Part 27

1

Music began to be heard in the conference room. It was slow, dignified music. Ponderous. Impressive. The emissaries looked about with some interest, wondering what was going to happen. So far this had been a deadly dull conference on an apparently deadly dull planet that didn’t even have any night life or dancing or singing females to serve up. The conference had begun right away as though there was something urgent or important to take up: not even a customary round of hot spots to get acquainted; so far no one had even offered any bribes! Instead just some boring, minor squabble that concerned combatants of just this one universe and just a sector of it at that. Nice music. Fit for regal functions, much less a conference.

A huge man entered the door. He was about six and a half feet tall, stripped to the waist, wearing a scarlet sash, with yellow skin, shaved head. (It was one of the Mongols from among the Chinese.) That in itself would not have been very interesting. But his muscles were huge and swollen with the effort of carrying something on his head that would seem to be very heavy indeed. But from all they could see, he was carrying nothing! There were his arms and gripping hands, there were his bulging back muscles and biceps. Although he was walking in cadence with the music, there was even a slightly perceptible tremor in his legs. But they could see nothing being carried.

The man went up to the platform and with great care set the nothing down. They even heard a bump. (lt was a glassine electronics table used by Psychlos for small electronic work that required light from every angle. It had been sawed down and sprayed with lens spray that passed light one hundred percent and so reflected nothing.) He arranged the nothing with great care.

There was a bit of flurry in the audience as emissaries craned about and peered, amused and interested. The communicator acting as host (he had a stripped-down mine radio in his ear) said, “You have the solemn promise of this planet at the risk of heavy indemnity that no lethal, destructive or harmful object will be entered into this conference room.”

Several emissaries laughed. They were quite cheerful. A good joke to put nothing on the platform and then say it was harmless. It quite took their fancy.

But something else was happening now. The huge Mongol had withdrawn. To the stately music, two beautifully gowned Chinese boys, faces impassive, came down the aisle. Each was carrying a gorgeous red satin pillow with gold tassels and on each pillow was a huge book. Solemnly, first one, then the other, approached the host. He took each book from its pillow and laid it upon the heretofore invisible table, spine titles toward the audience.

So there was something on the platform. An invisible table. New interest. Those with better eyes could read the titles on the spines up there: one was a Dictionary of the Psychlo Language; the other was Intergalactic Laws By Treaties of Governing Nations.

But Lord Schleim, with his weak Tolnep eyes, was not even trying to read any book titles. He was tense and crouching back. Theatrics! They were pulling theatrics on him. Ah, well. He would corner whoever this was and bite him to death with wit-fangs! Sssst on theatrics! They would change nothing.

The two boys withdrew in a stately fashion, carrying away their now empty pillows.

The music suddenly stopped.

There was a roll of drums.

The host drew himself up and cried out his announcement in a strong, sonorous voice above the drums, “Masters of all planets! Lords of the great and powerful realms of sixteen galaxies! May I now introduce to your august presence, LORD JONNIE! He who embodies the spirit of Earth!”

A trumpet fanfare cut through and rose above the drums. The clear, piercing notes rose into the air.

Jonnie came walking down the aisle. He was walking slowly, heavily, commanding, as though he weighed a thousand pounds. He was dressed in black and silver and he carried a silver wand. But it wasn’t silver; it looked so, but when the light caught it on the slightest movement it flashed with blindingly bright rainbow colors.

He came to the platform, stepped up, moved behind the table, and turned.

At that instant a mine spotlight placed just above the door flamed on. He stood there in black and silver and yet a blaze of living color.

He did not speak. Feet apart, not blocked from their view by the table, he held the silver wand between his two hands and simply looked at them with a stern and even disdainful expression. Dominant.

This was impressive enough to the emissaries. Even though they were used to pomp and tended to discount it, they would have been respectful of this display. But there was something else.

That beast on the helmet! It looked alive. The trick of the light, the play of the silver metal that flashed, the glowing red coals of eyes, whatever it was, it looked alive. Was he wearing a live winged beast on his helmet?

Lord Schleim would have none of it. Unfortunately there had been a slight slip which played directly into his hands. When one word meant several things in Psychlo, it required a slight change of inflection or tone to make it have the different meaning. The word spirit in Psychlo could also mean “mind,” “angel,” or “devil,” and although the communicator had used the right inflection for “spirit,” Lord Schleim chose to accept a different inflection.

The Tolnep sprang up as though striking from cover. “Lords and august emissaries,” he said with an acid hiss, “I challenge the right of this devil to speak! We have seen no credentials. We—”

“Sir,” said Jonnie. “I could not quite hear you. What did you say?”

Lord Schleim whirled on him. He began savagely, “I said—”

“Ah, yes, yes, yes,” said Jonnie, waving his wand. “I beg your pardon, your lordship. It was merely your uncouth Tolnep accent. Quite provincial. Can you understand him, my lords?”

They laughed. It was true that Schleim had a bit of an accent, due probably to his fangs and having to hiss. Tolneps were really quite rural; they had only one planet, and that was quite distant from the center of things.

“You devil!” hissed Schleim.

“Uh, uh, uh,” said Jonnie. “No violence in such a meeting. I am quite certain I nor the truly worthy emissaries in this gathering desire your ejection from it.”

Then before Schleim would retaliate, something else happened. The wand, which had been tapping Jonnie’s palms, suddenly pointed in the direction of Schleim’s feet. It had a small beam of light set in the end of it and it flashed on. (lt was a light used to show dust in a mine shaft and it made a very thin white pencil of light, like a pointer.)

Jonnie looked a bit incredulous. Then he turned his head clear off to the side as though to hide a laugh. The light switched off.

Schleim looked down. He had to stretch, for he had a bit of a paunch. What had this devil seen?

Then Lord Schleim saw them. His boots! Instead of wearing his proper, scaled, glittering green boots, he was wearing old, rough blue boots. Dirty blue boots. His valet! In the rush of getting him off, his clumsy, damned valet had put the wrong boots on him. Oh, when he got home . . . when he got home he would have the oaf punctured! Worse. Dragged through the streets and bitten to death by small children.

But Jonnie was addressing the emissaries. “I must apologize to you, my lords. I pray you to overlook my discourtesy in arriving late. But I am sure you will understand when I tell you that I was looking for a point of law.” He looked at them in a kindly and deferential fashion, laid down the wand on the invisible table, and tapped the top of the law book. (The manners and phrases of the old Chinko instruction disks were coming in handy now! At first when he entered he had felt stiff and unnatural, artificial and affected, but suddenly it felt as though he had been doing this sort of thing all his life.)

“No one,” he continued, “could possibly expect such noble and such highly titled and credentialed lords to experience an uncomfortable trip, nor to convene upon such a lowly and undeserving planet, for the petty purpose of adjudicating the minor differences of some back planet squabble.”

The delegates sat up. This was more like it. This is what they had been thinking all the time. Hear, hear!

Sir Robert was thunderstruck. What was this lad up to? The war not important? Their strong points caving in, their friends dying, and he could say it wasn’t important? He looked at the two small gray men. They were both sitting there smiling, a bit vacant, but smiling. They hadn’t been smiling before and Sir Robert knew for a fact that Jonnie hadn’t talked with them, so they knew no more than he. But he had to restrain himself from jumping up to cry out that this was an important war. One point: these emissaries in their jewels and flashing clothes, strange faces and feelers, were all bobbing their heads and settling down for a real conference.

“No,” continued Jonnie. “It would be an insult to the mighty states you represent to call you here on something as trivial as repelling pirates!”

Lord Schleim started to slither up out of his chair. He was about to shout this devil down and force him to mend his language when he saw those eyes looking again at his boots. But it wasn’t really the glance at the boots that stopped Lord Schleim. He recognized with diplomatic shrewdness that this devil could fall into a trap of his own digging. It was a very simple matter to prove that the attacking Tolnep ships were fully commissioned, legal ships and officers of the Tolnep navy. So let the devil plow on for now. He’d fang him shortly. Hah, the fellow was no real opponent after all!

“Such regal representatives of kings and governments,” continued Jonnie, “should—and if I am wrong, please correct me—convene on real points of treaties and intergalactic law. And on these their expertise cannot be seriously challenged or questioned.”

Hear, hear. True. Naturally. You have a point. Pray continue! The emissaries, all except for the combatants, were sitting up, interested. And all combatant representatives began to look uneasy. All except Lord Schleim, who was beginning to feel confident—this devil was going to dig a hole for himself. There was one trouble here for Lord Schleim: each time that devil moved it made lights flash off his buttons, and Tolneps had to wear filters to convert to ordinary visible spectrum, so every flash of a button overwhelmed the power of the filter and he was getting a headache. He wished he could make them turn off that spotlight they had on this creature.

Jonnie was sweeping on. “The definition of the category of pirate as opposed to the definition of military force is a critical question. I am sure that, from time to time, even in the best-organized, paid, and regulated military forces, elements of navies or even merchant ships have mutinied or gone astray or been misled and have turned pirate, defying the benign and responsible authority of their own governments.”

Oh, yes. Many instances. Just last month in these troubled times, a squadron of spaceships had mutinied at Oxentab. Lots of them in history. An old point, the emissaries agreed. Lot of stories written about it. Go on.

“So,” continued Jonnie, “to protect legitimate authority such as that which you represent,” (pleased faces except for the combatants), “and to really be able to cope with piracy when it occurs, the definition must be clarified. And this can only be done by an august body such as yours in the form of a formal treaty.”

Good idea. Correct. Right. Very glum combatants, except Schleim who was certain now this devil would shortly be sent down in flames.

Jonnie opened the Psychlo dictionary to a marked place. “We know that the Psychlo language is a composite of many tongues, even your own individual languages, and was not in fact a language generated solely by the Psychlos. It is a universal tongue because it was taken from many universes, which is the only reason we so generally speak it.”

That was true. Real scholarship. The Psychlos picked up everything from others including language. Shouldn’t even be called “Psychlo.” The emissaries buzzed about it.

“This dictionary,” said Jonnie, “is the standard recognized work, is it not?” He held it up. Yes, they nodded. Jonnie laid the book down and read from it. “It states: ‘Pirate: one who preys upon commerce or communities or planets in a vessel or spaceship or group of ships not under the regulation of a national or planetary government; also any commander or crew member of such a ship.’”

Right, right. That was a pirate. But Lord Schleim was feeling very smug. He felt he really had this devil now. He could see exactly which way he was trying to go. It would be child’s play to fang these arguments to pieces and then proceed with the surrender talks. What a letdown the devil was going to get. Every Tolnep ship was under the direct orders of the Tolnep government. Totally legal.

Jonnie had turned to the book on intergalactic law. “However, according to treaties, of which intergalactic law is composed, we have a different definition. With your permission I will read it: ‘Article 234,352,678. Based on the treaties of Psychlo vs. Hawvin signed at Blonk, Psychlo vs. Camchod signed at Psychlo, a pirate shall hereinafter be defined as one who feloniously steals or mines minerals.’” Jonnie tapped the book and laughed lightly. “I guess we know who and how and why that misdefinition occurred!”

They laughed. Psychlo was not very well liked, and a Psychlo would pass anything to protect Psychlo interests.

“Therefore,” said Jonnie, “this august body, I feel, should define pirate and piracy among systems and planets and, after due deliberation, envisage the execution of treaties to forbid it!”

Sir Robert groaned. The lad was proposing days of wrangling over stale things like treaties when the planet was being torn to bits with a flat-out assault, undoubtedly egged on by this Tolnep through his hidden radio. But his groans were drowned in the general assent.

Jonnie had now drawn back from the books. He took up the wand. He tapped it in his palm. “I feel in my humble opinion,” (he certainly didn’t look humble), “that we must work upon this now in order that we should know whether the Tolnep fleet officers and crewmen are to be slowly vaporized individually as pirates or simply shot as military men when court-martialed.”

Lord Schleim slithered up with a scream. “Stop!” He glared around at the other combatants. They sat just behind him. They were saying nothing. They simply looked stunned. Then he realized that the devil had said “Tolnep”; he had not said “combined forces.” Venom splattered as Lord Schleim hissed his protest. The devil had gone too far! In a moment Lord Schleim would tear down his house, but just now there was another point.

“You are selecting out the honorable Tolnep forces for your venomous insinuations!” said Schleim ravingly. “This is a clear case of prejudice and has to be dismissed as such by this body! There are other combatants. I demand these statements to be stricken from our recorders as biased, slanted, and an intentional insult to the Tolnep planetary forces.”

Jonnie calmly smiled at him and looked at the Tolnep boots and back up to the fanged face. “Bombastic conduct will right no wrongs here. Your conduct insults these lords. Behave yourself.”

“I demand a reply!” screamed Schleim.

Jonnie sighed tolerantly. “Very well. You shall have it. It is my opinion that the Hawvins, Bolbods, Drawkins, Jambitchow and Hockner forces were simply coerced, probably with false statements, into cooperating with the Tolneps. Since by your own testimony, your ships vastly outnumber theirs, and since your own senior officer, as you state, commanded the so-called combined force, and when killed, was succeeded by another Tolnep who is now their senior officer, it seems very evident they were forced to cooperate in this attack by the superior firepower of the Tolnep fleet. So we cannot hold these other races or forces guilty. And we are not charging them. They are only victims and cannot be regarded, in my opinion, in any other way when we apply the word pirate on a clarified definition.”

Now! Now was the time! Lord Schleim knew the ripe moment when he saw it. He would crush this devil. He slithered himself up to his full height. He assumed the grandeur of dignity.

“Your arguments, devil, drop into the rocks and fall like dust into the grass. The Tolnep admiral and the Tolnep captain and all the Tolnep ships and crews were never in any way acting outside the command of the Tolnep central government. So enough of this claptrap about ‘pirates’ and let us get on with the proper business of surrender!”

The taste of triumph and victory was sweet as poison in the Tolnep’s mouth. In a few moments now, this whole thing would be finished.

Sir Robert groaned.

He saw the two small gray men were looking down, nervous now. Regretting perhaps they had helped?

2

Jonnie looked at the Tolnep.

He shook his head sadly.

He looked at the assemblage. They were leaning back, beginning to lose interest. For a while there it had appeared that something would occur that would concern them.

“My lords,” said Jonnie, “please do forgive this distraction from the main purpose of this meeting. This . . . this Tolnep is absolutely demanding that we finish this minor concern of a raid upon a peaceful planet. So with your permission, I feel I have no other choice than to settle this slight disturbance.”

Yes, oh, well, go ahead. One doesn’t see where this is going now, but go ahead. I suppose the Tolnep will just keep interrupting. So go ahead.

Jonnie sighed. “Thank you, your lordships. You are very tolerant.” Then he turned to Lord Schleim. Jonnie took a very firm stand with his feet. He had picked up the wand and was now tapping it in his palm.

“Lord Schleim,” said Jonnie, “for I believe that is what some call you, please produce the orders given to your admirals and captains.”

Schleim laughed. “You know very well an emissary cannot carry with him the whole files of a military establishment. Furthermore, although you, as a barbarian, would have no inkling of this, a Tolnep commander is at liberty to exercise autonomy on military expeditions.”

“As I suspected,” said Jonnie. “There were no legal orders.”

“I did not say that!” hissed Schleim.

“I’m afraid you did,” said Jonnie. “I have no choice now but to proceed, for you are delaying more important proceedings.”

Jonnie smacked the wand into his palm twice. It sounded like two pistol shots.

There was an instant rush down the aisle as two uniformed technicians came, pushing a mine cart. The cart had been plated in gold. It looked very sleek. On it rested a projector of some size and it too was gold-plated. It was an atmosphere-screen projector. Its general use was to project pictures of mine shafts or tunnels. It used a projection light based on the same principle as an atmosphere-armor cable with a variation. The light, striking atmosphere ions, made them condense to greater or lesser degree and reflect back. By putting a stick for scale in the original scene, one could then take the projected picture and actually measure distances in it from point to point. It put, in this way, a three-dimensional picture on thin air.

The technicians moved it into place where it would project into the large, empty space to Jonnie’s left. They placed a multiple-button switch on the invisible table close to Jonnie’s hand. They bowed, about-faced, and withdrew.

They had come in so fast and left so quickly that Lord Schleim had not had time to get in an objection. Now he did. “I must protest this display of foolish flimflam! I will not permit you to hoodwink this august body further—”

“Schleim!” said Jonnie severely. “It will do no good for you to seek to suppress evidence when you well know it will work to your disfavor.”

Mutters from the emissaries. Sit down, Schleim. Be quiet. This looks like it will be interesting. Hush, Schleim.

Jonnie pressed two buttons. The spotlight at the door went out and simultaneously a picture flashed on it. It was a three-dimensional, remarkably detailed closeup of Roof Arsebogger. He seemed to the emissaries to be standing right there in what had been empty space. There was no sound. But they had never before seen a mine atmosphere projector for the simple reason that the Psychlos never marketed entertainment gadgets and this was mining equipment.

Roof Arsebogger’s face was patched with the sores of disease. His fangs were black and one was broken. He was dressed in something that looked like it had been discarded from a slum. It was part of a long series of pictures shot by pilots flying air cover at the Purgatoire River. It had been taken with a radio telephoto camera. The shots had been left in Jonnie’s room to help do the briefing of the time he had been out of action.

Jonnie said, “Is this man a member of your government? Now answer carefully, Schleim. Is this a minister of any department, an official of the military?”

Several emissaries tittered. The figure was so disgusting that if this were a member of the Tolnep government . . . well!

Schleim was stung. He looked at the picture. What a disgusting creature! Vomitous! Eyes still dazzling a little bit from the lights flashing off the devil, he pawed at his filter and stared again. Was there something vaguely familiar about that figure?

That he was peering so hard made it seem that maybe the Tolnep government was composed of such riffraff. Several emissaries laughed out loud.

That did it. Schleim lashed out, “Of course not! That filthy creature would be thrown out of any government department on Tolnep! You are insulting me. You are insulting Tolnep! You are running a calculated campaign to degrade the dignity and importance of my office and my planet. I must protest—”

“Quiet,” said Jonnie, soothingly. “Just pay attention here. You have said he is no part of your government and has no official capacity. Is that right?”

“Absolutely! If you think—”

“Then,” said Jonnie, “what is he doing giving orders to Quarter-Admiral Snowleter?”

He pressed another button. The camera seemed to draw away. Motion occurred in the scene. The bridge of the Capture came into view, along with the diamond with a slash, the Tolnep insignia. And there was Quarter-Admiral Snowleter facing the horrible creature Roof Arsebogger.

Jonnie touched another button. Sound came on. The rumble of a capital, nonatmosphere ship as picked off the vibration of its bridge window glass was clearly penetrated by the voice of Roof Arsebogger.

“You must act independently, Snowleter! You must do whatever gives you the best chance of private profit! What I am telling you to do is rush on down to that base and grab it all for yourself! Once you have this planet under your personal control you can tell everybody else to buzz off and be damned. Smash the place. Seize the people and sell them for your own profit. I will cover you. And like it or not, that is what you must do! The power is mine! And we will split the profits! Understood?”

Snowleter was smiling. He touched his quarter-admiral’s cap in a salute. “I am at your orders!”

Jonnie hit another button. The camera seemed to draw further away. It showed the whole combined force in the sky over the Purgatoire River. The sound was off.

“That is your admiral, that is the fleet.” Jonnie hit a pair of buttons. The picture was gone and the spotlight back on.

The emissaries were enthralled. They had never seen atmosphere projection before. It was like looking at a totally live scene. Yes, that was the Tolnep fleet all right. That was the admiral. Schleim’s attitude said clearly it was.

Suddenly Lord Schleim exploded. “Doctored pictures. Anyone can doctor recordings. This so-called evidence—”

“Oh come now, Schleim,” said Jonnie. “Bombast and hysteria won’t cancel this. The pictures were too clear to be ‘doctored’ as you call it.”

He turned to the emissaries. “So you see, your lordships, the Tolnep admiral was not acting under the orders of his government, but under those of a private individual. He was acting for personal profit and not for his planet. Be quiet, Schleim; you can’t cover up evidence with shockingly bad temper. My apologies for his conduct, my lords. One can sympathize with his position. This Quarter-Admiral Snowleter, by the way, is the uncle of Half-Captain Rogodeter Snowl and was brought into the venture by his nephew according to disks and traces we have available. It was a family matter and the piratical venture is obviously being continued by the nephew.”

Jonnie didn’t tell them there was a lot more in the views just shown which did not necessarily carry out his point. But very clearly Roof Arsebogger had been the one to egg the admiral on.

“So the point of piracy,” said Jonnie, “has been proven. Here we had a fleet operating by another authority from that of its government. If you will indulge me a moment longer, I will simply ask this Schleim for the surrender of those ships and then we can get about our more appropriate business of piracies and treaties. Schleim, will you please call whoever is in command now and tell him to gather his ships in a meadow I will name—”

“You must be mad!” screamed Schleim. “Our fleet is in full command of your skies and you ask us—”

“To help end a pirate venture,” Jonnie finished for him. “My lords, forgive me, but this Schleim is going to occupy a little more of your valuable time before you are rid of him. With your permission, we will complete this odious business.”

Yes, yes. By all means go ahead. We can take up the treaty later. They agreed. The combatant-planet emissaries were looking at one another, a bit frightened. What had they gotten themselves mixed up in?

The small gray men looked less hangdog.

But Sir Robert, studying Schleim, knew he was far from finished. He was using the moment to hiss into his radio. He was giving orders, something about making suicide crashes. He must be a bit rattled, for he was speaking Psychlo.

Sir Robert excused himself and stepped quickly over to operations to tell their forces what was going on, to tell them to be alert, to double their efforts to fight back.

The first small gray man slipped out and passed an order to his ship to turn on two red lights and change the radio signal to “Alert! Alert! An interplanetary, intergalactic conference is taking place within this area. Any capital ship or vessel of any kind entering this zone will be branded an intergalactic outlaw and its government or owner subject to all penalties that can be imposed. Alert! Alert! An interplanetary, intergalactic conference is . . .”

3

Lord Schleim was not the least bit rattled. He knew exactly what he was doing: he was now applying a maxim of diplomacy which stated that when diplomacy failed, one resorted to military means.

It had become obvious to him in these last few minutes that if he continued along the previous course, he would lose. So he had shifted his entire planning suddenly and irrevocably.

These were very troubled times. He felt the power of the small gray man had crumbled and that things were not what they used to be. Therefore, any threat of retaliation from the small gray man could be ignored. This was the first emissary meeting in over a year and he was completely certain that the power of the emissaries and collective governments had become a shadow that was no real danger to Tolnep—these empires and states were too far away.

He had just given Half-Captain—now Captain Snowl just today—very specific orders. He had used a word code known only to officers of flag rank and executives high in the Tolnep government. Using one set of words, one could convey quite another meaning. Additionally, the radio band used was hyper-nondirectional, known only to the Tolneps, and could not be picked up on any other radio except those used by flag officers and the diplomatic service, a band which was constantly running on the bridge of every Tolnep major war vessel. And if that weren’t safe enough, the transmissions were also scrambled.

Schleim had just ordered Rogodeter Snowl to send the ships of other combatants to the terrestrial points being defended by the Earthlings, to gather up all Tolnep forces, and to proceed with all speed to the conference location. He had told Snowl to totally disregard any and all conference warnings of the small gray man.

Since the bulk of the Tolnep vessels were at Singapore, a little over forty-five hundred miles away—quite close, really—they would arrive over this spot in about two hours.

Schleim had, in the bottom of his scepter, on the opposite end from the radio, a paralysis beam. All he had to do was give the end of it a twist and every person or creature within hearing would become instantly paralyzed except himself: a tap on his own ears first would close his deaf-flaps. This entire conference was at his mercy. All he had to do was get them all outside in the bowl on some pretext so that any and all guards were also within hearing distance, listen for the first signs of the arrival of his fleet, tap his own ears, and twist the bottom of the scepter.

Tolnep diplomats were chosen for bravery as well as wits. He would pick up a gun and shoot his way to the switches of the armor cable if necessary, turn it off, and let his fleet marines in.

As to this teleportation console, he really couldn’t care less. Tolnep would be better off if it were destroyed—a nation that based its economy on slavery was always under some kind of threat and this teleportation had interfered with Tolnep far more than it had helped.

He himself was within flying distance of home. The other combatants were also and would have to bow to his commands or be killed. As for the rest of these emissaries, how they got home if ever was no concern of his. And dead emissaries and a dead litter of terrestrial personnel told no tales, especially when buried.

He would, of course, go through the motions of torturing this devil and try to get the teleportation design out of him. If the devil died in the process, it did not matter.

But the cream of the jest was that, if anything went wrong, he would use the devil’s own arguments to defend himself. He would claim that Rogodeter Snowl had turned pirate, that he had acted contrary to orders and that his approach to this conference was an outlaw act. He knew he could depose and execute Snowl and still command the Tolnep crews. Snowl would simply be sacrificed for the greater good of the state—a common expedient in such diplomatic circles.

Schleim could even mop up the other belligerents using the Tolnep fleet if it came to that.

It was very neat planning.

The only thing he had to solve now was how to get this entire conference out into the bowl.

He was now feeling so confident he was hardly even listening to this devil as he resumed his actions. Whatever the devil did would be useless, without avail.

Tolerantly, Lord Schleim sat back and lent half an ear to the continuing proceedings.

Diplomacy was, indeed, quite an art. But if it failed, there was always force.

He fingered the bottom end of his scepter.

He tuned the rest of his hearing in to catch the first rumbles of his fleet in the sky.

4

There had been a delay while a technician changed the cartridges in the atmosphere projector.

The emissaries, seeing that Jonnie was again about to speak, settled down.

“My lords,” said Jonnie. “I do appreciate your indulgence in permitting me to clean up the remaining bits of this odious Tolnep matter. Indeed, I am impressed by your patience. I assure you we may soon be able to proceed with the legitimate concerns of such an authoritative group.” The influence of the polite instruction disks of the Chinkos was coming in very handy now. These lords, except for the combatants, were definitely on his side.

Jonnie stood tall in the mine spotlight. His buttons flashed. The dragon on the helmet seemed to move as he turned his head to Lord Schleim.

“Tolnep,” said Jonnie, with disdain and contempt in the word, “I have some views that were taken while the conference was verifying credentials. I am going to ask you to identify certain things for me.”

Schleim sat back easily, quite composed now. “Go ahead, devil,” he said almost airily.

Jonnie looked at him closely. What had caused this sudden calm? Was it just an exhibition of diplomatic supercontrol? Schleim was, after all, a clever and well-trained diplomat.

With a deft touch of switch buttons, the mine spotlight went off and a new view appeared, filling all the empty space in the room to Jonnie’s left. It was a remarkable shot. The emissaries sat up and peered, very interested.

There, just as though seen from the port of a spaceship, bright and clear, projected in three dimensions upon the empty air, was the whole system where the Tolnep planet rode in the ninth ring. The huge combination sun, a double star with the small companion circling the larger orb, shed its double-shadowed light upon the vast system of planets and their moons. The name of the system was Batafor in the Psychlo coordination books, Sirius or the Dog Star in the ancient man-constellation charts.

“Is this Batafor?” Jonnie asked Lord Schleim.

The Tolnep laughed. “If you took the shot, you know what it is. Why ask me?”

Jonnie searched out the Hawvin in the second row with his wand as a pointer. “Perhaps the regal emissary of the Hawvins might care to assist us. Is this the Batafor System?”

The Hawvin had been regretting his involvement in all this for some time. His nation was a traditional enemy of the Tolneps and had suffered much in times past from their slave raids. He had begun to suspect that there were penalties and reparations coming up sometime soon. This “spirit of Earth” seemed to have been taking pains to exclude the other combatants, and he had seen a possibility of escaping censure if it all went wrong here—as it definitely seemed to be doing. Best curry some favor. He could see no danger in it.

He rose and came forward and Jonnie handed him his wand with the pointer beam turned on.

The Hawvin waved the beam generally across the system. “I recognize and attest this is indeed the Batafor System. That is the old Psychlo name. We locally call the double sun ‘Twino,’ which stands for ‘Mother and Child’ in the Hawvin tongue.”

He tapped the planet ring nearest the sun. “This is Jubo, uninhabited due to its extreme heat and gravity pulls.” He pointed rapidly to the second, third, fourth and fifth rings. “These have names, but are not important. Uninhabited, for they are subject to earthquakes and volcanic upheavals.” He tapped the sixth ring, the planet almost hidden behind the double sun. “This is Torthut, a Psychlo mining planet: it had a population once, but they were annihilated.”

The Hawvin looked inquiringly at the Hockner. “My lord, do you mind if I go on?”

The Hockner shrugged, then gave a strained laugh. “As you have already as much as said so, my dear colleague, you may tell them it is a possession of Hockner!”

“Very good,” continued the Hawvin. “This seventh planet is Holoban, part of the Hockner Confederacy. The eighth planet is Balor, one of our own Hawvin planets.”

He lowered the beam and looked at Lord Schleim. But Lord Schleim simply shrugged and said, “You make a very fine astronomy lecturer, lord of the Hawvins. You have omitted some of the fauna and flora but go ahead.”

The Hawvin put the pointer on the ninth ring. “And this, I can attest, is Tolnep.” He peered more closely. “Yes, these specks about it are the five moons, though one is hidden from this angle. Tolnep is remarkable for its moons in a system where planets seldom have more than one. The reflective quality of these moons is a bit remarkable due to their composition. The double sun can give out the normal light spectrum, but on reflection from these moons, the light shifts upward in the spectrum. The Tolnep civilization prefers to work by moonlight and normally sleeps in the direct sun. It is said they are not indigenous—”

“Oh, spare us, spare us,” said Lord Schleim. “You’ll be telling us about Tolnep egg-mating next! Keep it clean, Hawvin!”

Some of the uninvolved emissaries laughed. Schleim was wriggling his way back into their good graces.

“The tenth planet,” the Hawvin went on, “is a Psychlo mining planet, Tung. The population existed once, but had actually been removed by the Tolneps before Psychlo occupation. The eleventh—”

“Thank you very much, lord of the Hawvins,” said Jonnie. “You have been very helpful.”

The Hawvin stepped down and would have gone back to his seat but Jonnie checked him. Jonnie hit another button.

A clear view of the city magically appeared in the air. It was just as though one were suspended in space well above it.

“That is Creeth,” said the Hawvin. “The Tolnep capital. Very distinctive. See how the streets wind their way and entwine.” He came back up and took the pointer. “This is the House of Plunder, their legislative center; see how its sections wind around and come back together. Unmistakably Tolnep in its architecture. This is Grath, their famous combined public park and slave auction center. This rock hill with the holes in it—”

“Thank you,” said Jonnie. “And now this is what I really want you for.” He pushed a button and the picture changed. It swooped down at the park and gave the emissaries the feeling they were free-falling in space. The park stayed still but all the surroundings swooped sideways and away, making it look for a moment like a bowl. The camera had steadied. The view now showed just the park.

One could see the long slave auction blocks, the comfortable seats and boxes for the buyers. But what was remarkable was the huge clock face laid out in the hill at the edge.

“The clock,” said Jonnie.

“Ah, yes, the clock.” The Hawvin sighed and glanced at Lord Schleim, but his lordship was sitting there, a smile on his mouth below his glasses, fingering his scepter. “The clock is built of slave bones, it is said. Huge masses of them have been inset into wheels that turn and show through the windows. It is said that fifty-eight thousand female slaves were killed to make up the border you see—”

“I meant the time and date,” said Jonnie. “They are in Tolnep script and I suppose you read it.”

“Ah,” said the Hawvin, glad to be off the hook. He was afraid Lord Schleim might rip into him. “The hour, the date. Why, yes. I do know the Tolnep number system. This was taken about two hours ago.” He glanced at his own watch. “About one hour and fifty-one minutes ago, to be exact. Remarkable. Was it taken with the teleportation rig out there just today?” He stared at it. “Must have been.”

“I do thank you,” said Jonnie. He took the pointer from the Hawvin lord who then stepped down, casting a somewhat fearful look at Schleim.

Jonnie hit another button. Into view flashed the Tolnep planet and its five moons. It was remarkably detailed.

“Lord Schleim,” said Jonnie, “is this the Tolnep planet and its moons?”

Schleim laughed. “It wouldn’t do me any good to say no, would it? Yes, devil, it doesn’t take an astronomy professor like our friend the Hawvin here to detect that that is Tolnep and its five moons.” He laughed easily.

“Very good,” said Jonnie. “Then, as a native of Tolnep and someone undoubtedly fond of its moons, could you tell me which moon you like best?”

This sudden dive sideways made Schleim wary. He was only giving it half his attention. There would be a while before the fleet could arrive, he supposed, but they might send a scout racing ahead. He glanced at his watch. He fingered the bottom of the scepter. He was preoccupied with how to get these emissaries outside so both they and the guards could be all taken in at one twist of the scepter bottom.

“Well,” said Schleim, “I’m afraid I have better things to do at home than stand around gazing at moons.”

“Which one do you like the least?” persisted Jonnie.

“Oh, any of them,” said Schleim easily.

Jonnie smiled. The dragon on the helmet flashed and seemed to move as he turned to the emissaries.

“As Lord Schleim has no preference,” said Jonnie, reaching out with the pointer beam, “we will choose this one. Asart!” And he tapped it with the light. “Notice the peculiar crater patterns, these five ellipses, that make this moon distinctive.”

A sudden chill hit Schleim. Asart! Covered under its surface were the huge shops and hangars of the entire Tolnep navy. To this place local freighters took the parts of space vessels and on Asart they were reassembled. The mighty nonatmosphere ships of Tolnep could not even take off from a planetary surface. Before every material or crew delivery, all the heavens were combed for hostile surveillance. Before every war vessel launch, surface-fired spy ships rose from Tolnep itself and scanned the skies. The function of Asart was a hard-kept secret. How had this devil come upon such data? Or was it a lucky choice? Schleim felt a crawling unease.

And then abruptly any worry he had was dispelled. The devil with the strange beast on his helmet said, “Could I ask all your lordships to come outside? Seats have been placed for your ease. And there will be what I think you will find an interesting demonstration.”

He had just unwittingly solved Schleim’s problem!

5

Lord Schleim was making very sure that he was the last to leave the room. He wanted nobody left in here. He had noticed that the room had a door and that it had a lock. By leaving last he could quite naturally close the door and turn the lock. That would be one less door he would have to watch and he could be certain that nobody lurked in this nearly soundproof room to see what would go on and leap out to surprise him.

All the other emissaries filed out. As the one deepest in the room, it was natural that he be the last to leave. The devil had tagged after them and he was gone. The small gray men had departed.

But this confounded host! The elderly man in the fancy Chinese gown seemed to have accumulated some papers and they were on the floor beside the chair where he had sat. Guest lists, of course! And one must have fallen back of the chair, for he was searching it out. He finally found it and then stood there going over it, evidently rehearsing some hard-to-pronounce names. So Schleim had to pretend that he had misplaced something and stood there going through his pockets and looking thoughtful. It was a bit of a strain waiting the host out. The man did not seem to notice him but just stood there, running a finger down a list and muttering. Fine time to rehearse, thought Schleim acidly. In another few moments his own delay would become noticeable. But he had to be sure this was an empty room. Too soundproof! And it might have screens in it—he looked about. There was a device in one upper corner. Could it be a viewing device? Hard to tell. Bad light. This projector might also be a viewer. No, he better wait in case somebody should look in here.

At last! The host moved with a sort of sailing walk up the aisle to the door, still muttering over his list. Schleim went along right behind him.

The Tolnep was almost to the door, was even reaching to close it, when the host stopped.

Lord Schleim, almost in the doorway now, eyes only for the door, was distracted by two technicians appearing. The same technicians who had set up the projector. They were rushing in to move it.

The collision was sudden and violent.

The scepter flew from Schleim’s hand.

A technician caught a glimpse of fangs right in front of his face and raised his arm. Unable to check its forward crush, the technician’s heavy sleeve banged into Schleim’s mouth.

The reaction of a Tolnep was inevitable. He bit! He bit hard and repeatedly, hissing in rage as he struck!

With a yell the technician reeled back. He staggered away, holding his sleeve close to his body with the other hand, and vanished into another doorway.

The second technician was chattering horrified apologies in some tongue. Chinese? He reached down and picked up a gold object from the floor and shakingly handed it to Schleim.

Schleim gripped it. He felt the perforations at the top and the rings at the bottom. He straightened up his glasses and heaved a sigh of relief. At least the scepter was secure!

The host was brushing him off with heavy, frantic apologies. The host took a second to gesture impatiently at the second technician and only then did the hovering man go in and get the projector and wheel it out.

Managing to hang back and seem offended, Schleim at last got the room empty and, without the concerned host remarking it, closed and locked the door. Schleim even pretended to limp a bit. He told the host not to mind. And he went to join the others.

In the hospital, Dr. Allen and a nurse were getting the Chinese “technician” out of his jacket. They did it very delicately. Dr. Allen took the padded sleeve and, without touching it, cut it off the jacket and let it fall into a wide-mouthed jar. Drops of poison were visible on the cloth, oozing back up out of the padding.

Dr. Allen looked at the arm. In Psychlo, he said, “Not a scratch, but a good thing we put the leather lining in. That was a brave thing to do, Chong-won.”

The chief ignored his compliment. He threw down a thin knife and a small blast gun. “He had the knife in the back of his neck and the gun in his boot. I thought we might as well have them, too.”

“Are you sure he might not have had something else?” said Dr. Allen. “I don’t want to patch up any more holes in Jonnie than I have to.”

“Nothing else,” said Chong-won, “unless he bats somebody over the head with that scepter.”

“I’m sure Jonnie can duck that if it comes to a fight,” said Dr. Allen. “This Lord Schleim is a very dangerous creature.” He gestured toward the jar which held the sleeve. “Nurse, add that to our collection so we can develop some antivenin for it.”

6

Colonel Ivan lay in the dark, a flamethrower resting on the sandbags piled before him. He was at the first turning of the underground passages that labyrinthed down into the base. At every turn behind him lay more sandbagged abutments, every one of them manned.

His beard was singed off. His hands were covered with blisters.

In front of him, fifty feet away, the main entrance door, steel armored, had begun to glow from the pounding it was taking. Hot blast shots were hitting the outside every few seconds.

He had pulled his planes back in—when was that—yesterday? They were out of fuel and ammunition and of no further use in the air. Pilots were scattered below, behind the abutments.

His radio antennae had gone out. Was that yesterday too? It seemed like half a year ago.

Every mine they had planted out front had now been exploded. A thousand mines? And although the terrain out front was carpeted with strange, dismembered corpses, it had not stopped the attack.

The door was growing hotter now, gone from red to blue in some spots. How long would it last? How long could he stand the searing heat of it?

He wondered what Marshal Jonnie was doing.

Chief of Clanfearghus lay on his unwounded side, looking along the face of the rock. There was no retreat. The tunnels had caved in behind him.

They had the last antiaircraft gun that would fire. They were not using it to shoot upward now. They had it trained on the spot the enemy would most likely attack to breach the last barricade to the rock.

The firestorm that had been Edinburgh roared ceaselessly above the din of small arms fire. How long could old buildings burn?

They had thought they had the enemy halted until just now. A new ship was high, high up there. It had just arrived and it was now sending down plane after plane of troops.

There was only Dunneldeen flying now. There he came from the direction of Cornwall where he had gone to refuel.

Why hadn’t they listened to MacTyler and crowded everyone into the old Cornwall minesite? Sentiment for Edinburgh. Well, what would Edinburgh be now but ashes?

A wave of enemy troops was gathering now, getting ready for an assault upon that other entrance. He hoped Dunneldeen would live through this. The Scots, if any were left, would need him. The chief of Clanfearghus did not think that he himself would. Too much blood was coming from his side.

He wondered what MacTyler was doing now.

“Fire low into that first wave,” he told the gunner. “And keep firing as long as you have ammunition left. At least we can gae oot i’ a blaze o’ glory!”

At Singapore, the Scottish officer turned to the blaze-blackened communicator and lowered his infrabeam binoculars. “I don’t understand it.”

Tolnep marines had been using artillery to pound a hole under the atmosphere-armor cable to the north. It had cost them very dearly. They had lost twelve tanks trying to do just that. But a running group of them had rushed up to that distant cable before they could be stopped and had blown a hole wide open beneath it at a cost of five marines.

The Scottish officer had fully expected that with the next wave some of them would get to the powerhouse and turn all their power off and leave them defenseless.

But they had suddenly withdrawn.

For the past twenty minutes they had been picking up wounded and salvaging equipment and boarding launchcrafts, harassed continually by the terrestrial battle planes.

Now they were soaring up out of reach.

The Tolnep fleet was circling. Some minutes ago, the antiaircraft control men had reported all non-Tolnep ships up there had pulled out, one for Edinburgh, three more for Russia.

Now there were just Tolneps up there.

“They’re leaving!” said the Scottish officer. Well, this point at the Singapore minesite had served as a diversion that pinned enemy forces down. And for quite a while with very light losses. The cost to the enemy had been great.

While he watched, the last of his own planes pulled back. None were equipped with door seals to let them fly out of the atmosphere.

His planes were landing now. The last one came in. When its motor went off, the silence after all the constant din almost hurt the ears. There was only the sizzle of armor cable.

Way to the south and east, black smoke still soared above the ancient ruins of Singapore.

“Those ships up there are heading west!” the antiaircraft control officer called across to him. “Slightly south of west.”

“Speed?” said the Scottish officer.

“They’re still accelerating. Wait. I’m plotting this. On that course they are going to arrive at Kariba minesite. They must be low on solar charge because their speed is only about two miles a second. They would get to the Kariba site . . . in thirty-seven or thirty-eight minutes.”

The Scottish officer said to the communicator, “Warn Kariba ops they’re about to have company.”

The smoking terrain all about them showed the hell that flotilla could raise. Without the armor cable the defenders here would have been dead ten times over.

A bird sang somewhere. Funny in these charred ruins.

The Scottish officer wondered what Jonnie was doing just now. Whatever it was, they had better get a move on at Kariba. God, he was tired. Those Tolneps played rough games! If they had not pulled out so strangely, the whole force here at the Singapore minesite, armor power off, would have been slaughtered in another twenty minutes. Yes, they better look alive at Kariba.

7

It had taken a little while to get the emissaries settled back down outside. Some had wanted to change their breathing cartridges, another one or two had wanted a bite of something. Others had just strolled around, looking over the inside of the bowl, curious but friendly enough. One of them had gone so far as to haggle with a Chinese among the village refugees over buying a dog. He had never seen a dog before and he thought it was cute, especially after it snapped at him. He couldn’t understand that the Chinese, who spoke no Psychlo, refused. Five thousand credits was a lot of money to pass up. It would buy a house and farm on Splandorf, his home planet.

But they were all settled down now. Even Lord Schleim, who had done an awful lot of wandering about, chin parked most of the time on the rounded top of his scepter.

It was night. The platform was lighted with mine spots. The emissaries were seated on benches and in chairs which had been arranged in a half-circle just out of the danger range of the huge metal square. Some were still talking to one another, but they were interested.

Jonnie was standing in the middle of the platform and for a bit they wondered whether he was going to send himself someplace or something like that. The spotlights flashed off his buttons and the creature on his helmet seemed to be alive. Interesting even to a bored lord.

“My lords,” said Jonnie, “may I ask further forgiveness for absorbing your valuable time. But to settle this thing with Schleim, I fear we have to have a demonstration. It is a demonstration of excessive appetite. With your permission?”

All but the combatant lords and Schleim laughed. A demonstration of appetite. Some sort of eating contest? They’d seen those before. But yes, by all means go ahead.

Jonnie slapped the wand into his hand twice. Two mechanics came rushing out of the shadows with a very splendidly decorated mine cart.

And on the cart sat a dragon like the one on his helmet. It was about five feet long. It had wings. It had a neck. And it had a very ferocious head, a gaping fanged mouth, glaring red eyes and horns. And from head to tail it had spines jutting out all the way along. A gold-scaled, scarlet-mouthed dragon.

The mechanics made as if to lift the dragon down off the cart, but Jonnie warned them back as though the dragon might bite.

Schleim guffawed. Engrossed as he was in listening and knowing well it didn’t matter what the devil did, he still could not restrain himself. “That’s not a live beast!” he hectored. “That’s just a painted figure made of clay! There are more like it right over there!” And he pointed toward the unfinished works where they lay unmounted. “It’s just a hollow image!” Theatrics, good Lord; the poor fool thought he could take these lords in like they were children!

But the lords looked at him a bit reprovingly for interrupting, particularly the one behind him who leaned over and said, “Hush.” Schleim looked at him. He was a huge creature who must have had a genetic line back to trees. His skin was barklike and he had masses of leafy-looking “hair.” His arms were about a foot in diameter. Schleim decided he’d have to watch this one when he made his move. Not long now.

“Forgive Lord Schleim,” said Jonnie. “He has been under a strain and doesn’t see well.”

The lords guffawed now. “This beast on the cart,” continued Jonnie, “is called a ‘dragon.’ If you look, you will see his mother at the console over there.”

The lords looked at the bigger dragon that wrapped around the console. They laughed. His mother!

Sir Robert was standing in the door of the ops room. Behind him Stormalong, with reports in his hand, was arguing with him in a low voice. But Sir Robert was shaking his head. Finally Sir Robert said audibly, “Let the lad alone!” And Stormalong went back inside.

Lord Schleim had noticed it. Somebody had reported the flotilla somewhere? Maybe he’d have to act faster than he had planned. He cocked an ear at the sky. They would arrive and launch something into the atmosphere he could hear. That was his instruction.

“Now if you will notice,” said Jonnie, “the dragon on the cart is different from the dragon on my helmet.” He pointed to his forehead. “The tiny one has been fed.”

Yes, that one on his helmet did have a small round ball in its mouth. A small, round, white ball.

“And the one on the cart is hungry!” said Jonnie. “For your collection of data on the flora and fauna of various worlds, you should have these facts. This is an imperial dragon! It eats moons and planets!”

They thought it was a pretty good joke. Rulers were always eating up planets. Imperial diet! Get it? Good joke. The emissaries laughed. They understood it was an allegory they were watching. Clever.

Jonnie cautioned back the mechanics again, petted the clay dragon on the head soothingly. Then he suddenly put his arms under the neck and belly, the way you might catch a wild beast by surprise, and staggered back. That dragon was heavy!

The mechanics whisked away the decorated mine cart and vanished. Schleim carefully watched them as well as he could see into the shadows. Oh, they just went back and stood there watching. All right, no problem when the paralysis beam was turned on.

Jonnie had set the dragon down on the center of the platform. And now he did a most interesting thing. He leaned over the dragon’s head and he was talking into its ear.

“Very good,” said Jonnie. “I know you are hungry. SO GO EAT UP ASART!”

Out of their sight on the other side of the dragon, he reached in, heard a soft “now” from Angus at the console, and ratcheted down the time fuse lever of the ultimate bomb, lying in the dragon’s hollow belly, to five minutes. With the thumbnail of his other hand he pierced the cap of a smoke bomb used in mines to trace currents of air in shafts.

White smoke began to pour from the dragon’s mouth in jets. Ferocious!

Jonnie skipped back off the platform. Angus hit the firing button.

Jonnie’s wand pointed at the dragon. “Go! And don’t come back until you have devoured Asart! Go!”

Wires hummed.

The dragon, smoke and all, shimmered and was gone.

There was a very small recoil.

Jonnie looked at his watch. Three and a half minutes to go.

He walked back across the platform. There was a cold, cold hangover on it where it had doubled with the icy space of Asart.

“Now do any of you lords have a picto-recorder you can trust?” said Jonnie. “I do not want to use our own since you might not trust it. I want to borrow a picto-recorder, one that you can seal, that can’t be tampered with.”

The lord from Fowljopan, an empire of seven hundred worlds, said he’d oblige. He went to his apartment and got it out of his hamper. He came back and checked the loading. Jonnie made him wrap a metal seal around it and clench it and make sure it couldn’t be tampered with.

The two mechanics now rushed to the platform and laid down a gyrocage from a drone. Jonnie asked the lord from Fowljopan to lay the recorder in the gyroslots. The lord glanced at the console to make sure it wasn’t being operated, glanced up at the poles to be sure they weren’t humming, and walked to the center of the platform and put his picto-recorder inside the cage, and, as Jonnie requested, locked it down. He left the platform.

Jonnie glanced at his watch. Seven minutes had gone by. That dragon had been laid exactly on the surface of Asart. The bomb should have gone off two minutes ago. This next shot would put the picto-recorder well up from that moon and to the side.

“Now!” said Angus.

The wires hummed.

The picto-recorder and cage shimmered and vanished.

There was no recoil.

Numbers on Jonnie’s watch whirred. Thirty-nine seconds.

There was a change in the humming. There was a shimmer on the platform.

The picto-recorder and cage reappeared.

The humming went off.

There was a slight recoil.

Two mechanics rolled up the dolly the projector sat on so that it was among the emissaries.

“Now if you please, my lord,” said Jonnie to the Fowljopan, “would you please retrieve your recorder and take it to the projector and unseal it. And please be certain that it is your disk by putting a few words on the end of it. Then make sure there is no other disk or trace in the machine and put your disk in. If you please.”

Lord of Fowljopan did exactly as requested. “The recorder is ice cold!” was all he said.

Jonnie held his breath. He had a pretty good idea of what the bomb did. But he was not sure. This was the touch-and-go moment!

He hit the remote. Off went the spotlights. On went the recorder picture.

There in the dark before them was Asart, three-dimensional. There were the five ellipses which identified it.

Used to bombs and explosions, they had indifferently expected to see some high tower of dust or smoke. Actually, they had not thought, most of them, that much would happen. Jonnie had been so calm, so polite, certainly not a mood in which one engaged in war.

They didn’t see anything strange for a moment. And then as the picture rolled off the disk, they saw a hole. A hole occurring in the upper right surface of Asart. Just a hole. No, there was a bit of black around the edge of it.

Schleim, ear cocked at the sky, felt a jar of alarm. What in the name of fifty devils was going on here? But he relaxed. Bombs went boom. There were no bombs that made just a hole. The picture went off and Fowljopan’s “My voice here” came on.

“Theatrics!” laughed Schleim. “You’re engaging in nonsense!”

“My lords,” said Jonnie. “Does another one of you have a picto-recorder I can borrow?”

Yes, my Lord Dom had one. He went and got it and they went through the same procedure as before.

Angus updated the time, cast the recorder to a new angle, and got it back.

Lord Dom, a little bit frightened at the implications of this to the twelve hundred worlds of his republic, had a quaver in his voice when he put it on the disk.

Jonnie hit the switches.

Asart gleamed in the dark before them.

About a hundredth of the moon had become a hole edged in curling black clouds. And just before the view went off, down in the lower left, it looked like a door had opened in the crust, not part of the growing hole.

A breath of terror trembled through the gathering. But Jonnie was not going to let it become a riot.

“You see, my lords, the dragon was hungry.” He laughed lightly. “He is also a very obedient dragon. Told to eat the moon, he is eating Asart! A very controllable dragon after all.”

Had he hit them with ice water he could not have produced a more chilling effect. Their eyes focused on him in growing horror.

Schleim broke the spell. It had occurred to him that he had a new way to guarantee success. He had a spare gun in his hamper as well as a recorder. He had just felt in his boot and discovered the weapon gone. Damn that valet! Hawvin slaves were never any good.

“All you are doing,” said Schleim, “is casting that recorder out somewhere to a model you’ve made in the hills. And you have people regulating a model for it to photograph! You’re a fraud!” And Schleim really believed it. But he had to make sure before he went off the edge. “There’s a recorder in my hamper.”

“Go get it,” said Jonnie.

Schleim rushed to his apartment. He scrambled through the hamper. Ah! Not just a spare gun but also a spare scepter hidden in the bottom, a spare with another paralysis beam in its heel. He could leave one on in a chair while he carried the other one out to turn the power cable off. Ha, ha! Three blast grenades! After he turned the beam on, he’d pitch one into the ops room and use the other two to silence anyone rushing out of another door. Perfect! He wouldn’t torture the Hawvin slave after all. Good fellow!

Schleim carried the whole hamper back to the gathering and set it beside his chair. Cautiously opening it so they wouldn’t see what else was in it, he removed the picto-recorder. It was a different make and type but it played a disk.

“Devil,” said Schleim, “we will end your fraud here and now. You would not know, not being a native of a proper planet, that on the back of Asart is a huge diamond with a slash. It is done with hyperband nullifying material to act as a navigation and identification marker. It is unknown to practically everyone except a fleet officer. The marker will not show up on your standard recorders. And you have none like this one that takes the hyper-spectrum as well as what you call visible light. It will show that diamond and slash. Yours won’t. So of course you didn’t put one on your fake model. I am about to expose you as the fraud of all time!”

He sounded confident. But before that rig was destroyed he really had to know. Was it a model up in the hills or was that Asart? If it was Asart . . . should he be sure his torturer got the secret of teleportation? What a weapon!

He slithered over and put his recorder into the gyrocage, sealed the cage shut with a claw pattern, and walked off the platform.

Angus had heard it all. He shifted coordinates so that the recorder would view both the back of Asart and the hole.

He fired it and recalled it, and when the recoil died, Lord Schleim raced up to it, checked the claw pattern. It had not been broken.

He came back to the projector. He made absolutely sure it was not projecting something else. He put “This is Lord Schleim!” on the disk and put it into the machine.

Did his ear detect a far-off whine in the sky?

8

Lord Schleim felt there would be no diamond and slash beacon in the picture that would, in a moment, be shown. Only Tolnep eyes would ever detect that and only a Tolnep-modified picto-recorder could film it. He would use this moment to distract the others.

Yes! That was a whine in the sky. The fleet would be over them in moments. The timing was just right. How clever of him. But he had a well-deserved reputation as a slippery diplomat. Formidable in fact.

He walked over to his chair, made very sure his hamper was well within reach. He glanced back at the assembled emissaries. They were all craning forward tensely, waiting for the picture to come on—totally off guard. He spotted exactly where the devil was standing, slightly in front of them all and well clear of the projector. Schleim fingered the bottom ring of the scepter.

“Turn on the latest picture of your fake model!” jeered Schleim.

Jonnie hit the buttons. Off went the mine spotlights. On went the three-dimensional picture of Asart.

It was a new angle. It showed the back side of the moon as well as some of the front. Filtration gave it a bluish hue, but it was Asart. It seemed to float hugely before them.

And right there in the center, massive and unmistakable, was the diamond and slash insignia of Tolnep, jet-black on the surface of the moon.

Schleim gasped. It was real. That really was Asart.

One of the ends of the slash was supposed to point to a hangar door. And even as they looked, that door finished opening. The huge, yawning mouth of a Tolnep-made cavern!

The moon had deflated further now. It resembled a blue balloon with one side being poked relentlessly in, a great pucker that was growing bigger now and at a more rapid rate.

What appeared to be black gases were eddying up to fill the sunken part.

And then out of that yawning hangar bolted a war vessel! Although it must have been traveling very fast, the enormous size of it caused it to seem to move in slow motion. At least thirty thousand tons of Tolnep capital ship was seeking to escape into space.

But it was too late. It had already been touched by the pucker within the moon. A whole back section of the ship was gone!

Before the fixated eyes of the delegates, the vast space vessel was eaten up from tail to nose, its massive metal turned to gases.

Other hangar doors were starting to open.

But that was the extent of the picture. One last puff of black gas as the final bit of capital ship was overtaken by disaster and the recorded voice said “This is Lord Schleim!”

Schleim screamed! Then he acted.

He popped his earplugs shut. He leaped up. He wrenched at the bottom ring of the scepter and, as though it were a machine gun, swept it in an arc from left to right to freeze them all.

“Paralyze!” screamed Schleim. “Stand dead! Damn you, stand dead!”

It wasn’t happening fast enough! There was a surge of emissaries away from him, some falling.

He snatched the other scepter from the basket. He twisted the bottom ring and swept it all around, taking in guards in rifle pits.

They were not falling quickly enough.

Schleim dove into the hamper and came up with three grenades. With all his considerable might he hurled one into the open door of the ops room. He sent another at the bowl entrance. He hurled the third at the devil.

Before they could even land, such was his speed of reaction, he had the gun out of the hamper. He lined it up on the devil, square at his face thirty feet away. With joy he pulled the trigger.

It did not fire.

Lord Dom, a bulbous creature from a mostly liquid world, was bouncing to his feet and coming at him.

Schleim raised the pistol on high, preparing to bring it down on Dom and splatter him. A Tolnep could physically smash them all.

Straight as a sizzling arrow, Jonnie threw his knobkerrie. The hard butt end smashed into Schleim’s eye filters.

Lord Browl, the massive treelike emissary who had sat behind him, wrapped Schleim in foot-diameter arms and held him from behind in a creaking vise.

“Hold him still!” shouted Fowljopan. “Don’t let him touch his body!” With a flick of his wrist, Fowljopan snapped a beaklike knife into his right claw and advanced upon Schleim.

The Tolnep struggled but the huge arms held. Fowljopan peered with beady eyes all around the steel-like neck of the Tolnep. “Ah!” he said finally. “There is the half-healed incision!” His knife moved in and began to cut. Gray drops of Tolnep blood oozed from the shallow gash that was being made. Fowljopan squeezed the wound and a fragile glassine capsule popped out of it. It was intact.

“His suicide capsule,” said Fowljopan. “All he had to do was strike the side of his neck and he would have been dead.” He looked reprovingly at Jonnie. “Had you hit this with that throwing stick, we would have had no defendant!”

It was Jonnie’s first intimation that all was not going to go exactly as planned, and that all was not well.

Fowljopan turned to the others now crowding around. He shouted in a squawling voice, “Is it the will of the conference that this emissary be under conference arrest and be brought to trial?”

They thought. They pondered. They looked at one another. One said something about “invoking Clause Thirty-two.”

Jonnie could only think of getting in there and getting the war stopped now. Didn’t these lords realize people were dying? And as for Schleim, hadn’t they seen him try to use weapons on all of them? But he had collided with the ponderous idiocies for which governments and courts were renowned. There was even a growing whine in the sky. It threatened their own safety.

“I move that he be properly tried,” a lord at the back called out.

“All those in favor?” shouted another.

All noncombatant lords said “Aye.” The combatant ones said “No!”

“I hereby declare,” said Fowljopan, “that the emissary of Tolnep is a prisoner of the conference and is to be duly tried under Clause Thirty-two, threatening physical violence to the conference!”

That whine in the sky was much louder now. Jonnie shouldered his way through. He got right in front of the Tolnep. He pushed a scepter at his face.

“Is this what you were looking for, Schleim? This is the real one. The others were just copies we made. Duds like the rest of your weapons.”

Schleim was struggling and screaming. “Get me some chains!” shouted Fowljopan.

Jonnie came close to the Tolnep’s face. But Fowljopan was prying in among Schleim’s teeth to make sure there were no other capsules to bite down on. The moment that was done, Jonnie spoke again.

“Schleim! Tell your captain up there to draw off! Talk or I’ll shove this radio down your throat!”

Lord Dom tried to push Jonnie away. “This is a conference prisoner! He may not be communicated with until tried. Clause Fifty-one, governing trial procedures—”

Jonnie somehow controlled his temper. “Lord Dom, this conference is at this very instant under threat of bombing! For its own safety, I demand that Schleim—”

“Demand?” said Fowljopan. “Here now, those are very strong words! There are certain procedures that must be observed. And you are hereby officially informed that you yourself threw an object at an emissary. The conference—”

“To save his life!” cried Jonnie, pointing at Dom. “This Tolnep would have crushed his skull!”

“You were acting then,” said Fowljopan, “as master-at-arms of this conference? I do not recall any appointment—”

Jonnie took a breath. He thought fast. “I was acting as the appointee of the host planet which is responsible for protecting the lives of invited delegates.” He knew of no such procedure.

“Ah,” said Lord Dom, “he is invoking Clause Forty-one, responsibilities of the planet responsible for assembling emissaries.”

“Ah,” said Fowljopan. “Then you cannot also be charged. Where are those chains?”

A Chinese guard was running up with coils of jangling, mine-hoist chains. Two pilots followed him with another tangle of heavy links.

“Under Clause Forty-one,” said Jonnie desperately, “I must demand of the prisoner that he surrender his offensive forces at once.”

Lord Dom looked at Fowljopan. Fowljopan shook his head. “All that can be arranged, per Clause Nineteen, is a temporary suspension of hostilities where warfare threatens the physical safety of a conference.”

“Good!” said Jonnie. He knew he was at risk. These emissaries were not as friendly now. But he would push it all he could. He had to save lives. Not only theirs but those of any survivors of Edinburgh. He shoved the radio close to Schleim’s mouth. “Declare an immediate suspension of hostilities, Schleim! And tell that captain up there to draw his forces off!”

Lord Schleim simply spat at them.

They were wrapping him in chains now. Somebody had found a spare filter in the hamper and replaced the shattered ones over his eyes so he could see. They had him on the ground and he looked like a huge coil of hoist chain. Only his face was visible now. His lips were drawn back and nothing but hisses were coming out of him.

Jonnie was about to rage at him that if he didn’t talk into this radio, the planet of Tolnep would get one big dragon. The thought that this, too, might violate something made him hesitate for a moment, searching for words.

Lord Dom accidentally solved it before Jonnie could speak. “Schleim,” said Lord Dom, “I am sure it will go much easier with you at your trial if you call off your forces.”

This was the bit of grass that Schleim had been wriggling to get. “On that condition, and if the captain of that fleet up there will forego his piratical venture and follow my orders, give me the radio.”

It was promptly shoved to his mouth by a Jonnie who would rather have smashed his fangs in with it. “No codes! Just say, ‘I have hereby declared a temporary suspension of hostilities’ and ‘You are ordered to withdraw into orbit remote from all combat areas.’”

Schleim looked at the faces above him. When Jonnie pressed the hidden talk switch, Schleim surprised them all by saying exactly what Jonnie had told him to say. But was there a lurking smile on the Tolnep’s mouth?

Some prearrangement or regulation must be going into effect up there in space. Rogodeter Snowl’s voice came back through the scepter, “It is my duty to inquire whether the emissary of Tolnep is under any physical threat or duress.”

They looked at each other. It was obvious that Tolnep naval regulations covered such sudden and otherwise inexplicable orders.

Schleim, wrapped to the chin in heavy, mine-hoist chain, smiled. “May I speak to him again?”

“Tell him to comply at once!” said Jonnie. He didn’t want to make an overt threat against the Tolnep planet in this company and at this time.

Again, Schleim said exactly what Jonnie had told him to say.

Rogodeter Snowl’s voice came back, “I can only comply if I am assured that the personal safety of the emissary of Tolnep is guaranteed and that the conference promises to return him unharmed to the planet Tolnep.”

Fowljopan said to Lord Dom, “It simply precludes execution.”

“By Clause Forty-two,” said Lord Browl, “a trial can still be held. It is quite normal. I move we guarantee this emissary’s safe return as a personal matter. All those in favor?”

The ayes came back, unanimous this time.

Fowljopan was looking around. “Where is . . . where is . . . ?”

The small gray man appeared among them. He took the scepter from Jonnie. He looked around at the faces of the lords and then, as they nodded, he spoke into the mike. First he gave a code word followed by a peculiar buzz which seemed to come from the lapel of his gray suit. Then he said, “Captain Snowl, it is certified that the emissary of Tolnep will be returned, physically unharmed, to his planet in due course, but not with any unreasonable delay.”

Snowl’s voice came back: “Thank you, Your Excellency. Please inform the emissaries that I will honor a temporary suspension of hostilities and at this moment am withdrawing to an orbit clear of this and all combat areas. End transmission.”

Jonnie was pointing at the emissaries of the other combatants. They were the ones wrecking Edinburgh and Russia! “Lord Fowljopan,” said Jonnie, “I am certain any temporary suspension of hostilities includes all combatants.”

“Ah,” said Fowljopan. He thought. “We have no guarantee that only Tolnep ships were up there. It would be irregular for these others not to agree.”

But the Bolbod, Drawkin, Hawvin and other combatant lords were pointing at Sir Robert who was standing outside the ops room.

“We agree!” shouted Sir Robert with an expression of disgust for their delays.

The combatant emissaries started to look around for communication facilities. A mob of communicators with mikes rushed out and almost knocked them down.

With a spatter and batter of many tongues, the other combatants ordered a temporary suspension of hostilities for all their ships.

Good God, thought Jonnie. All this while men went on dying. It was still very touch-and-go. No one had said hostilities would not be resumed and with even greater ferocity.

And who was this small gray man who exerted such power over them? Where did he fit in? Who was he? What would he want out of all this? Another threat?

9

The emissaries were dragging Schleim off when Quong, Sir Robert’s Buddhist communicator, ran up to Jonnie.

“Sir Robert asks me to tell you,” whispered the boy, “that there will be a sudden exodus in a moment and not to be alarmed. They have been working it out in ops for the past half-hour and the orders are being issued this instant. There are hundreds of people trapped in shelters in Edinburgh. The tunnel corridors and entrances fell in under heavy bombs. They do not know how many are alive or anything else. He says it is like a caved-in mine. They are leaving in minutes and he wants you to carry on here. If needed he will come back.”

Jonnie felt like a cold hand had gripped his heart. Chrissie and Pattie were part of that. If they still lived.

“I should go!” said Jonnie.

“No, no,” said the boy Quong. “Sir Robert said you would say that, Lord Jonnie. They will do everything that can be done. He said to tell you he is leaving all this in your hands.”

At that moment pandemonium broke loose. Sir Robert raced out of the ops room. He had somewhere changed his clothes and the gray cloak billowed as he donned it on the run.

“Goodbye, Lord Jonnie,” said Quong and raced away.

Sir Robert was at the passage, waving his arm with an urgent swing, “Come on!” he bellowed. “Come on!”

Doctors MacKendrick and Allen sped out of the hospital area, shutting valises as they ran. Allen turned and shouted something at the nurse and then sped on.

The walking wounded hobbled and limped out, heading for the passage.

Four pilots raced by.

Guards who a moment before had been covering Schleim from pits were yelling to one another, and a soldier carrying several packs raced toward them and then they were gone.

A crowd of officers and communicators slammed out of ops and headed for the passage exit.

Suddenly, Jonnie was aware of the turmoil and commotion among the Chinese. Mothers were dumping babies and a screech of instructions at older daughters and then running to the exit. The Chinese men were snatching up bits and pieces from the personal baggage, shooing smaller children into the vicinity of the half-grown girls, yelling at each other to hurry. Dogs, snapped on to leashes that were pushed into the hands of young boys, set up a cacophony of barking and howling at being made to stay.

A plane motor started up. Then another.

Three Scot pilots ran out of the ops room, getting into flight clothes and gripping maps.

And all the time Sir Robert was at the exit shouting, “Come on! Come on!”

From the open door of ops, Stormalong’s voice was rising above the din. “Victoria? Victoria? Damn it, man, keep your radios manned! Take every mine pump you’ve got. Every atmosphere hose and pump. Got that? I know it’s in clear! All right.” A woman communicator in there was taking over. She started to chatter Pali.

“Come on!” Sir Robert was shouting at the delaying few. “Damn it, Edinburgh is burning!”

A plane took off. Sir Robert was gone. Another plane. Another, another, another. From the whip of sound they were lancing up to hypersonic in seconds. Jonnie wondered whether they were leaving any aircraft at all.

Lord Dom came over to Jonnie. His big, liquidy face looked a bit concerned. “What’s happening? Are you abandoning this area? You realize that in a temporary suspension of hostilities it is irregular to use it to arrange the redisposition of military forces to achieve the advantage of surprise when hostilities are resumed. I would caution—”

Jonnie had had just about enough of being Chinko polite for one day. He was worried about Chrissie and Pattie. And very concerned about his village people who had gone to Russia. “They are on their way to try to dig hundreds of people out of collapsed shelters,” said Jonnie. “I don’t think your rules apply to noncombatants, Lord Dom. And even if they did, not even you could stop those Scots. They’re on their way to save what they can of the Scottish nation.”

Jonnie walked into ops. The place was in a shambles left by the hasty departure. Only the Buddhist woman communicator and Stormalong were there. She had finished her messages and was sitting back, head bowed, exhausted. They had been on straight duty for days without rest. This was the first lull.

“Russia?” said Jonnie to Stormalong.

“I sent the whole contingent at Singapore there over half an hour ago. They took everything they had. It’s just a flight over the Himalayas and they’ll be there in another couple of hours. I don’t know what they’ll find—we haven’t heard from Russia for a couple of days.”

“Edinburgh?” said Jonnie.

“Nothing for the last hour.”

“Did I hear you sending everyone at Victoria to Scotland?” said Jonnie. “What about the prisoners there?”

“Oh, they gave Ker a blast rifle.” He saw Jonnie’s look. “Ker says he’ll blow their heads off if they so much as move an eyebone! They left that old woman from the Mountains of the Moon to handle their diets. And all your vital notes are safe—” He was about to add “here” when he saw Lord Dom at the door and looked at him.

Lord Dom said, “I didn’t wish to intrude but I couldn’t help overhearing. Haven’t you left this whole conference area, maybe this whole continent, maybe the planet, without air cover?”

Jonnie shrugged and pointed to Stormalong. “There’s he and me.”

This startled Lord Dom. He quivered a bit.

Stormalong laughed and said, “Why, that’s twice as many as there used to be! Not long ago, there was just him!” He pointed at Jonnie.

Lord Dom blinked. He stared at Jonnie. The young man didn’t seem worried at all.

Lord Dom went off and told his colleagues about this. They discussed it considerably among themselves.

They decided they had better keep a careful eye on Jonnie.

10

Jonnie stood outside the ops room door and looked around the bowl. How quiet it seemed.

The older Chinese children had quieted the younger ones and gotten them to bed. The dogs were silent, exhausted from the excitement of a while ago. The emissaries had all gone off to their apartments or guard duty over Schleim. There were no sentries in sight. The place seemed deserted. Even though it was not late yet.

To one brought up in the silences of mountains, the calm was welcome.

It might be the sort of calm that is followed by blasting storm. But it was a moment’s calm.

Too many situations were running all at the same time for him to have any peace of mind. Who knew what would happen as a result of the emissary trial: he did not trust them. What would occur after this “temporary suspension” of war? What would they find in Edinburgh? In Russia? He told himself he had better not let his mind dwell long on these last two places or he would edge over into anxiety and grief.

That book he had read—that said you could handle things if you did one of them at a time: good advice.

Psychlo! He had been living in such a tornado that the question of Psychlo had become a sort of dull pain like a toothache. Was there any danger of counterattack? Or was that just a shadow?

Ha! This was a thing he had been waiting for. He had a transshipment rig. It was in fine working order. There were no planes in the air, no motors running. Psychlo! He would end right now that question of threat.

He strode over to the console and almost fell over Angus. The Scot was sitting in a pool of light, working intensely with some rods and wheels. He didn’t look up, but he knew Jonnie was there.

“While you were settling up with Schleim,” said Angus, fingers flying around his work, “I parked a picto-recorder on a peak on Tolnep to watch that moon. Reaction motors don’t mess up a firing—only teleportation motors do. So I just fired it. But that was the only gyrocage assembled. I’m putting together a spare.”

“Angus,” said Jonnie, “we are going to find out what happened to Psychlo! We’ve got the machine, we’ve got the time.”

“Give me about half an hour,” said Angus.

Jonnie saw he needed no help and he wasn’t going to stand around here and wait.

En route to his room he looked in at the hospital. They had left a woman nurse, an elderly Scot, and she resented being left behind. She looked up from a patient as Jonnie entered. “It’s time for your sulfa and your shot!” she said threateningly. Jonnie knew he shouldn’t have come in here. He had just wanted to see how the wounded were doing.

The two fractured-skull cases were lying in their beds. They seemed all right. But being Scots and left behind, they eyed him dully. The two burned antiaircraft gunners seemed all right but, being Scots, they didn’t want to be there with Edinburgh burning.

“Take off your jacket!” snapped the nurse. Then she took the bandage off his arm and looked at the arrow wound. “Hah!” she said, sounding disappointed, “it won’t even leave a scar!”

She made him take sulfa powder and wash it down with water. She jabbed an inch of needle into his good arm and squirted B Complex stingingly with a savage thumb. She took his temperature and counted his pulse. “You’re perfectly well!” It sounded like an indictment.

Jonnie had had a lot of practice in diplomacy that day. He felt sorry for these people. Jacket and helmet dangling from his hand he said, “I sure am glad you people stayed. I may need lots of help defending this area.”

After a moment of amazement, they all came alive. They said he could count on them! And when he left they were all chattering about what they could do and smiling—even the nurse.

With the exodus of the adult Chinese, he hadn’t really expected to find Mr. Tsung. But there he was. He had laid out a blue jacket on the bed along with some other items for change. But he was bowing and beaming. With his hands tucked in his sleeves, he was going up and down like a pump.

He was trying to say something, but his English wasn’t up to it and suddenly he bolted and came back with Chief Chong-won.

“Well, at least you’re here,” said Jonnie. “I thought the place was near empty!”

“Oh, no,” said the chief. “The coordinators are all gone. But we have guests, you know. The emissaries. So I’m here and the cook; there’s an electrician and two antiaircraft gunners.” He started counting off on his fingers. “Must be a dozen people left. We do have one problem.” He saw Jonnie go alert. “It’s the food. I thought we’d be feeding all these emissaries and we got ready to fix the fanciest Chinese food you ever heard of. But they don’t eat our food! So we have all this food and nobody to eat it! Too bad!”

To a people who had been pressed starving into the snowy mountains for centuries, it must look like quite a tragedy. “Feed the children,” said Jonnie.

“Oh, we have, we have,” said the chief. “Even the dogs. But we’ve still got lots too much food. I tell you what we’ll do. There’s an empty apartment and we’ll set it up for a dining room and we will feed you a beautiful dinner.”

“I’ve got something to do,” said Jonnie.

“Oh, no problem, no problem. It is very stylish to eat late. The cook will be so pleased. Here,” and he made a dash outside to the hall and brought back a tray with some soup and small patties of dough and meat. “These are . . . no Psychlo word . . . between-meal-bites. Help us out!”

Jonnie laughed. If that was all the problems they had, life would be a basking in the sun! He sat down in a chair and began to eat the snack. Tsung, after setting up a small table, was back to bobbing again.

“What’s he bowing about?” said Jonnie.

The chief waved his hand and Jonnie saw that a fourth viewscreen had been installed, making two for the conference room. “He’s been in here all the time you were on that platform, working a coordinator half to death translating. They’ve got disks of everything that went on. The second screen was so they could see both you and the emissaries. I looked in here a time or two—”

Mr. Tsung was volubly interrupting him. The chief translated, “He wants you to know that you are the fastest pupil he has ever seen. He says if you had been an imperial prince of China and his family had still been chamberlains and not exiled, China would still be there.”

Jonnie laughed and would have acknowledged with a return compliment, but Mr. Tsung was talking very fast and drawing something from his sleeve. “He wants something,” said the chief. “He wants you to put your ‘chop’ on this paper. That is, your signature.” He was unfolding it. It was a considerable expanse of Chinese characters.

The chief raised his eyebrows and translated the sense of it for Jonnie. “This says that you approve the cancellation of exile of his family from the imperial court and that you recommend its reinstatement as chamberlains to the principal government of this planet and yourself.”

“I’m not a member of the government,” said Jonnie.

“He knows all that, but he wants your chop on it. I warn you that he has two brothers and several relatives. They’re all educated in diplomacy and such. Oh, he tells me there’s a second paper here. Yes. This one restores their rank as Mandarins of the Blue Button—lets them wear a round cap with a blue button on top—noblemen, actually. It’s valid. They are noblemen.”

“But I’m not—” began Jonnie.

Mr. Tsung sang off into half a dozen trills of protest.

“He says you don’t know what you are. Put your chop on these and he’ll do the rest.”

Jonnie said, “But I have no authority. The war isn’t over yet. Not by a long ways! I—”

“He says wars are wars and diplomats are diplomats and there is no point in the game when it ends. I’d sign them, if I were you, Lord Jonnie. They’re all studying Psychlo and English. It’s his chance to attain an eleven-hundred-year-old goal. I’ll read these word for word for you.”

Well, Jonnie felt they might not have made it without Mr. Tsung, so he was given a brush and he signed them and Chief Chong-won witnessed them.

Mr. Tsung reverently folded the pieces of paper into a cover of gold brocade and laid them away like they were crown jewels.

“Oh, yes,” said Jonnie as he left. “One more thing. Tell him how much I enjoyed that tale about the dragon who ate the moon.”