7

THE NEXT WORLD had a sun younger and bigger than Sol. It was sixth in a family of eleven planets, had about the same size and mass as Terra. Seven tiny moons circled it closely.

Viewing it in the visiscreen, the Ambassador asked, “Which one is this?”

“Kassim,” said Grayder.

“What is known about it?”

“Very little. It was confiscated by three-quarters of a million followers of a crank named Kassim who tried to unite Mohammedanism and Buddhism by claiming to be the reincarnation of the Prophet of Allah. The Moslem world gave them a rough time until they cleared out.”

“They were Asiatic religious nuts, so to speak?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Then we know in advance what to expect. They’ll insist that we wear slippers and remove them every time we cross a doorstep. They’ll demand that we carry prayer-rugs with us wherever we go. Ten times a day they’ll want us to prostrate ourselves and salaam to the east. They won’t recognize me unless I become teetotal and wash myself only with my left hand.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” admitted Grayder.

“That means I shall have to find a consul dopey enough to conform,” continued the Ambassador morbidly. “I can choose for myself the world on which I shall take up residence in person. I don’t fancy living among a crowd of off-beat Moslems.”

“So far as our present trip is concerned, Your Excellency,” said Grayder, “you have little choice left. It’s either this world or the next

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one. Four widely spaced planets are as many as we can visit before we return to Terra for a complete overhaul.”

“I know. There were only four on the list.”

“Well, if none of them pleases you I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until our next journey to seek one that does. I don’t know when that will be. Neither do I know where we’ll be going.”

“Your succeeding jaunts are not for me,” the Ambassador replied. “My instructions are to establish myself on one world as chief executive over the other three. Terra has a mile long line-up of consuls and ambassadors ready for other ships and other journeys. I’m stuck with this lot. Naturally, I want to select the best of the four. If the next two are even less attractive than the last two—”

“What will you do then?” inquired Grayder interestedly.

“I think I’ll transfer the fellow on Hygeia and take over there myself. It would give me a definite pain in the neck but at least I’d have the consolation of knowing that the other places are worse.”

“Hygeia is a paradise compared with some places I’ve heard about,” observed Grayder.

“I suppose so. I’ll take it for lack of anything better. That is my right. I’m the senior Terran representative. The consuls are comparative juniors. A junior must suffer to qualify as a senior. I don’t believe in people gaining promotion the easy way, do you, my dear Captain?”

“Certainly not,” said Grayder.

He went to the control-room and took charge. Already cameras were recording the approach. Soon they began taking hemispheric pictures as the ship swung round the sunlit side and back again into the dark. Carefully the great vessel closed in, circling the world at rapidly decreasing altitude.

Land and seas expanded, revealing more and more details. Soon it could be seen that this planet was far more lush than the previous ones. The hot sun burned through thin banks of cloud upon sparkling oceans and shining rivers, cast light and shadow over huge masses of tangled vegetation.

Here and there, mostly alongside or near to rivers, were vaguely discernible clearings marked with what might be roads and buildings; the characteristic markings of humanity at work. But these areas were small and their number was few. The ship went lower

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while cameras continued to operate. It circled the world another ten times and then went up.

Soon afterward the Ambassador arrived in the control-room. “I’ve been having a look, Captain. There is an awful lot of jungle.”

“Sure is, Your Excellency.”

“And not much else. It surprises me. All these years and they’ve practically nothing to show for them. You said that three-quarters of a million came here, didn’t you?”

“That is what’s in the ancient records.”

“Perhaps the records are unreliable. It doesn’t look to me as if their total strength amounts to that many even today. They’ve hardly scratched the place.” He took a glance through the nearest port in spite of the fact that the ship was now far too high for accurate observation. “There is something mighty peculiar about this. It isn’t like Asiatics to reduce their numbers so drastically. I expected to find this world exceptionally well populated.”

“So did I.”

“Oh, well, we’ll solve the mystery before long. Have you found a good landing-place, Captain?”

“Not yet, Your Excellency. I am waiting for the enlargements of our closest photographs.”

“Yes, of course. You’ll have to choose with great care. We cannot afford to spend weeks laboriously hacking our way to the nearest village.

He sat down and frowned thoughtfully until the photos arrived. Grayder spread them on his desk, examined them in silence one by one, passing each in turn to the Ambassador. Finally Grayder put his finger in the middle of a picture.

“Have a look at this, Your Excellency.”

The Ambassador stared at the part indicated. “H’m! Quite a large village. Not a good, sharp picture, though. It is badly blurred.”

“You haven’t the trained eyes for these blown-up jobs taken from directly above.” Grayder pointed to a wall cabinet. “Put it in that stereoscopic viewer and have another look.”

Doing as instructed, the Ambassador fitted his face into the rubber eyepiece, gazed at the scene now shown clearly in three dimensions. He let go a hoarse grunt.

“Deserted and overgrown,” he reported. “AII the buildings are

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ruins. Don’t look as if they’ve been used for many years. No roads or paths leading anywhere. The jungle has closed in.”

“That’s one,” said Grayder grimly. “AI1 the others are the same.” He handed across a bunch of photographs to prove it and after the Ambassador had scanned them, prompted, “Well?”

“It’s sheer guesswork but it seems to me this world has been dead for at least a century. I cant see the slightest evidence of present life.”

“Neither can I.”

“Something must have caused it.”

“Something must,” agreed Grayder.

The Ambassador displayed sudden alarm. “What we have been fearing may already have happened. They’ve been attacked without warning and destroyed to the last man.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Any lifeform capable of extending its wars into cosmic space,” said Grayder patiently, “must have a good deal of intelligence even if no morals. Intelligent people don’t attack and destroy just for the hell of it. They need a motive. Usually the motive is conquest.” He jerked a thumb toward the port. “If unknown aliens have wiped out every human being on that planet they’d now be in possession. And we’d see plenty of evidence of their existence.” Then he added dryly, “In fact we’d be darned lucky not to be attacked ourselves.”

“I can agree with your first point but not with your last,” said the

Ambassador. “Their war-fleet could have dumped a small number of colonists and moved on. After all, there are plenty of Terran worlds quite incapable of defending themselves against an unexpected intruder.”

“Anything is possible, Your Excellency,” allowed Grayder. He pointed to the photographs. “But there is not one sign of alien occupation. Moreover, it is obvious that those villages have been or are being destroyed by time and the jungle, not by warfare.”

“Yes, I admit they look that way to me.” The Ambassador pondered a minute, came up with another theory. “We don’t know the real nature of that jungle. It isn’t necessarily dangerous or menacing. On the contrary it may be crammed with food and provide perfect shelter, thus creating an irresistible temptation to revert to the apes.

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Perhaps they’re all living in the jungle right now. Just a gang of happy animals scratching themselves, guzzling bananas and slinging the skins at each other.”

“Must have taken them a long, long time to see the easy way,” observed Grayder. “They did plenty of sweating before it dawned upon them that they need not bother.”

“You’re arguing on the assumption that religious cranks can be trusted to behave rationally,” the Ambassador gave back. “But they don’t. If their inspired leader orders them to clear away the jungle and build a hundred heavenly palaces they’ll slave like maniacs to do it. Then if he gets a sudden revelation that salvation lies in everyone becoming Tarzans they’ll abandon their handiwork and take to the trees. They’ll squat on the branches and gibber in alphabetical order whenever he rings the bell. Ye gods, Captain, if these fellows had been halfway sane they’d never have left Terra in the first place.”

“Even so, a mulish minority would have remained in their villages and kept their homes in good repair. New generations usually produce an opposition to the ways of their elders.” Again he pointed to the pictures. “I don’t like the complete unanimity with which they had disappeared. It looks bad to me.”

“I see no point in us circling at a safe distance while we theorize about it,” remarked the Ambassador. “There is nothing to stop us going down and discovering the truth for ourselves. If you can find a suitable landing-place, let’s use it.”

“I daren’t,” said Grayder.

The other stared at him in surprise. “Why not? What’s to prevent us? We have definite orders to land on every planet and make a full report about it.”

“That does not apply to any world actually or apparently dead,” Grayder informed.

“Who says so?”

“It is a basic rule of space navigation, Your Excellency.”

“Is it? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. What is the reason?”

“The deadliest enemies of mankind are contagious diseases, especially alien ones to which we have no natural resistance. If on any planet it is found that Terran colonists have been decimated or exterminated the assumption is that a virulent germ may be responsible.”

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“So you think that this lot may have been wiped out by an epidemic?”

“I don’t know. But I’m taking no chances. I cannot accept the risk of landing, picking up a consignment of germs and transporting them to the next world or even to Terra. I have no desire to go down in history as a bigger and better version of Typhoid Mary.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame you, Captain. This rule you’ve mentioned is a new one on me but I admit that it makes sense. The effect of it is that all ships are forbidden to land on any planet that may be riddled with disease, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Which means that even the most desirable one can be banned to humanity for everlasting? And on the strength of a mere suspicion?”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as that. Terra is building a special ship for remotely controlled exploration of difficult or dangerous worlds. It will be full of robotic equipment and carry a load of scientific experts. I don’t know how soon it will be ready but doubtless it will be able to examine this planet and find out what went wrong.”

“Well, that’s a comfort,” approved the Ambassador. “I don’t like the idea of unsolved mysteries floating around in space, especially in the sector for which I am responsible. It’s plenty bad enough to become official keeper of a cosmic mortuary; I’d like to know how many cadavers are in my charge and what made them that way.”

Shelton came in and asked, “What’s delaying us, Captain? Is there something wrong?”

“The place looks dead.”

“Probably they’ve cut each other’s throats,” hazarded Shelton with indecent gusto. “Oddities are capable of anything. Why don’t we go down and take a look? They won’t get a chance to cut ours. I’ll have the men fully armed and ready.”

“The Captain thinks they may have been wiped out by galloping gangrene or something,” the Ambassador informed. “Do you want to catch it?”

“Who? Me?” Shelton was horrified. “Good God, no!”

“Neither do I. So we’re taking no chances.”

“We’re giving this world a miss?”

“That’s right.”

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“Good. I’d hate my troops to be decimated without firing a shot.” “But it’s all right so long as they have fired a shot?” Grayder inquired.

“You know what I mean. They’re supposed to die in battle.”

“They’re having a run of hard luck” observed Grayder.

Shelton took a poor view of that remark and departed miffed.

The Ambassador said, “Why do you and the Colonel pick on each other from time to time?”

“He’s army and I’m navy, Your Excellency. It’s traditional.”

“Is that so? Then it’s a wonder you’ve not got worlds of your own.” He took another useless look outside, went on, “I suppose we’d better signal the news about this dump. I’ll get busy and write a report. Immediately it’s been transmitted we might as well continue on our way.”

“There’s nothing to be gained by hanging around, Your Excellency.”

“What’s the next place?”

Grayder consulted his book. “Referred to only as K22g. Its name is not known. Should be a suitable headquarters for you, I think.”

“Why?”

“A large number went there. About four millions. That should have given them quite a head start. It ought to be the best developed planet of the lot.”

“I’m not so sure. It depends on what they regard as development,” opined the Ambassador. “Some of them have weird ideas of where to go and how to go there.” Suspicion crept into his fat features. “What sort of lunatics were they?”

“Don’t know, Your Excellency. It’s the only planet about which the ancient records aren’t specific. The colonists are described as assorted dissidents, whatever that means.”

“Not as political rebels or incurable morons or religious cultists or anything like that?”

“No—just dissidents.”

“It implies that the planet was confiscated by a disorganized rabble. Doesn’t seem plausible to me. They couldn’t have been widely assorted else they’d have chopped each other to pieces in jig time. They must have had something in common, something strong enough to create unity of purpose.”

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Grayder shrugged. “Hope of heaven and fear of hell is enough for some folk.”

“I’m not frantic with delight over the artificial heavens we’ve seen so far. And there’s much to be said for the so-called Terran hell in spite of all its shortcomings.” Emitting a snort of disgust, the Ambassador reached for his pen. “I’ll do this report. There’s not much to say, thank goodness. Ain’t nobody here but us corpses.”

“Right,” said Grayder. “We’ll boost onward immediately you’ve finished.”

The fourth and last planet was the third of ten circling a Sol-type sun. In size, mass, distance from primary and general appearance it was remarkably like Terra, differing only in that it had a little more land, a little less ocean. Ice-caps slightly smaller than Terra’s gleamed at the north and south poles. Cloud formations straggled across land and seas. There was one large moon.

“Now this looks a lot more like home,” approved the Ambassador. “And if after we’ve landed it feels the same way I’m having it for myself. The consuls are welcome to the loonier places.”

“The only consul in this sector is the fellow we left on Hygeia,” Grayder pointed out.

Taking no notice, the Ambassador enthused, “One moon. One ordinary moon of about the proper size. That’s what I like to see. Half a dozen tiny ones racing each other through the night are too strong a reminder that one is umpteen millions of miles from anywhere. But with the right scenery, the right atmosphere and one moon I could imagine I’m on Terra. I only hope that the people have gained a modicum of plain hoss-sense and learned to behave themselves like decent Terrans.”

“That I doubt,” said Grayder.

“So do I. However, a reasonable approximation will come near enough to make me happy. So long as they’re similar in all other respects they can hold voodoo ceremonies every Thursday afternoon for all I care.”

He went silent as the ship closed in and the planet’s dayside face rapidly expanded. Then followed the usual circling and photographing. A lot of villages and small towns were to be seen, also cultivated areas of large extent. It was obvious that this planet—while by no

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means fully exploited—was in the hands of colonists who were energetic and numerically strong.

Relieved that life was full, abundant and apparently free from alien disease, Grayder brought the ship down onto the first hard-standing he saw. Its enormous mass landed featherlike on a long, low hump amid well-tended fields. Again all the ports became filled with faces as everyone had a look at the new world.

The midway airlock opened, the gangway went down. As before, exit was made in strict order of precedence starting with the Ambassador and finishing with Sergeant Major Bidworthy. Grouping near the bottom of the gangway they spent the first few moments absorbing sunshine and fresh air.

His Excellency scuffled the thick turf under his feet, plucked a blade of it grunting as he stooped. He was so constructed that the effort came close to an athletic feat and gave him a crick in the belly.

“Earth-type grass. See that, Captain? Is it just a coincidence or did they bring seed with them?”

“Could be either. Several grassy worlds are known. And almost all colonists went away loaded with seeds.”

“It’s another touch of home, anyway. I think I’m going to like this place.” The Ambassador gazed into the distance, doing it with pride of ownership. “Looks like there’s someone working over there. He’s using a little motor-cultivator with a pair of fat wheels. They can’t be very backward, it seems. H’m-m-m!” He rubbed a couple of chins. “Bring him here. We’ll have a talk and find out where it’s best to make a start.”

“Very well.” Captain Grayder turned to Colonel Shelton. “His Excellency wishes to speak to that farmer.” He pointed to the faraway figure.

“That farmer,” said Shelton to Major Hame. “His Excellency wants him at once.”

“Bring that farmer here,” Hame ordered Lieutenant Deacon.

“Quickly,”

“Go get that farmer,” Deacon told Sergeant Major Bidworthy. “And hurry—His Excellency is waiting.”

Bidworthy sought around for a lesser rank, remembered that they

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were all inside, cleaning ship and not smoking, by his order. He, it seemed, was elected.

Tramping across four fields and coming within hailing distance of his objective, he performed a precise military halt, released a barracks square bellow of, “Hi, you!” and waved urgently.

The farmer stopped his steady trudging behind the tiny cultivator, wiped his forehead, glanced casually around. His indifferent manner suggested that the mountainous bulk of the ship was a mirage such as are five a penny around these parts. Bidworthy waved again, making it an authoritative summons. Now suddenly aware of the Sergeant Major’s existence, the farmer calmly waved back, resumed his work.

Bidworthy employed a brief but pungent expletive which—when its flames had died out—meant, “Dear me!” and marched fifty paces nearer. He could now see that the other was bushy-browed, leatherfaced, tall and lean.

“Hi!” he bawled.

Stopping the cultivator again, the farmer leaned on one of its shafts and idly picked his teeth.

Smitten by the ingenious thought that perhaps during the last few centuries the old Terran language had been abandoned in favor of some other lingo, Bidworthy approached to within normal talking distance and asked, “Can you understand me?”

“Can any person understand another?” inquired the farmer with clear diction.

Bidworthy found himself afflicted with a moment of confusion. Recovering, he informed hurriedly, “His Excellency the Earth Ambassador wishes to speak with you at once.”

“Is that so?” The other eyed him speculatively, had another pick at his teeth. “And what makes him excellent?”

“He is a person of considerable importance,” said Bidworthy, unable to decide whether the other was trying to be funny at his expense or alternatively was what is known as a character. A lot of these long-isolated pioneering types liked to think of themselves as characters.

“Of considerable importance,” echoed the farmer, narrowing his eyes at the horizon. He appeared to be trying to grasp a completely

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alien concept. After a while, he inquired, “What will happen to your home world when this person dies?”

“Nothing,” Bidworthy admitted.

“It will roll on as before?”

“Yes.”

“Round and round the sun?”

“Of course.”

“Then,” declared the farmer flatly, “if his existence or nonexistence makes no difference he cannot be important.” With that, his little engine went chuff-chuff and the cultivator rolled forward.

Digging his nails into the palms of his hands, Bidworthy spent half a minute gathering oxygen before he said in hoarse tones, “Are you going to speak to the Ambassador or not?”

“Not.”

“I cannot return without at least a message for His Excellency.

“Indeed?” The other was incredulous. “What is to stop you?” Then, noticing the alarming increase in Bidworthy’s color, he added with compassion, “Oh, well, you may tell him that I said”—he paused while he thought it over—”God bless you and good-bye.”

Sergeant Major Bidworthy was a powerful man who weighed more than two hundred pounds, had roamed the cosmos for twenty-five years and feared nothing. He had never been known to permit the shiver of one hair—but he was trembling all over by the time he got back to the base of the gangway.

His Excellency fastened a cold eye upon him and demanded, Well?”

He refuses to come.” Bidworthy’s veins stood out on his forehead. “And, sir, if only I could have him in the space troops for a few months I’d straighten him up and teach him to move at the double.”

“I don’t doubt that, Sergeant Major,” the Ambassador soothed. He continued in a whispered aside to Colonel Shelton. “He’s a good fellow but no diplomat. Too abrupt and harsh-voiced. Better go yourself and fetch that farmer. We can’t loaf around forever waiting to learn where to begin.”

“Very well, Your Excellency.” Trudging across the field, Shelton caught up with the farmer, smiled pleasantly and said, “Good morning, my man.”

Stopping his machine, the farmer sighed as if it were one of those

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days one has sometimes. His eyes were dark brown, almost black as they regarded the newcomer.

What makes you think I’m your man?”

“It is a figure of speech,” explained Shelton. He could see what was wrong now. Bidworthy had fallen foul of an irascible type. They’d been like two dogs snarling at one another. Oh, well, as a high-ranking officer he was competent to handle anybody, the good and the bad, the sweet and the sour, the jovial and the liverish. Shelton went on oilily, “I was only trying to be courteous.”

“It must be said,” meditated the farmer, “that that is something worth trying for—if you can make it.”

Pinking a little, Shelton continued with determination, “I am commanded to request the pleasure of your company at the ship.”

“Commanded?”

“Yes.”

“Really and truly commanded?”

“Yes.”

The other appeared to wander into a momentary daydream before he came back and asked blandly, “Think they’ll get any pleasure out of my company?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Shelton.

“You’re a liar,” said the farmer.

His color deepening, Colonel Shelton snapped, “I do not permit people to call me a liar.”

“You’ve just permitted it,” the farmer pointed out.

Letting it pass, Shelton insisted, “Are you coming to the ship?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Myob!” said the farmer.

“What was that?”

“Myob!” he repeated. It sounded like some sort of insult.

Shelton went back, told the Ambassador, “That fellow is one of those too-clever types. At the finish all I could get out of him was ‘Myob’ whatever that means.”

“Local slang,” chipped in Grayder. “An awful lot of it develops in four centuries. I’ve come across one or two worlds where there has been so much of it that to all intents and purposes it formed a new language.”

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“He understood your speech?” asked the Ambassador of Shelton. “Yes, Your Excellency. And his own is quite good. But he won’t leave his work.” He reflected briefly, suggested, “If it were left to me I’d bring him in by force with an armed escort.”

“That would encourage him to give essential information,” commented the Ambassador with open sarcasm. He patted his stomach, smoothed his jacket, glanced down at his glossy. shoes. “Nothing for it but to go and speak to him myself.”

Shelton was shocked. “Your Excellency, you can’t do that!”

“Why can’t I?”

“It would be undignified.”

“I am fully aware of the fact,” said the Ambassador dryly. “What alternative do you suggest?”

“We can send out a patrol to find someone more cooperative.”

“Someone better informed, too,” Captain Grayder offered. “At best we won’t get much out of one surly hayseed. I doubt whether he knows one quarter of what we require to learn.”

“AII right.” The Ambassador dropped the idea of doing his own chores. “Organize a patrol and let’s have some results.”

“A patrol,” said Colonel Shelton to Major Hame. “Nominate one immediately.”

“Call out a patrol,” Hame ordered Lieutenant Deacon. “At once.”

“Parade a patrol forthwith, Sergeant Major,” said Deacon.

Bidworthy lumbered up the gangway, stuck his head into the airlock and shouted, “Sergeant Gleed, out with your squad and make it snappy!” He gave a suspicious sniff and went farther into the lock. His voice gained several more decibels. “Who’s been smoking? By heavens, if I catch the man—”

Across the fields something quietly went chuff-chuff while fat wheels crawled along.

The patrol formed by the right in two ranks of eight men each, turned at a barked command and marched off in the general direction of the ship’s nose. They moved with perfect rhythm if no great beauty of motion. Their boots thumped in unison, their accoutrements clattered with martial noises and the orange-colored sun made sparkles on their metal.

Sergeant Gleed did not have to take his men far. They were one hundred yards beyond the ship’s great snout when he noticed a

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man ambling across the field to his right. Treating the ship with utter indifference, this character was making toward the farmer still toiling far over to the left.

“Patrol, right wheel!” yelled Gleed, swift to take advantage of the situation. The patrol right-wheeled, marched straight past the wayfarer who couldn’t be bothered even to wave a handkerchief at them. Now Gleed ordered an about-turn and followed it with a take-him gesture.

Speeding up its pace, the patrol opened its ranks and became a double file of men tramping on either side of the lone pedestrian. Ignoring his suddenly acquired escort the latter continued to plod straight ahead like one long convinced that all is illusion.

“Left wheel!” roared Gleed, trying to bend the whole caboodle toward the waiting Ambassador.

Swiftly obedient, the double file headed leftward, one, two, three, hup! It was neat, precise execution beautiful to watch. Only one thing spoiled it: the man in the middle stubbornly maintained his self-chosen orbit and ambled casually between numbers four and five of the right-hand file.

That upset Gleed, especially since the patrol continued to thump steadily ambassadorwards for lack of a further order. His Excellency was being treated to the unmilitary spectacle of an escort dumbly boot-beating one way while its prisoner airily mooched another way. In due course Colonel Shelton would have plenty to say about it and anything he forgot Bidworthy would remember.

“Patrol!” hoarsed Gleed, pointing an outraged finger at the escapee and momentarily dismissing all regulation commands from his mind, “Get that mug!”

Breaking ranks, they moved at the double and surrounded the wanderer too closely to permit further progress. Perforce he stopped.

Gleed came up and said somewhat breathlessly, “Look, the Earth Ambassador wants to speak to you—that’s all.”

The other gazed at him with mild blue eyes. He was a funny-looking sample, long overdue for a shave. He had a fringe of ginger whiskers sticking out all around his face and bore faint resemblance to a sunflower.

“I should care,” he said.

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“Are you going to talk with His Excellency?” Gleed persisted.

“Naw.” The other nodded toward the farmer. “Going to talk to Zeke.”

“The Ambassador first,” retorted Gleed, wearing his tough expression. “He’s a big noise.”

“I don’t doubt that,” remarked the sunflower, showing what sort of a noise he had in mind.

“Smartie Artie, eh?” grated Gleed, pushing his face close and making it unpleasant. He signed to his men. “All right, hustle him along. We’ll show him!”

Smartie Artie chose this moment to sit down. He did it sort of solidly, giving himself the aspect of a squatting statue solidly anchored for the remainder of eternity. But Gleed had handled sitters before, the only difference being that this one was cold sober.

“Pick him up,” commanded Gleed, “and carry him.”

So they picked him up and carried him, feet first, whiskers last. He hung limp and unresisting in their hands, a dead weight made as difficult as possible to bear. In this inauspicious manner he arrived in the presence of the Ambassador where the escort plonked him on his feet.

Promptly he set out for Zeke.

“Hold him, darn you!” howled Gleed.

The patrol grabbed and clung tight. The Ambassador eyed the whiskers with well-bred concealment of distaste, coughed delicately and spoke.

“I am truly sorry that you had to come to me in this fashion.”

“In that case,” suggested the prisoner, “you could have saved yourself some mental anguish by not permitting it to happen.”

“There was no other choice. We’ve got to make contact somehow.”

“I don’t see it,” said Ginger Whiskers. “What’s so special about this date?”

“The date?” The Ambassador frowned in puzzlement. “What has the date got to do with it?”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“The point eludes me.” The Ambassador turned to the others. “Do you understand what he’s aiming at?”

Shelton said, “I can hazard a guess, Your Excellency. I think he is hinting that since we’ve left them without contact for four hun-

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dred years there is no particular urgency about making it today.” He looked to the sunflower for confirmation.

That worthy rallied to his support by remarking, “You’re doing pretty well for a halfwit.”

Regardless of Shelton’s own reaction, this was too much for Bidworthy purpling nearby. His chest came up and his eyes caught fire. His voice was an authoritative rasp.

“Be more respectful while addressing high-ranking officers!”

The prisoner’s mild blue eyes turned upon him in childish amazement, examined him slowly from feet to head and all the way down again. The eyes drifted back inquiringly to the Ambassador.

“Who is this preposterous person?”

Dismissing the question with an impatient wave of his hand, the Ambassador said, “See here, it is not our purpose to bother you from sheer perversity, as you seem to think. Neither do we wish to detain you any longer than is necessary. All we—”

Pulling at his face-fringe as if to accentuate its offensiveness, the other interjected, “It being you, of course, who determines the length of the necessity?”

“On the contrary, you may decide that for yourself,” gave back the Ambassador, displaying admirable self-control. “All you need do is tell us—”

“Then I’ve decided it right now,” the prisoner chipped in. He tried to heave himself free of his escort. “Let me go talk to Zeke.”

“All you need do,” the Ambassador persisted, “is tell us where we can find a local official who can put us into touch with your central government.” His gaze was stern, commanding, as he added, “For instance, where is the nearest police post?”

“Myob!” said Ginger Whiskers.

“What was that?”

“Myob!”

“The same to you,” retorted the Ambassador, his patience evaporating.

“That’s precisely what I’m trying to do,” insisted the prisoner, enigmatically. “Only you won’t let me do it.”

“If I may make a suggestion, Your Excellency,” put in Shelton, allow me—”

“I require no suggestions and I won’t allow you,” said the Ambas-

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sador, somewhat out of temper. “I have had enough of all this stupid tomfoolery. I think we have landed at random in an area reserved for imbeciles. It would be as well to recognize the fact and get out of it with no more delay.”

“Now you’re talking,” approved Ginger Whiskers. “And the farther the better.”

“We have no intention of leaving this planet, if that is what’s in your incomprehensible mind,” asserted the Ambassador. He stamped a proprietory foot into the turf. “This is part of the Terran Empire. As such it is going to be recognized, charted and organized.”

“Heah, heah!” put in the senior civil servant who aspired to honors in elocution.

His Excellency threw a frown behind, went on, “We’ll move the ship to some other section where brains are brighter.” He turned attention to the escort. “Let him go. Probably he is in a hurry to borrow a razor.”

They released their grips. Ginger Whiskers at once turned toward the distant farmer much as if he were a magnetized needle irresistibly drawn Zekeward. Without another word he set off at his original slovenly pace. Disappointment and disgust showed on the faces of Bidworthy and Gleed as they watched him depart.

“Have the vessel shifted at once, Captain,” the Ambassador said to Grayder. “Plant it near to a likely town—not out in the wilds where every yokel views strangers as a bunch of crooks.”

He marched importantly up the gangway. Captain Grayder followed, then Colonel Shelton, then the elocutionist. Next, their successors in correct order of precedence. Lastly, Gleed and his men.

The airlock closed. The warning siren sounded. Despite its immense bulk the ship shivered briefly from end to end and soared without deafening uproar or spectacular display of dame.

Indeed, there was silence save for a little engine going chuff-chuff and the murmurings of the two men walking behind it. Neither took the trouble to look around to see what was happening.

“Seven pounds of prime tobacco is a heck of a lot to give for one case of brandy,” Ginger Whiskers protested.

“Not for my brandy,” said Zeke. “It’s stronger than a thousand Gands and smoother than an Earthman’s downfall.”

[118]

Chapter 6 | TOC | Chapter 8