been out to conquer Earth. They'd just wanted to make Carol Ferris their queen. Now, they had her.

All he had was a short shot to convince her to come back with him.

The women who escorted the three Green Lanterns through the place were as beefy as bodybuilders, carried ray-weapons that looked formidable enough to repel a Qwardian warship, and were dressed completely in yellow, even to face-plates. They halted before a large doorway. Two other guards stood there, weapons pointed at them, faces looking like basalt.

"The queen is expecting us," said one of their warders, and presented an identifier disk.

One of the guards took it, ran it through a scanner, and handed it back. Neither she nor her partner said a word. The doors before them withdrew into their frame. The guards escorted them briefly into the room beyond, and the portals quickly shut behind them.

Hal, Katma, and John looked about them. The throneroom was huge. Hal had seen it before, but it still compared well with the greatest palaces extant on Earth. Ten women stood on guard, in uniforms similar to those of the guards escorting them. The place was done up in yellow, which was a change from the last time Hal had seen it.

But his attention was drawn to the woman on the great golden throne at the end of the room. She was still clad in the costume that he had seen her in when they parted: the maroon leotard, boots, tiara and mask of Star Sapphire.

She had Carol's body and face. But the expression on her face, that mixture of regality and cruelty, belonged to the Star Sapphire that he had only recently seen. Not the one whom he had first met, but the one who had claimed the Predator's essence.

Star Sapphire seemed to regard him with amusement. Then she spoke.

"Well, Hal Jordan, you wished to see me once more. Satisfied?"

John and Katma looked at him, while keeping watch on the guards. They had agreed that Hal would do most of the talking on this one. Only he could get through to Carol Ferris, if Carol was even still there to be gotten to.

The first Green Lantern of Earth swallowed. "I'm not sure, Carol."

The magenta-clad woman sat up abruptly in a threatening pose. "You will address the presence as Star Sapphire, Jordan. Not by that name which you knew me formerly to bear. Anything less is a dishonor. Is that clear?"

"No," he said. "Not to me. Want to know why?"

Despite herself, she appeared curious. "Speak, then."

"I intend to," said Hal, clasping his hands behind him. "Because, in a way, I did come here to see Star Sapphire. That is, if I couldn't see Carol. But not to see the Star Sapphire who sits before me."

"Jordan, I warn you--" snapped Star Sapphire, leaning forward.

John Stewart stepped up, and the guards about him pointed their weaponry at him. "You got any warnings, lady, you better give ‘em to all of us," he said. "Us Green Lanterns tend to stick together in these sort of things."

"John, that'll be enough," said Hal. He noted that Katma was no less prepared for battle than Stewart, and was reassured. He turned back to Carol. "We came in peace. But we came looking for Carol Ferris, or for the Star Sapphire I used to know. I would like to see either of them."

The woman on the throne sat back with a bit more ease. "You have only myself to deal with, Jordan," she said. "There is no other."

"With all due respect, o queen," said Hal, "I'm not sure I believe that."

She looked down upon him from her throne-platform that hovered ten feet above floor level, and smiled in egotism. "Then you believe in the fairy tales of our people, Hal Jordan... my former people. I have embraced what I had to embrace in order to become what I am. The queen of the Zamarons. Nothing less than what I am could rule them. Or would deserve to."

"I believe that something more than you is necessary to rule them," said Hal. "Because what you were, when I knew you, was far more than you are today."

A flickering of anger crossed her face. He hated to see it, but he pressed on. "You are what you are today because you embraced the persona you once expelled from your body, the Predator. Do you know why you expelled him, Carol?"

"Because of my emotional conflict over you, Hal Jordan," she said with contempt. "Acting upon the powers of my sapphire gem."

"Not entirely," Hal said. "I think you expelled him because he was unfit."

"Unfit!" She stood with a start, hands poised on the arms of her throne, and the Zamaron guard stood even more to attention than before.

"That's right, Star," Hal snapped back. "Not just because he was the part of you that had to be hard. God knows, Carol Ferris had that. She couldn't have run Ferris Aircraft all those years and not have had that. The Predator was more than that. He was the part of you that was--dark. Evil. More than an agressor, Carol. He was the being who hated everything Carol Ferris loved."

"I warn you, Jordan--" she raged.

"No, Carol," said Hal, not even bothering with her queen-name now. "I'm warning you. Without the check of compassion, without the ability to love, or give a damn about the people you're supposed to rule, you'll be anything but a queen. You'll simply be a tyrant. That's what the Predator wants you to be, and that's what you're handing him. I could create a mirror here, and show you. As a matter of fact, that's what I'll do."

"No, Hal!" exclaimed Katma, her ring already glowing.

"It's all right," said Hal Jordan, and a spurt of green flame shot forth from his ring. Within an instant, its energy-matrix spread into a large rectangular shape.

"Guards, hold your fire!" ordered Star Sapphire. The women stayed alert, their weapons pointed at the three persons in green and black. The rectangular shape resolved itself into a mirror, held in a green frame, hovering several feet above the floor. Hal Jordan's will power levitated it towards Star Sapphire, halting it only a short distance from her.

"My queen, allow me--", insisted one of the guards.

"No!" The queen of Zamaron halted her, her hand upraised. Star Sapphire peered into the mirror.

Hal Jordan spoke again. "Like what you see, Carol? If there's anything of Carol Ferris still left in you, and there has to be, I don't see how you could. Do you remember what you used to see in the mirror, Carol? The face of a compassionate woman? The woman who loved me, and whom I loved in return? I can remember, Carol. I think you can, too."

She was silent. John and Katma stood uneasily, but ready.

"If you can remember her, Carol, I want you to remember how she felt about me. How I felt about her, too. Because I still feel that way, Carol. I want you back. I want to take the real Carol Ferris back home with me, and make her my wife. Failing that... I at least want the real Star Sapphire to take over again. Not the woman I see before me, not somebody who could be a female Hitler, given enough time... but the woman who fought me, at times, but who was never evil. I'm not asking you to do this for me. Do it for the people you rule. And do it, more than anything, for yourself. Do it, Carol. Now."

For a long moment, the queen looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her breath came hard, and her face showed conflict. Katma Tui felt a surge of empathy for her, and prayed to her deity.

Then Star Sapphire's hand came up, and a burst of power lanced forth from it. The mirror was blasted into pieces, scattering bits of itself across the room. Those before it shielded their eyes. Hal sent a command through his ring, and the fragments of mirror dissolved into nothingness.

She arose from her throne, and if the Predator had a female face to wear, it was hers.

"My choice has been made, Hal Jordan. I made it some time ago. Shall I convince you?"

Star Sapphire waved her purple-gloved hand before her. On the floor below her throne, two pockets of space opened up, and two figures extruded into common reality. One of them was seated. Hal Jordan knew them both.

"I ran a subspace scan when we came in," Hal said, in a gritty voice. "I knew you had two hidden cards. I just didn't know who was on them."

One of the newcomers was Hector Hammond who had, as much as he could manage, a smile on his face.

The other one wore a modified Lantern uniform and had a bowl haircut. He also had a smile of cruelty to match Carol's. "Hello, Jordan," he said.

"Great to meet you again, Gardner," said John Stewart, acidly.

Katma Tui stepped forward with her fellows. Star Sapphire was leaping from her throne, borne on waves of sapphire-energy. Katma shot forth a bolt of power from her ring. It was intercepted in mid-air by a similar bolt from the gem on Star's tiara, and dissipated.

No use for negotiation anymore, or for speeches about love, compassion, and good government.

Nothing to do but fight.