Originally serialized in two issues of Analog, October and November of 1971.
"She and her pet were only a cover-up for the theft of the Crown Stones - and the few who knew might have to die for it." Rex Six and Roger Lowry use the transporting of a valuable pet and its trainer to Earth on behalf of the government of a country on a distant planet as the cover for the real mission of secreting from there the Crown Stones of Khandalar on behalf of that country's King-Emperor. Obviously there are those who want to steal the Stones and maybe kill the pet.