The Human Edge

I

In the third hour after the docking of the great, personal spaceship of the Morah Jhan—on the planetoid outpost of the 469th Corps which was then stationed just outside the Jhan’s spatial frontier—a naked figure in a ragged gray cloak burst from a crate of supplies being unloaded off the huge alien ship. The figure ran around uttering strange cries for a little while, eluding the Morah who had been doing the unloading, until it was captured at last by the human Military Police guarding the smaller, courier vessel, alongside, which had brought Ambassador Alan Dormu here from Earth to talk with the Jhan.

The Jhan himself, and Dormu—along with Marshal Sayers Whin and most of the other ranking officers, Morah and human alike—had already gone inside, to the Headquarters area of the outpost, where an athletic show was being put on for the Jhan’s entertainment. But the young captain in charge of the Military Police, on his own initiative, refused the strong demands of the Morah that the fugitive be returned to them. For it, or he, showed signs of being—or of once having been—a man, under his rags and dirt and some surgicallike changes that had been made in him.

One thing was certain. He was deathly afraid of his Morah pursuers; and it was not until he was shut in a room out of sight of them that he quieted down. However, nothing could bring him to say anything humanly understandable. He merely stared at the faces of all those who came close to him, and felt their clothing as someone might fondle the most precious fabric made—and whimpered a little when the questions became too insistent, trying to hide his face in his arms but not succeeding because of the surgery that had been done to him.

The Morah went back to their own ship to contact their chain of command, leading ultimately up to the Jhan; and the young Military Police captain lost no time in getting the fugitive to his Headquarters’ Section and the problem, into the hands of his own commanders. From whom, by way of natural military process, it rose through the ranks until it came to the attention of Marshal Sayers Whin.

“Hell’s Bells—” exploded Whin, on hearing it. But then he checked himself and lowered his voice. He had been drawn aside by Harold Belman, the one-star general of the Corps who was his aide; and only a thin door separated him from the box where Dormu and the Jhan sat, still watching the athletic show. “Where is the… Where is he?”

“Down in my office, sir.”

“This has got to be quite a mess!” said Whin. He thought rapidly. He was a tall, lean man from the Alaskan back country and his temper was usually short-lived. “Look, the show in there’ll be over in a minute. Go in. My apologies to the Jhan. I’ve gone ahead to see everything’s properly fixed for the meeting at lunch. Got that?”

“Yes, Marshal.”

“Stick with the Jhan. Fill in for me.”

“What if Dormu—”

“Tell him nothing. Even if he asks, play dumb. I’ve got to have time to sort this thing out, Harry! You understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said his aide.

Whin went out a side door of the small anteroom, catching himself just in time from slamming it behind him. But once out in the corridor, he strode along at a pace that was almost a run.

He had to take a lift tube down eighteen levels to his aide’s office. When he stepped in there, he found the fugitive surrounded by the officer of the day and some officers of the Military Police, including General Mack Stigh, Military Police Unit Commandant. Stigh was the ranking officer in the room; and it was to him Whin turned.

“What about it, Mack?”

“Sir, apparently he escaped from the Jhan’s ship—”

“Not that. I know that. Did you find out who he is? What he is?” Whin glanced at the fugitive who was chewing hungrily on something grayish-brown that Whin recognized as a Morah product. One of the eatables supplied for the lunch meeting with the Jhan that would be starting any moment now. Whin grimaced.

“We tried him on our own food,” said Stigh. “He wouldn’t eat it. They may have played games with his digestive system, too. No, sir, we haven’t found out anything. There’ve been a few undercover people sent into Morah territory in the past twenty years. He could be one of them. We’ve got a records search going on. Of course, chances are his record wouldn’t be in our files, anyway.”

“Stinking Morah,” muttered a voice from among the officers standing around. Whin looked up quickly, and a new silence fell.

“Records search. All right,” Whin said, turning back to Stigh, “that’s good. What did the Morah say when what’s-his-name—that officer on duty down at the docks—wouldn’t give him up?”

“Captain—?” Stigh turned and picked out a young officer with his eyes. The young officer stepped forward.

“Captain Gene McKussic, Marshal,” he introduced himself.

“You were the one on the docks?” Whin asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“What did the Morah say?”

“Just—that he wasn’t human, sir,” said McKussic. “That he was one of their own experimental pets, made out of one of their own people—just to look human.”

“What else?”

“That’s all, Marshal.”

“And you didn’t believe them?”

“Look at him, sir—” McKussic pointed at the fugitive, who by this time had finished his food and was watching them with bright but timid eyes. “He hasn’t got a hair on him, except where a man’d have it. Look at his face. And the shape of his head’s human. Look at his fingernails, even—”

“Yes—” said Whin slowly, gazing at the fugitive. Then he raised his eyes and looked around at the other officers. “But none of you thought to get a doctor in here to check?”

“Sir,” said Stigh, “we thought we should contact you, first—”

“All right. But get a doctor now! Get two of them!” said Whin. One of the other officers turned to a desk nearby and spoke into an intercom. “You know what we’re up against, don’t you—all of you?” Whin’s eyes stabbed around the room. “This is just the thing to blow Ambassador Dormu’s talk with the Morah Jhan sky high. Now, all of you, except General Stigh, get out of here. Go back to your quarters and stay on tap until you’re given other orders. And keep your mouths shut.”

“Marshal,” it was the young Military Police captain, McKussic, “we aren’t going to give him back to the Morah, no matter what, are we, sir…”

He trailed off. Whin merely looked at him.

“Get to your quarters, Captain!” said Stigh, roughly.

The room cleared. When they were left alone with the fugitive, Stigh’s gaze went slowly to Whin.

“So,” said Whin, “you’re wondering that too, are you, Mack?”

“No, sir,” said Stigh. “But word of this is probably spreading through the men like wildfire, by this time. There’ll be no stopping it. And if it comes to the point of our turning back to the Morah a man who’s been treated the way this man has—”

“They’re soldiers!” said Whin, harshly. “They’ll obey orders.” He pointed at the fugitive. “That’s a soldier.”

“Not necessarily, Marshal,” said Stigh. “He could have been one of the civilian agents—”

“For my purposes, he’s a soldier!” snarled Whin. He took a couple of angry paces up and down the room in each direction, but always wheeling back to confront the fugitive. “Where are those doctors? I’ve got to get back to the Jhan and Dormu!”

“About Ambassador Dormu,” Stigh said. “If he hears something about this and asks us—”

“Tell him nothing!” said Whin. “It’s my responsibility! I’m not sure he’s got the guts—never mind. The longer it is before the little squirt knows—”

The sound of the office door opening brought both men around.

“The little squirt already knows,” said a dry voice from the doorway. Ambassador Alan Dormu came into the room. He was a slight, bent man, of less than average height. His fading blond hair was combed carefully forward over a balding forehead; and his face had deep, narrow lines that testified to even more years than hair and forehead.

“Who told you?” Whin gave him a mechanical grin.

“We diplomats always respect the privacy of our sources,” said Dormu. “What difference does it make—as long as I found out? Because you’re wrong, you know, Marshal. I’m the one who’s responsible. I’m the one who’ll have to answer the Jhan when he asks about this at lunch.”

“Mack,” said Whin, continuing to grin and with his eyes still fixed on Dormu, “see you later.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

Stigh went toward the door of the office. But before he reached it, it opened and two officers came in; a major and a lieutenant colonel, both wearing the caduceus. Stigh stopped and turned back.

“Here’re the doctors, sir.”

“Fine. Come here, come here, gentlemen,” said Whin. “Take a look at this.”

The two medical officers came up to the fugitive, sitting in the chair. They maintained poker faces. One reached for a wrist of the fugitive and felt for a pulse. The other went around back and ran his fingers lightly over the upper back with its misshapen and misplaced shoulder sockets.

“Well?” demanded Whin, after a restless minute. “What about it? Is he a man, all right?”

The two medical officers looked up. Oddly, it was the junior in rank, the major, who answered.

“We’ll have to make tests—a good number of tests, sir,” he said.

“You’ve no idea—now?” Whin demanded.

“Now,” spoke up the lieutenant colonel, “he could be either Morah or human. The Morah are very, very, good at this sort of thing. The way those arms—We’ll need samples of his blood, skin, bone marrow—”

“All right. All right,” said Whin. “Take the time you need. But not one second more. We’re all on the spot here, gentlemen. Mack—” he turned to Stigh, “I’ve changed my mind. You stick with the doctors and stand by to keep me informed.”

He turned back to Dormu.

“We’d better be getting back upstairs, Mr. Ambassador,” he said.

“Yes,” answered Dormu, quietly.

They went out, paced down the corridor and entered the lift tube in silence.

“You know, of course, how this complicates things, Marshal,” said Dormu, finally, as they began to rise up the tube together. Whin started like a man woken out of deep thought.

“What? You don’t have to ask me that,” he said. His voice took on an edge. “I suppose you’d expect my men to just stand around and watch, when something like that came running out of a Morah ship?”

“I might have,” said Dormu. “In their shoes.”

“Don’t doubt it.” Whin gave a single, small grunt of a laugh, without humor.

“I don’t think you follow me,” said Dormu. “I didn’t bring up the subject to assign blame. I was just leading into the fact the damage done is going to have to be repaired, at any cost; and I’m counting on your immediate—note the word, Marshal—immediate cooperation, if and when I call for it.”

The lift had carried them to the upper floor that was their destination. They got off together. Whin gave another humorless little grunt of laughter.

“You’re thinking of handing him back, then?” Whin said.

“Wouldn’t you?” asked Dormu.

“Not if he’s human. No,” said Whin. They walked on down a corridor and into a small room with another door. From beyond that other door came the faint smell of something like incense—it was, in fact, a neutral odor, tolerable to human and Morah alike and designed to hide the differing odors of one race from another. Also, from beyond the door, came the sound of three musical notes, steadily repeated; two notes exactly the same, and then a third, a half-note higher.

Tonk, tonk, TINK!…

“It’s establishing a solid position for confrontation with the Than that’s important right now,” said Dormu, as they approached the other door. “He’s got us over a barrel on the subject of this talk anyway, even without that business downstairs coming up. So it’s the confrontation that counts. Nothing else.”

They opened the door and went in.

Within was a rectangular, windowless room. Two tables had been set up. One for Dormu and Whin; and one for the Jhan, placed at right angles to the other table but not quite touching it. Both tables had been furnished and served with food; and the Jhan was already seated at his. To his right and left, each at about five feet of distance from him, flamed two purely symbolic torches in floor standards. Behind him stood three ordinary Morah—two servers, and a musician whose surgically-created, enormous forefinger tapped steadily at the bars of something like a small metal xylophone, hanging vertically on his chest.

The forefinger tapped in time to the three notes Whin and Dormu had heard in the room outside but without really touching the xylophone bars. The three notes actually sounded from a speaker overhead, broadcast throughout the station wherever the Jhan might be, along with the neutral perfume. They were a courtesy of the human hosts.

“Good to see you again, gentlemen,” said the Jhan, through the mechanical interpreter at his throat. “I was about to start without you.”

He sat, like the other Morah in the room, unclothed to the waist, below which he wore, though hidden now by the table, a simple kilt, or skirt, of dark red, feltlike cloth. The visible skin of his body, arms and face was a reddish brown in color, but there was only a limited amount of it to be seen. His upper chest, back, arms, neck and head—excluding his face—was covered by a mat of closely-trimmed, thick, gray hair, so noticeable in contrast to his hairless areas, that it looked more like a garment—a cowled half-jacket—than any natural growth upon him.

The face that looked out of the cowl-part was humanoid, but with wide jawbones, rounded chin and eyes set far apart over a flat nose. So that, although no one feature suggested it, his face as a whole had a faintly feline look.

“Our apologies,” said Dormu, leading the way forward. “The marshal just received an urgent message for me from Earth, in a new code. And only I had the key to it.”

“No need to apologize,” said the Jhan. “We’ve had our musician here to entertain us while we waited.”

Dormu and Whin sat down at the opposite ends of their table, facing each other and at right angles to the Jhan. The Jhan had already begun to eat. Whin stared deliberately at the foods on the Jhan’s table, to make it plain that he was not avoiding looking at them, and then turned back to his own plate. He picked up a roll and buttered it.

“Your young men are remarkable in their agility,” the Jhan said to Dormu. “We hope you will convey them our praise—”

They talked of the athletic show; and the meal progressed. As it was drawing to a close, the Jhan came around to the topic that had brought him to this meeting with Dormu.

“…It’s unfortunate we have to meet under such necessities,” he said.

“My own thought,” replied Dormu. “You must come to Earth some time on a simple vacation.”

“We would like to come to Earth—in peace,” said the Jhan.

“We would hope not to welcome you any other way,” said Dormu.

“No doubt,” said the Than. “That is why it puzzles me, that when you humans can have peace for the asking—by simply refraining from creating problems—you continue to cause incidents, to trouble us and threaten our sovereignty over our own territory of space.”

Dormu frowned.

“Incidents?” he echoed. “I don’t recall any incidents. Perhaps the Jhan has been misinformed?”

“We are not misinformed,” said the Jhan. “I refer to your human settlements on the fourth and fifth worlds of the star you refer to as 27J93; but which we call by a name of our own. Rightfully so because it is in our territory.”

Tonk, tonk, TINK… went the three notes of the Morah music.

“It seems to me—if my memory is correct,” murmured Dormu, “that the Treaty Survey made by our two races jointly, twelve years ago, left Sun 27J93 in unclaimed territory outside both our spatial areas.”

“Quite right,” said the Jhan. “But the Survey was later amended to include this and several other solar systems in our territory.”

“Not by us, I’m afraid,” said Dormu. “I’m sorry, but my people can’t consider themselves automatically bound by whatever unilateral action you choose to take without consulting us.”

“The action was not unilateral,” said the Jhan, calmly. “We have since consulted with our brother Emperors—the Morah Selig, the Morah Ben, the Morah Yarra and the Morah Ness. All have concurred in recognizing the solar systems in question as being in our territory.”

“But surely the Morah Jhan understands,” said Dormu, “that an agreement only between the various political segments of one race can’t be considered binding upon a people of another race entirely?”

“We of the Morah,” said the Than, “reject your attitude that race is the basis for division between Empires. Territory is the only basis upon which Empires may be differentiated. Distinction between the races refers only to differences in shape or color; and as you know we do not regard any particular shape or color as sacredly, among ourselves, as you do; since we make many individuals over into what shape it pleases us, for our own use, or amusement.”

He tilted his head toward the musician with the enormous, steadily jerking, forefinger.

“Nonetheless,” said Dormu, “the Morah Jhan will not deny his kinship with the Morah of the other Morah Empires.”

“Of course not. But what of it?” said the Jhan calmly. “In our eyes, your empire and those of our brothers, are in all ways similar. In essence you are only another group possessing a territory that is not ours. We make no difference between you and the empires of the other Morah.”

“But if it came to an armed dispute between you and us,” said Dormu, “would your brother Emperors remain neutral?”

“We hardly expect so,” said the Morah Jhan, idly, pushing aside the last container of food that remained on the table before him. A server took it away. “But that would only be because, since right would be on our side, naturally they would rally to assist us.”

“I see,” said Dormu.

Tonk, tonk, TINK… went the sound of the Morah music.

“But why must we talk about such large and problematical issues?” said the Jhan. “Why not listen, instead, to the very simple and generous disposition we suggest for this matter of your settlements under 27J93? You will probably find our solution so agreeable that no more need be said on the subject.”

“I’d be happy to hear it,” said Dormu.

The Jhan leaned back in his seat at the table.

“In spite of the fact that our territory has been intruded upon,” he said, “we ask only that you remove your people from their settlements and promise to avoid that area in future, recognizing these and the other solar systems I mentioned earlier as being in our territory. We will not even ask for ordinary reparations beyond the purely technical matter of your agreement to recognize what we Morah have already recognized, that the division of peoples is by territory, and not by race.”

He paused. Dormu opened his mouth to speak.

“Of course,” added the Jhan, “there is one additional, trivial concession we insist on. A token reparation—so that no precedent of not asking for reparations be set. That token concession is that you allow us corridors of transit across your spatial territory, through which our ships may pass without inspection between our empire and the empires of our brother Morah.”

Dormu’s mouth closed. The Jhan sat waiting. After a moment, Dormu spoke.

“I can only say,” said Dormu, “that I am stunned and overwhelmed at these demands of the Morah Jhan. I was sent to this meeting only to explain to him that our settlements under Sun number 27J93 were entirely peaceful ones, constituting no human threat to his empire. I have no authority to treat with the conditions and terms just mentioned. I will have to contact my superiors back on Earth for instructions—and that will take several hours.”

“Indeed?” said the Morah Jhan. “I’m surprised to hear you were sent all the way here to meet me with no more instructions than that. That represents such a limited authority that I almost begin to doubt the good will of you and your people in agreeing to this meeting.”

“On our good will, of course,” said Dormu, “the Morah Jhan can always depend.”

“Can I?” The wide-spaced eyes narrowed suddenly in the catlike face. “Things seem to conspire to make me doubt it. Just before you gentlemen joined me I was informed of a most curious fact by my officers. It seems some of your Military Police have kidnapped one of my Morah and are holding him prisoner.”

“Oh?” said Dormu. His face registered polite astonishment. “I don’t see how anything like that could have happened.” He turned to Whin. “Marshal, did you hear about anything like that taking place?”

Whin grinned his mechanical grin at the Morah Jhan.

“I heard somebody had been picked up down at the docks,” he said. “But I understood he was human. One of our people who’d been missing for some time—a deserter, maybe. A purely routine matter. It’s being checked out, now.”

“I would suggest that the marshal look more closely into the matter,” said the Jhan. His eyes were still slitted. “I promise him he will find the individual is a Morah; and of course, I expect the prisoner’s immediate return.”

“The Morah Jhan can rest assured,” said Whin, “any Morah held by my troops will be returned to him, immediately.”

“I will expect that return then,” said the Jhan, “by the time Ambassador Dormu has received his instructions from Earth and we meet to talk again.”

He rose, abruptly; and without any further word, turned and left the room. The servers and the musician followed him.

Dormu got as abruptly to his own feet and led the way back out of the room in the direction from which he and Whin had come.

“Where are you going?” demanded Whin. “We go left for the lifts to the Message Center.”

“We’re going back to look at our kidnapped prisoner,” said Dormu. “I don’t need the Message Center.”

Whin looked sideways at him.

“So… you were sent out here with authority to talk on those terms of his, after all, then?” Whin asked.

“We expected them,” said Dormu briefly.

“What are you going to do about them?”

“Give in,” said Dormu. “On all but the business of giving them corridors through our space. That’s a first step to breaking us up into territorial segments.”

“Just like that—” said Whin. “You’ll give in?”

Dormu looked at him, briefly.

“You’d fight, I suppose?”

“If necessary,” said Whin. They got into the lift tube and slipped downward together.

“And you’d lose,” said Dormu.

“Against the Morah Jhan?” demanded Whin. “I know within ten ships what his strength is.”

“No. Against all the Morah,” answered Dormu. “This situation’s been carefully set up. Do you think the Jhan would ordinarily be that much concerned about a couple of small settlements of our people, away off beyond his natural frontiers? The Morah—all the Morah—have started to worry about our getting too big for them to handle. They’ve set up a coalition of all their so-called Empires to contain us before that happens. If we fight the Jhan, we’ll find ourselves fighting them all.”

The skin of Whin’s face grew tight.

“Giving in to a race like the Morah won’t help,” he said.

“It may gain us time,” said Dormu. “We’re a single, integrated society. They aren’t. In five years, ten years, we can double our fighting strength. Meanwhile their coalition members may even start fighting among themselves. That’s why I was sent here to do what I’m doing—give up enough ground so that they’ll have no excuse for starting trouble at this time; but not enough ground so that they’ll feel safe in trying to push further.”

“Why won’t they—if they know they can win?”

“Jhan has to count the cost to him personally, if he starts the war,” said Dormu, briefly. They got off the lift tube. “Which way’s the Medical Section?”

“There”—Whin pointed. They started walking. “What makes you so sure he won’t think the cost is worth it?”

“Because,” said Dormu, “he has to stop and figure what would happen if, being the one to start the war, he ended up more weakened by it than his brother-emperors were. The others would turn on him like wolves, given the chance; just like he’d turn on any of them. And he knows it.”

Whin grunted his little, humorless laugh.

They found the fugitive lying on his back on an examination table in one of the diagnostic rooms of the Medical Section. He was plainly unconscious.

“Well?” Whin demanded bluntly of the medical lieutenant colonel. “Man, or Morah?”

The lieutenant colonel was washing his hands. He hesitated, then rinsed his fingers and took up a towel.

“Out with it!” snapped Whin.

“Marshal,” the lieutenant colonel hesitated again, “to be truthful… we may never know.”

“Never know?” demanded Dormu. General Stigh came into the room, his mouth open as if about to say something to Whin. He checked at the sight of Dormu and the sound of the ambassador’s voice.

“There’s human RNA involved,” said the lieutenant colonel. “But we know that the Morah have access to human bodies from time to time, soon enough after the moment of death so that the RNA might be preserved. But bone and flesh samples indicate Morah, rather than human origin. He could be human and his RNA be the one thing about him the Morah didn’t monkey with. Or he could be Morah, treated with human RNA to back up the surgical changes that make him resemble a human. I don’t think we can tell, with the facilities we’ve got here; and in any case—”

“In any case,” said Dormu, slowly, “it may not really matter to the Jhan.”

Whin raised his eyebrows questioningly; but just then he caught sight of Stigh.

“Mack?” he said. “What is it?”

Stigh produced a folder.

“I think we’ve found out who he is,” the Military Police general said. “Look here—a civilian agent of the Intelligence Service was sent secretly into the spatial territory of the Morah Jhan eight years ago. Name—Paul Edmonds. Description—superficially the same size and build as this man here.” He nodded at the still figure on the examining table. “We can check the retinal patterns and fingerprints.”

“It won’t do you any good,” said the lieutenant colonel. “Both fingers and retinas conform to the Morah pattern.”

“May I see that?” asked Dormu. Stigh passed over the folder. The little ambassador took it. “Eight years ago, I was the State Department’s Liaison Officer with the Intelligence Service.”

He ran his eyes over the information on the sheets in the folder.

“There’s something I didn’t finish telling you,” said the lieutenant colonel, appealing to Whin, now that Dormu’s attention was occupied. “I started to say I didn’t think we could tell whether he’s man or Morah; but in any case—the question’s probably academic. He’s dying.”

“Dying?” said Dormu sharply, looking up from the folder. “What do you mean?”

Without looking, he passed the folder back to Stigh.

“I mean… he’s dying,” said the lieutenant colonel, a little stubbornly. “It’s amazing that any organism, human or Morah, was able to survive, in the first place, after being cut up and altered that much. His running around down on the docks was evidently just too much for him. He’s bleeding to death internally from a hundred different pinpoint lesions.”

“Hm-m-m,” said Whin. He looked sharply at Dormu. “Do you think the Jhan would be just as satisfied if he got a body back, instead of a live man?”

“Would you?” retorted Dormu.

“Hm-m-m… no. I guess I wouldn’t,” said Whin. He turned to look grimly at the unconscious figure on the table; and spoke almost to himself. “If he is Paul Edmonds—”

“Sir,” said Stigh, appealingly.

Whin looked at the general. Stigh hesitated.

“If I could speak to the marshal privately for a moment—” he said.

“Never mind,” said Whin. The line of his mouth was tight and straight. “I think I know what you’ve got to tell me. Let the ambassador hear it, too.”

“Yes, sir.” But Stigh still looked uncomfortable. He glanced at Dormu, glanced away again, fixed his gaze on Whin. “Sir, word about this man has gotten out all over the Outpost. There’s a lot of feeling among the officers and men alike—a lot of feeling against handing him back…”

He trailed off.

“You mean to say,” said Dormu sharply, “that they won’t obey if ordered to return this individual?”

“They’ll obey,” said Whin, softly. Without turning his head, he spoke to the lieutenant colonel. “Wait outside for us, will you, Doctor?”

The lieutenant colonel went out, and the door closed behind him. Whin turned and looked down at the fugitive on the table. In unconsciousness the face was relaxed, neither human nor Morah, but just a face, out of many possible faces. Whin looked up again and saw Dormu’s eyes still on him.

“You don’t understand, Mr. Ambassador,” Whin said, in the same soft voice. “These men are veterans. You heard the doctor talking about the fact that the Morah have had access to human RNA. This outpost has had little, unreported, border clashes with them every so often. The personnel here have seen the bodies of the men we’ve recovered. They know what it means to fall into Morah hands. To deliberately deliver anyone back into those hands is something pretty hard for them to take. But they’re soldiers. They won’t refuse an order.”

He stopped talking. For a moment there was silence in the room.

“I see,” said Dormu. He went across to the door and opened it. The medical lieutenant colonel was outside, and he turned to face Dormu in the opened door. “Doctor, you said this individual was dying.”

“Yes,” answered the lieutenant colonel.

“How long?”

“A couple of hours—” the lieutenant colonel shrugged helplessly. “A couple of minutes. I’ve no way of telling, nothing to go on, by way of comparable experience.”

“All right.” Dormu turned back to Whin. “Marshal, I’d like to get back to the Jhan as soon as the minimum amount of time’s past that could account for a message to Earth and back.”

An hour and a half later, Whin and Dormu once more entered the room where they had lunched with the Jhan. The tables were removed now; and the servers were gone. The musician was still there; and, joining him now, were two grotesqueries of altered Morah, with tiny, spidery bodies and great, grinning heads. These scuttled and climbed on the heavy, thronelike chair in which the Than sat, grinning around it and their Emperor, at the two humans.

“You’re prompt,” said the Jhan to Dormu. “That’s promising.”

“I believe you’ll find it so,” said Dormu. “I’ve been authorized to agree completely to your conditions—with the minor exceptions of the matter of recognizing that the division of peoples is by territory and not by race, and the matter of spatial corridors for you through our territory. The first would require a referendum of the total voting population of our people, which would take several years; and the second is beyond the present authority of my superiors to grant. But both matters will be studied.”

“This is not satisfactory.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dormu. “Everything in your proposal that it’s possible for us to agree to at this time has been agreed to. The Morah Jhan must give us credit for doing the best we can on short notice to accommodate him.”

“Give you credit?” The Jhan’s voice thinned; and the two bigheaded monsters playing about his feet froze like startled animals, staring at him. “Where is my kidnapped Morah?”

“I’m sorry,” said Dormu, carefully, “that matter has been investigated. As we suspected, the individual you mention turns out not to be a Morah, but a human. We’ve located his records. A Paul Edmonds.”

“What sort of lie is this?” said the Jhan. “He is a Morah. No human. You may let yourself be deluded by the fact he looks like yourselves, but don’t try to think you can delude us with looks. As I told you, it’s our privilege to play with the shapes of individuals, casting them into the mold we want, to amuse ourselves; and the mold we played with in this case, was like your own. So be more careful in your answers. I would not want to decide you deliberately kidnapped this Morah, as an affront to provoke me.”

“The Morah Jhan,” said Dormu, colorlessly, “must know how unlikely such an action on our part would be—as unlikely as the possibility that the Morah might have arranged to turn this individual loose, in order to embarrass us in the midst of these talks.”

The Jhan’s eyes slitted down until their openings showed hardly wider than two heavy pencil lines.

“You do not accuse me, human!” said the Jhan. “I accuse you! Affront my dignity; and less than an hour after I lift ship from this planetoid of yours, I can have a fleet here that will reduce it to one large cinder!”

He paused. Dormu said nothing. After a long moment, the slitted eyes relaxed, opening a little.

“But I will be kind,” said the Jhan. “Perhaps there is some excuse for your behavior. You have been misled, perhaps—by this business of records, the testimony of those amateur butchers you humans call physicians and surgeons. Let me set your mind at rest. I, the Morah Jhan, assure you that this prisoner of yours is a Morah, one of my own Morah; and no human. Naturally, you will return him now, immediately, in as good shape as when he was taken from us.”

“That, in any case, is not possible,” said Dormu.

“How?” said the Jhan.

“The man,” said Dormu, “is dying.”

The Jhan sat without motion or sound for as long as a roan might comfortably hold his breath. Then, he spoke.

“The Morah,” he said. “I will not warn you again.”

“My apologies to the Morah Jhan,” said Dormu, tonelessly. “I respect his assurances, but I am required to believe our own records and experienced men. The man, I say, is dying.”

The Jhan rose suddenly to his feet. The two small Morah scuttled away behind him toward the door.

“I will go to the quarters you’ve provided me, now,” said the Jhan, “and make my retinue ready to leave. In one of your hours, I will reboard my ship. You have until that moment to return my Morah to me.”

He turned, went around his chair and out of the room. The door shut behind him.

Dormu turned and headed out the door at their side of the room. Whin followed him. As they opened the door, they saw Stigh, waiting there. Whin opened his mouth to speak, but Dormu beat him to it.

“Dead?” Dormu asked.

“He died just a few minutes ago—almost as soon as you’d both gone in to talk to the Jhan,” said Stigh.

Whin slowly closed his mouth. Stigh stood without saying anything further. They both waited, watching Dormu, who did not seem to be aware of their gaze. At Stigh’s answer, his face had become tight, his eyes abstract.

“Well,” said Whin, after a long moment and Dormu still stood abstracted, “it’s a body now.”

His eyes were sharp on Dormu. The little man jerked his head up suddenly and turned to face the marshal.

“Yes,” said Dormu, a little strangely. “He’ll have to be buried, won’t he? You won’t object to a burial with full military honors?”

“Hell, no!” said Whin. “He earned it. When?”

“Right away.” Dormu puffed out a little sigh like a weary man whose long day is yet far from over. “Before the Jhan leaves. And not quietly. Broadcast it through the Outpost.”

Whin swore gently under his breath, with a sort of grim happiness.

“See to it!” he said to Stigh. After Stigh had gone, he added softly to Dormu. “Forgive me. You’re a good man once the chips are down, Mr. Ambassador.”

“You think so?” said Dormu, wryly. He turned abruptly toward the lift tubes. “We’d better get down to the docking area. The Jhan said an hour—but he may not wait that long.”

The Jhan did not wait. He cut his hour short, like someone eager to accomplish his leaving before events should dissuade him. He was at the docking area twenty minutes later; and only the fact that it was Morah protocol that his entourage must board before him, caused him to be still on the dock when the first notes of the Attention Call sounded through the Outpost.

The Jhan stopped, with one foot on the gangway to his vessel. He turned about and saw the dockside Military Police all now at attention, facing the nearest command screen three meters wide by two high, which had just come to life on the side of the main docking warehouse. The Jhan’s own eyes went to the image on the screen—to the open grave, the armed soldiers, the chaplain and the bugler.

The chaplain was already reading the last paragraph of the burial service. The religious content of the human words could have no meaning to the Jhan; but his eyes went comprehendingly, directly to Dormu, standing with Whin on the other side of the gangway. The Jhan took a step that brought him within a couple of feet of the little man.

“I see,” the Jhan said. “He is dead.”

“He died while we were last speaking,” answered Dormu, without inflection. “We are giving him an honorable funeral.”

“I see—” began the Jhan, again. He was interrupted by the sound of fired volleys as the burial service ended and the blank-faced coffin began to be let down into the pulverized rock of the Outpost. A command sounded from the screen. The soldiers who had just fired went to present arms—along with every soldier in sight in the docking area—as the bugler raised his instrument and taps began to sound.

“Yes.” The Jhan looked around at the saluting Military Police, then back at Dormu. “You are a fool,” he said, softly. “I had no conception that a human like yourself could be so much a fool. You handled my demands well—but what value is a dead body, to anyone? If you had returned it, I would have taken no action—this time, at least, after your concessions on the settlements. But you not only threw away all you’d gained, you flaunted defiance in my face, by burying the body before I could leave this Outpost. I’ve no choice now—after an affront like that. I must act.”

“No,” said Dormu.

“No?” The Jhan stared at him.

“You have no affront to react against,” said Dormu. “You erred only through a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” said the Jhan. “I misunderstood? I not only did not misunderstand, I made the greatest effort to see that you did not misunderstand. I cannot let you take a Morah from me, just because he looks like a human. And he was a Morah. You did not need your records, or your physicians, to tell you that. My word was enough. But you let your emotions, the counsel of these lesser people, sway you—to your disaster, now. Do you think I didn’t know how all these soldiers of yours were feeling? But I am the Morah Jhan. Did you think I would lie over anything so insignificant as one stray pet?”

“No,” said Dormu.

“Now—” said the Jhan. “Now, you face the fact. But it is too late. You have affronted me. I told you it is our privilege and pleasure to play with the shapes of beings, making them into what we desire. I told you the shape did not mean he was human. I told you he was Morah. You kept him and buried him anyway, thinking he was human—thinking he was that lost spy of yours.” He stared down at Dormu. “I told you he was a Morah.”

“I believed you,” said Dormu.

The Jhan’s eyes stared. They widened, flickered, then narrowed down until they were nothing but slits, once more.

“You believed me? You knew he was a Morah?”

“I knew,” said Dormu. “I was Liaison Officer with the Intelligence Service at the time Edmonds was sent out—and later when his body was recovered. We have no missing agent here.”

His voice did not change tone. His face did not change expression. He looked steadily up into the face of the Jhan.

“I explained to the Morah Jhan, just now,” said Dormu, almost pedantically, “that through misapprehension, he had erred. We are a reasonable people, who love peace. To soothe the feelings of the Morah Jhan we will abandon our settlements, and make as many other adjustments to his demands as are reasonably possible. But the Jhan must not confuse one thing with another.”

“What thing?” demanded the Jhan. “With what thing?”

“Some things we do not permit,” said Dormu. Suddenly, astonishingly, to the watching Whin, the little man seemed to grow. His back straightened, his head lifted, his eyes looked almost on a level up into the slit-eyes of the Jhan. His voice sounded hard, suddenly, and loud. “The Morah belong to the Morah Jhan; and you told us it’s your privilege to play with their shapes. Play with them then—in all but a single way. Use any shape but one. You played with that shape, and forfeited your right to what we just buried. Remember it, Morah Jhan! the shape of Man belongs to Men, alone!”

He stood, facing directly into the slitted gaze of Jhan, as the bugle sounded the last notes of taps and the screen went blank. About the docks, the Military Police lowered their weapons from the present-arms position.

For a long second, the Jhan stared back. Then he spoke.

“I’ll be back!” he said; and, turning, the red kilt whipping about his legs, he strode up the gangplank into his ship.

“But he won’t,” muttered Dormu, with grim satisfaction, gazing at the gangplank, beginning to be sucked up into the ship now, preparatory to departure.

“Won’t?” almost stammered Whin, beside him. “What do you mean… won’t?”

Dormu turned to the marshal.

“If he were really coming back with all weapons hot, there was no need to tell me.” Dormu smiled a little, but still grimly. “He left with a threat because it was the only way he could save face.”

“But you…” Whin was close to stammering again; only this time with anger. “You knew that… that creation… wasn’t Edmonds from the start! If the men on this Outpost had known it was a stinking Morah, they’d have been ready to hand him back in a minute. You let us all put our lives on the line here—for something that only looked like a man!”

Dormu looked at him.

“Marshal,” he said. “I told you it was the confrontation with the Jhan that counted. We’ve got that. Two hours ago, the Jhan and all the other Morah leaders thought they knew us. Now they—a people who think shape isn’t important—suddenly find themselves facing a race who consider their shape sacred. This is a concept they are inherently unable to understand. If that’s true of us, what else may not be true? Suddenly, they don’t understand us at all. The Morah aren’t fools. They’ll go back and rethink their plans, now—all their plans.”

Whin blinked at him, opened his mouth angrily to speak—closed it again, then opened it once more.

“But you risked…” he ran out of words and ended shaking his head, in angry bewilderment. “And you let me bury it—with honors!”

“Marshal,” said Dormu, suddenly weary, “it’s your job to win wars, after they’re started. It’s my job to win them before they start. Like you, I do my job in any way I can.”