The Rithian Terror

II

The door of Suite 111 was ajar. Inside, a baritone voice was singing to the accompaniment of some stringed instrument. Spangler paused and listened.

There was a final chord, then a hollow wooden thump and jangle as the instrument was set down; then the clink of ice cubes in a glass.

Spangler put his hand over the doorplate. The chime was followed by Pembun's voice calling, "Come awn in!"

Pembun was comfortably slumped in a recliner, with his collar undone and his feet high. The glass in his hand, judging by color, contained straight whiskey. On a low table at his side were the remains of a man-sized meal, a decanter, an ice bucket and several clean glasses, and the instrument—a tiny, round-bellied thing with three strings.

The little man swung himself lithely around and rose. "I was 'oping somebody would cawl," he said happily. "Gets kind of lonesome in this place—lonesomer than the mountings a thousand miles from anybody, some'ow. 'Ere, take the company seat, Commissioner. A glawss of w'iskey?"

Spangler took an upright chair. "This will do nicely," he said. "No thanks to the whiskey—I haven't your stomach."

Pembun looked startled, then smiled. "I'll get them to sen' up some soda," he said. He swung himself into the recliner again, reached for the intercom and gave the order.

"W'y I looked surprised for a minute w'en you said that," he explained, turning sidewise on the recliner, "is becawse we got an expression on Man'aven. Wen we say, 'I 'aven' got your stomach,' that means I don' like you, we're not sympathetic. 'E no ay to stomá."

Spangler felt an unexpected twinge of guilt—of course Pembun knew he wasn't liked—and then a wave of irritation. Damn the man! How did he always manage to put one in the wrong?

He kept his voice casual and friendly. "What was that you were singing, just before I came in?"

"Oh, that—'Odum Pawkee Mont a Mutting.' " He picked up the instrument and sang the chorus Spangler had heard. Spangler listened, charmed in spite of himself. The melody was simple and jaunty—the kind of thing, he told himself, that would go well sung on muleback… or the backs of whatever ill-formed beasts the Manhavenites used instead of mules.

Pembun put the instrument down. "In English, that means, 'Old Man Pawkey climbs a mounting, clouds 'ide Old Man Pawkey. Old Man Pawkey climbs a mounting, all for a cup of coffee!' "

"Is there more?"

Pembun made his eyes comically wide. "Oh, shoo! There's 'bout a trillion verses. I only know every tenth one, about, but we'd be 'ere all night if I sang 'em. It's kind of a saga. Old Man Pawkey was a settler who lived up in the Desperation Mountings in the early days. That's in the temperate zone, but even so it's awful wild country, all straight up and straight down. 'E loved coffee, but of course there wasn' any. Well, 'e 'eard there was some in the spaceport town, Granpeer, down in the plateau country, and 'e went there, on foot. Twenty-two 'undred kilometers. Or so they say."

The conveyor door popped open. Pembun went over to get the soda and pour Spangler a drink. "There were some big things done in those days," he added, "but there were some big lies told, too."

Spangler felt an obscure shock that made him jumpy again. In the conscious effort to sympathize with Pembun, to understand the man in his own terms, he had managed to build up a picture which was really not too hard to admire: the wild, colorful, free life of the frontier, the hardships accepted and conquered, the deeds of heroism casually done, et cetera, et cetera. And then Pembun himself, in half a sentence, had indifferently rejected that picture. "There were some big lies told, too."

Pembun didn't believe in the Empire; all right. But—if he had no respect for his own planet's traditions, then what in the name of sanity did he believe in?

Spangler was a man who tried hard to be liberal. But now, staring at Pembun's round brown face, the yellowish whites of his eyes, he thought once more: It's a waste of time to try to understand this man. He's not civilized; he thinks like an animal. There's simply no point of contact.

He said abruptly, "At the meeting, you mentioned something about the Rithians' 'sense of humor.' What, exactly, did you mean?"

He was thinking: In a few minutes I'll be back in my office. I'll drink half of this highball, precisely, and then go.

Pembun leaned back in the relaxer, head turned slightly, eyes alert on Spangler. "Well," he said, "they're kind of peculiar, in this way. They're a real 'ighly-advanced people, technologically—you know that. But the things that strike them funny remind you more of a kind of backwoods planet, like Man'aven. Maybe that's w'y we got along so well with them—Man'aven yumor is kind of primitive. Pulling out a chair we'n a man goes to sit down. That kind of thing. But they beat us.

"They'll go forty miles out of their way to play a joke, even w'en it isn' good business. I've 'eard a novel written by one of their big authors—twelve spools, mus' be more than five 'undred thousan' words long—jus' so 'e could build up to a dirty joke at the end. It was a bes'-seller in their solar system. An' they're crazy about puns—plays on words. Some of their sentences you're suppose' to read as many as fifteen, twenty different ways."

Spangler's memory groped uneasily for a moment and then produced a relevant fact from his training days. "Like Joyce," he said. "The twentieth-century decadent."

"Uh-mm," Pembun agreed. "I use' to be able to quote pages of Finnegans Wake: 'riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation…' That's primer talk, compared to Rithi literature."

Spangler swallowed deliberately and set his glass down on the wide arm of his chair. He felt the vast, cool, good-humored patience of a man who knows how to retreat from his own petty emotions. "I don't want to seem obtuse," he said, "but has this got anything to do with my problem?"

Pembun's brows creased delicately. He looked anxious, searching for words. "Nothing, specifically," he said earnestly. "W'at I mean is jus' that in general, you got to watch out for that sense of yumor. I mean, you already know that this Rithch is going to 'urt you bad if 'e can. But you got to remember also that if 'e can, 'e's going to do it some way that'll be sidesplittingly funny to 'im. It isn' easy to figure out w'ich way a Rithch is going to jump, but you can do it sometimes if you know w'at makes them lahf."

Spangler swallowed again, leaving exactly half the drink behind, and stood up. He was a trifle impatient with himself for having come here at all, but at least he had the satisfaction of knowing that a lead had been explored and canceled out, that an x had been corrected to a zero.

"Thank you, Mr. Pembun," he said from the doorway, "for the drink and the information. Good evening."

"You got to look out for the 'ypnotism, too," said Pembun as an afterthought.

Spangler stood in the doorway without speaking. Pembun looked at him with a politely inquiring expression.

"Hypnotism!" Spangler said, and started back into the room. "What hypnotism?"

"My goodness," cried Pembun, "didn' you know about that?”

They lay together in companionable silence, in a darkened room, facing the huge unscreened window—window in the archaic sense, a simple hole in the wall—through which a feather-light touch of cool, salt air came unhindered. On either side, where the shore thrust out an arm, Spangler could see a cluster of multicolored lights—Angels proper on the right, St. Monica on the left. Straight ahead was nothing but silver sea and ghost-gray cloud, except when the tiny spark of an airship crossed silently and was gone.

The universe was a huge, half-felt presence that flowed through the open window to contain them; as if, Spangler thought, they were two grains of dust sunk in an ocean that stretched to infinity.

It was soothing, in a way, but there was a touch of unpleasantness in it. Spangler shifted his body restlessly, feeling the breeze fumble at his bare skin. The scale was too big, he thought; he was too used to the rabbit-warren of the Hill, perhaps, to be entirely easy outside it. Perhaps he needed a change…

"That wind is getting a little chilly," he said. "Let's close the window and turn on the lights."

"I thought it was nice," she said. "But go ahead, if you like."

Now I've insulted her window, Spangler thought wryly. Nevertheless, he reached forward and found the stud that rolled a sheet of vitrin down over the opening.

It was a period piece, the window—XXI Century, even to the antique servo mechanism that operated it. So was everything else in Joanna's tower: the absurd four-legged chairs, the massive tables, the carpets, even the huge pneumatic couch. There were paper books in the shelves, and not the usual decorator's choices, either, but books that a well-read twenty-first-century citizen might actually have owned— Shakespeare and Sterne, Jones and Joyce, Homer and Hemingway all jumbled in together. If the fashion would let her, Spangler thought, I believe she would wear dresses.

A glow of rose-tinted light sprang up, and he turned to see Joanna with one slender arm around her knees, her head bent solemnly over the lighted cigarette she had just taken from the dispenser. She handed him another.

Spangler pulled himself up beside her and leaned against the back of the couch. The smoke of their cigarettes fanned out, pink in the half-light, and faded slowly into floating haze.

The room's curved walls and ceiling enclosed them snugly, safely…

The XXI Century, the Century of Peace, was a womb, Spangler thought. The comment was Joanna's, not his; she had picked it up in some book or other. "A womb with a view." That was it. A childishly fanciful description, as one would expect from that period, but accurate enough. Self-deception was not one of Joanna's vices—unfortunately. To win her finally and completely, it would be necessary to break down the clear image she had of herself—cast her adrift in chaos, so that she would turn blindly to him for her lost security. It was not going to be easy.

Joanna said, without moving, "Thorne, I'd like to talk seriously to you, just for a minute."

"Of course."

"You know what I'm going to say, probably; but just to have things clear— Do you want us to go on together?"

Matching her tone, Spangler said, "Yes."

"… I do too. You know I'm fonder of you than I've ever been of anyone. But I won't ever marry you. You've got to believe that, and accept it, or it's no good… I'm trying to be fair."

"You're succeeding," Spangler told her lightly. He turned and put his hand on her knee. "Just to be equally clear—I've been insufferable to you, and I was a maniac last weekend, and I'm sorry for it. Shall we both forget it?"

She smiled. "Yes. We will."

Her lips moved and altered as he leaned toward her: corners turning downward, pink moist flesh swelling up into the blind shape of desire. His free arm sank into the softness of her back, abruptly hard as her body tautened. Eyes closed, he heard the sibilant whisper of her legs slowly straightening against the counterpane.

Afterward, he lay wrapped in a warm lethargy that was like floating in quiet water. It was an effort to force himself out of that mindless content, but it was necessary. As he was vulnerable at this moment, so was she. When she spoke to him lazily, he answered her with increasing constraint, until he felt his tension flow into her.

Then he rolled over abruptly, got up and stood at the window, staring out at the vast, obscene emptiness of sky and sea. Now it was easier. As he had often, in his childhood, worked himself deliberately into white-hot anger—when, if he had not forced himself to be angry, he would have been afraid—now, with equal deliberateness, he opened his mind to despair.

Suppose that I failed, and lost Joanna, he thought. But that was not enough. What would be the most dreadful thing that could possibly happen? The answer came of itself: Pembun, and his Rithians with their boneless bodies and their hypnotism. Shapeless faces staring in from a sea of darkness. Suppose they won. Suppose the Empire went down under that insensate wave, and all the walls everywhere crumbled to let smothering Chaos in?

Her voice: "Thorne? Is anything the matter?"

He pulled himself back, shuddering, from the cold emptiness that his mind had fastened upon. For an instant it had been real, it had happened, it was there. He had been lost and alone, fumbling in an endless night.

When he turned, he knew that his agony showed plainly in his face. He did his best to restrain and suppress it: that would show too.

"Nothing," he said. He walked around the couch, reached past her for a cigarette, then moved to the closet.

"You're going?" she asked uncertainly.

"I've got to be in early tomorrow," he said. "And I've been going a little short of sleep."

"… All right."

Fastening his cloak, he went to her and took her hand. "Don't mind me, will you? I'm a little jumpy—it's been an unpleasant week. I'll call you tomorrow."

Her lips smiled, but her eyes were wide and unfocused.

Caution was in them, and a hint of something else—pleasure, perhaps, touched with guilt?

He rode home with a feeling of satisfaction that deepened into a fierce joy. If she learned that she could hurt him, learned to expect it, learned to like it, then in time she could endure the thought of being hurt in return. It was only necessary to go slowly, advancing and retreating, shifting his ground, stripping her defenses gradually: until at last, whether for guilt or pleasure or love, she would marry him.

For love and pleasure, fear and hatred, honor and ambition were all doors that could be opened or shut.

Pain was the key.

Early the following morning, alone in his inner office, Spangler looked unhappily into his desk screen, from which the broad, gray face of Claude Keith-Ingram stared back at him.

"You asked Pembun why he hadn't divulged this information earlier?" Keith-Ingram asked sharply.

"I did," Spangler said. "He answered that he had assumed we already knew of it, since the Empire was known to possess the finest body of knowledge in the field of security psychology in the inhabited Galaxy."

"Hmm," said Spangler's superior, frowning. "Sarcasm, do you think?"

Spangler hesitated. "I should like to be able to answer that with a definite no, but I can't be sure. Pembun is not an easy man to fathom."

"So I understand," said Keith-Ingram. "However, he has an absolutely impeccable record in the Outworld service. I don't think there can be any question of actual disloyalty."

Spangler was silent.

"Well, then," said Keith-Ingram testily, "what about this alleged pseudo-hypnotic ability of the Rithians? What does it amount to?"

"According to Pembun, complete control under very favorable conditions. He says, however, that the process is rather slow and limited in extent. In other words, that a Rithian might be able to take control of one or two persons if it could get them alone and unsuspecting, but that it would be unable to control a large group at any time or even a small group in an emergency."

Keith-Ingram nodded. "Now, about this other matter of the protean ability—" he glanced down at something on his own desk, outside the range of the scanner—"none of the available agents who have served in the Rithian system have anything even suggestive to report in that regard."

Spangler nodded. "That could mean anything or nothing."

"Yes," said the gray man. "On the whole, I'm inclined to feel as you evidently do, that there's nothing in it. Pembun may be competent and so on, but he's not Earth and he's not Security. Still, I don't have to remind you that if he's right on all counts, we've got a very serious situation on our hands."

Spangler smiled grimly and nodded again. Keith-Ingram was noted for his barbed understatements. If Pembun was right, then it followed that the Empire's agents in the Rithian system had carried back no more information than the Rithians wanted them to have…

Keith-Ingram rubbed his chin with a square, well-manicured hand. "Now, to date, the normal procedures haven't produced any result."

"That's correct," Spangler admitted. Using all available personnel, it would take another four days to complete the house checks. Before that time, negative results would prove nothing.

"And according to Pembun, those procedures are no good. Now, has he proposed any alternate method, other than that beryllium-salts scheme of his?"

"No, sir. He held out no hope of results from that one under two and a half months."

"Well, he may have something more useful to suggest. Ask him. If he does—try it."

"Right," said Spangler.

"Good," said the gray man, giving Spangler his second-best smile. "Keep in touch, Thorne—and if anything else odd turns up, don't hesitate to call me direct."

The screen cleared.

Spangler stared at the vacant screen for a few moments, pursing his lips thoughtfully, then leaned back, absently fingering the banks of control studs at the edge of his desk.

Without any conscious warning, he found himself mentally reviewing the film, taken in the Rithian system, which had been used in briefing Security personnel for the spy search.

First you saw only a riotous, bewildering display of green and gold; the shapes were so unfamiliar that the mind took several seconds to adjust. Then you perceived that the green was a swaying curtain of broad-leafed vines; the splashes of gold were intricate, many-petaled blossoms. Behind, barely noticeable, was a spidery framework of metal, and beyond that, an occasional glimpse of mist-blue that suggested open space.

Then the Rithian moved into view.

At first you thought "Spiders!", and Spangler remembered that he had jumped; spiders were a particular horror of his. Then, when the thing stopped in front of the camera, you saw that it was no more like a spider than like an octopus or a monkey.

Curiously, its outline most resembled those of the great golden blossoms. There was a circlet of tentacles, lying in gentle S-curves, and below that another. The thing's body was a soft sac that dangled beneath the lower set of tentacles; there was a head, consisting almost entirely of two huge, dull-red eyes. The creature's body was covered with short, soft-looking ochre fur or spines.

To some people, Spangler supposed, it would be beautiful— the sort of people who professed to find beauty in the striped, oval bodies of big beetles.

The thing turned quickly, hung still for another moment, and then clambered in a blur of limbs up the vine again.

Then there was another scene: darker green, this time— the gloom of a forest rather than a garden city. A Rithian moved into view, clinging to the slick purplish bole of a tree. Three of its fore-tentacles held a long, slender object that was obviously a weapon. It hung motionless for some minutes; then the gun moved slightly and a brilliant thread of violet flame lanced out from it. Far in the background something reddish shrieked and plummeted through the branches.

That was all, but that little was impressive enough. The weapon the film showed, evidently the equivalent of a light sporting rifle, compared favorably in performance with a Mark LV Becket.

There were other films; Spangler had not seen them, but he could imagine the kind of thing they must be. Pictures of Rithian factories, Rithian spaceships, Rithian laboratories. No matter what they were like in detail, in mass they had been impressive enough to convince Earth's strategists that making war on the Rithians might be disastrous.

So the slow campaign had begun: economic sabotage, subversion, propaganda. Nothing overt; nothing that could be surely traced to the Earthmen masquerading as non-Empire traders in the Rithian system. The tiny disruption bombs that had destroyed many another, weaker world would not be planted: the Rithians were a space-faring people, with colonies and a space fleet, and such a people can retaliate if their home world is destroyed. The campaign would be simply one of slow, patient attrition, designed to weaken the Rithians as a race and as a galactic nation; to divide them politically, hamper them economically and intellectually? to enmesh them in so subtle a net of difficulties that eventually, without knowing how it had come about, the Rithians would find that the crest of the wave had passed them by; that they were settling into the trough of history. It would take centuries. Earth could wait.

But the Rithians had discovered their enemies. And now the situation was grotesquely changed. No part of Earth's knowledge of the Rithians could any longer be considered reliable. The Rithians might be stronger or weaker than had been thought; the one thing that appeared certain was that they were not as they appeared in the films and the written reports that had reached Earth.

Even the best planning could not always succeed, Spangler thought. It was conceivable that Earth had finally met an antagonist against whom neither force nor subtlety would be of any use. Wonderingly, Spangler allowed his mind to focus on the idea of a universe in which the human race had been exterminated, like so many other races that had met superior force, superior subtlety. It was like trying to imagine the universe going forward after one's own death, intellectually, it was perfectly easy, emotionally, impossible.

At any rate, the game was not yet played out; and, Spangler reminded himself wryly, he was not charged with the responsibility of revising the Empire's military policy. He had one simple task to perform:

Find the Rithian.

Which brought him inevitably back to Pembun. Spangler's irritation returned, and grew. With a muttered, "Damn the man!" he stood and began pacing restlessly up and down his office.

Spangler was a career executive, not a Security operative; but he knew himself to be conscientious, thorough, interested in his work—and he had been in the Department for fifteen years. He ought not to feel about anyone as he felt about Pembun: baffled, uneasy, his mind filled with shadowy suspicions that had no source and no direction.

For the third time that evening, he sat down and leafed through Pembun's dossier. Keith-Ingram was right, the man's early record was absolutely clean. He had been trusted by the Empire, as much as a colonial could be, for thirty years. But DeptSecur never ceased gathering information on anyone. Since the moment of Pembun's arrival on Earth, tiny robot monitoring devices had been following him wherever he went. At a slight distance, they could be mistaken for small flying insects. Their subminiaturized circuits recorded every word he spoke, or that was spoken in his presence.

On his first day, after the conference in Spangler's office, Pembun had stayed in his rooms, had made no calls, and had seen no one but Spangler himself. On the following day, he had left early and had spent the morning sightseeing. In the afternoon, after lunch in the Hill, he had gone shopping and had bought several small articles—listed in the report—in specialty shops on the Grand Mall and on Prospect Avenue. The proprietor of one of the shops was an ex-Outworlder, a man named Pero Mineth. A précis of his dossier was appended. No suspicion was attached to Mineth, other than the fact of his origin. The two men had spoken in Standard English, and briefly.

On the third day, Pembun had made two calls, one to a member of the visiting trade mission from Gloryfield, the other to an ex-cabinet minister of Manhaven, now resident in the city; later, he had met them for lunch. Their conversation had been recorded in full. It contained occasional remarks in Standard, but the rest was in Outworld dialects.

Spangler stirred restlessly in his chair as he reread the transcript. The machine translations were not satisfactory.

Pembun: Oo taw preé don stomà pi vantan, combé? [Where (from) have you taken (on) that stomach since twenty years, comrade?]

Coopo: De manj, ké penz—no t'ay stomà ti! [From eating, what (do you) think—you have not (a) small stomach!]

Pembun: Dakko! So pelloké gri! [Agreed! I am (a) gray parrot!]

"Gray parrot," no doubt, had some idiomatic significance which had come into use, in the Outworlders' abominably volatile language, since the last time the machines' vocabulary banks had been revised. It was impossible to keep up with them; new expressions came into being and others fell into disuse every day. Recent Manhaven publications, films, tri-D cubes and monitored interstellar messages were being checked; when the doubtful passages were satisfactorily interpreted, the new meanings would be read into the machines for future use; but in a week, or a month, or a year, they would be valueless again.

What a striking example of Empire superiority over the bumbling, loosely organized Outworlds! In Standard, you knew where you were. There was a general vocabulary of ninety thousand words, plus technical and special vocabularies of as many as fifteen thousand words each, and every word always meant the same thing. New words, and adaptations of old ones, had to be approved by three levels of the Advisory Commission on Standard English; and they moved with admirable deliberation. The result was a perfectly precise and yet perfectly flexible language which could be understood without error by any Standard speaker.

By contrast, language seemed to be some kind of game to the Outworlders. They delighted in changing it, distorting their already slovenly speech—competing with each other in the use of neologisms, new turns of phrase. How could they ever be certain they had really understood one another? Didn't they care?

… At any rate, Spangler's intuition told him that the conversation at lunch would probably turn out to be innocent. That was not what was bothering him; there was something else.

He stood up, began pacing again. Given: Pembun was clean. He was really what he seemed to be, a clumsy but devoted servant of the Empire. But—Spangler stopped. There was one thing which the dossier did not explain, and it was the first thing an agent of Security should want to know.

"What does he want?" Spangler asked aloud.

That was it—it located the sore spot that had been bothering Spangler for four days. What was Pembun after? What did he hope to accomplish? His talk was subtly flavored with amused contempt for the Empire and admiration for the Rithians. Then why was he working for one to defeat the other?

That was the thing to find out.

The December sky was a luminous gray above the transparent roof of the city. It had snowed earlier in the day, but the white flakes had melted as soon as they fell on the heated double panes; the water had run off into gutters and downspouts, and so into the city's water system. Within the city, the temperature remained at its year-round 72°. In less than two weeks, the year would be over: it would be January 1, 2522; but the city crowds would know it only by their fax sheets and calendars.

A little man in badly-fitting clothes solemnly stood in line at the exit from the north-south express tube, was fluoroscoped in his turn, tipped his absurd cap to the uniformed technician, and wandered down the ramp to the Imperial Plaza. An insect, so tiny and grayish that it was almost invisible, floated a meter behind him and above his head. Light glinted from the miniscule lenses of its eyes.

This was an older section of the city, built nearly two hundred years ago to celebrate the annexation of Colombo, Retreat, Godwin's World and Elysium. In spite of the sanctions against transfer of property in declining areas, many substantial businesses had moved out and rows of tawdry shops had sprung up in their place.

Pembun wandered along the row of open-fronted shops, inspecting the heaped souvenirs and gimcracks with childish interest. The tiny insect followed him. He picked up a cadmium-powered kaleidoscope, stared through it, and put it down again. At the next stall, he bought ten jointed dolls, crude things from LoaLoa, and asked the attendant to gift package them. He gave an address for their delivery; the listening insect noted it.

Pembun wandered on. In a fruit stall, where he had just bought a bunch of cultured grapes from a dispenser, he came face to face with a tall, leathery man in a yellow tunic. The two men greeted each other with cries of pleasure.

"Hernà! Cabró!"

"Pembun kukarà! No es in carsé?

"Si, in terrà. Como sa ba?"

The two men talked on, oblivious to the contemptuous stares of passersby. The hovering insect transmitted every word they spoke.

At last the leathery man turned to go. "A bentó, Pembun. Ser a festo?"

"Tendi—so pelloké gri!"

The two men grinned at each other, waved, and left the fruit stall in different directions. Another insect, high in the air, slanted down and began to follow the leathery man as he walked across the Plaza. Followed by the original insect, Pembun strolled back to the tube entrance and headed for the Hill.

Two days had passed since Pembun's meeting with the leathery man in the fruit stall. The man had been identified: he was Gonzal Estabor, ex-Elysian, a retired tech/3 in the Imperial Marines. He lived on his pension, supplemented by importing and selling novelties from Elysium and Retreat. His known associates had been listed; among them were three more men and two women whom Pembun had contacted during these last two days.

What in the world was the man up to? The dolls, and some other trinkets he had bought since, had all been delivered to an address on South Palisade. They had been rerouted from there by an automatic machine, and it was not known what had finally become of them. The owner of the building was another known associate of Estabor's.

Now Spangler sat watching one of the circular screens on his desk console. The image on the screen wavered and dipped; there was no color, only black and white, but the resolution was good. As if from a moving point three meters in the air, he was looking down at a curiously distorted Pembun—a gigantic Pembun, his head and shoulders immense, his trunk, arms, legs dwindling in perspective. An irrelevant thought obtruded—is this really the way it is? Is Pembun the giant, and are we the insects?

Spangler shifted his position angrily. He was overstrained, irritable; he did not usually find himself thinking nonsense. He concentrated on the screen, and on the sounds coming out of the speakers beside it.

In the screen, Pembun was walking down a narrow, un-powered street. The moving dot on the city map beside the screen indicated that he was on Paterson, moving west from Waterfield Way. The area he had left was a mean shopping center; now he was passing the blank walls of empty warehouses and factories, condemned by UrbRenew and scheduled to be razed. There was no sound except the distant hum of the powered streets behind him, and the squeak of Pembun's footsteps on the old pavement.

The viewpoint tilted up; a dark doorway loomed ahead. Pembun was walking up to it, raising a hand to press a button. The scarred old door slid aside. Pembun's head ballooned, grew gigantic and darkened the screen, as the hovering spy-insect swooped closer.

The scene cleared. Pembun was in a small empty room; plastic drums and other litter were piled against one wall. Flies were droning through the air—perfect cover for the spy-insect. A small, weasel-faced man in a dark tunic emerged from another doorway and approached Pembun, finger to his lips. He grinned wickedly.

"Arro, pelliké!"

"Toud'es pré?"

On the blank translator screen, words began to appear one by one:

HELLO PARROT

IS EVERYTHING READY

"Segí, combé. Ben."

CERTAINLY COMRADE COME

The two men turned toward the inner doorway. The floating eye of the spy-insect followed them. In the screen, Pembun and the weasel-faced man were through the doorway, moving past a man who stood on guard, down a scabrous corridor, into a larger room where Spangler glimpsed confused activity. Then something cloudy and shimmering occluded the screen. Nothing more appeared but a vague shifting of light and dark. The sounds of a number of distant voices continued to come from the speakers, but the screen did not clear.

Spangler swore, hit the intercom button.

"Commissioner?"

"What's the matter with that damned spy-eye?"

A pause. "Sir, the eye does not respond to control."

"Send in another one! Send six!"

"Right away, Commissioner."

Spangler fretted, watching the cloudy screen and listening to the indistinguishable voices. The additional spy devices probably would not be able to enter the building the way Pembun had gone, unless someone happened to open the door; they would have to search the exterior of the building, looking for a crack, or else try to enter through the ventilation system. Either way, time would be lost. He hit the intercom button again.

"Operations." The pale, hard-eyed face of Inspector Makaris appeared on the square intercom screen.

"Inspector, our spy eye at Paterson between Waterson and Cleveland is out of commission. I want you to get a man over there within five minutes—send him in alone with remote recording equipment, but back him up with an armed squad. He is to get in and record, without revealing himself if possible. Get the location from the monitors. Any questions?"

"No, sir," said Makaris, his jaw closing like a trap. Before the screen cleared, Spangler saw his head turn, heard him bark, "Langtree!"

The unmarked copter set TS/3 Chad Langtree down on a roof at the intersection of Urhart and Idris Lane. It took off immediately. Langtree turned, scanning the rooftop and the adjacent buildings with a quick professional glance; then he looked up at the gray-lit dome overhead. Up there, tiny with distance, another copter was hovering. That was the assault squad, armed and ready to come in. Operations had told him it was there, but a good agent learned not to rely on anyone for information he could check himself.

Langtree was a slender pale man with a thread of golden-blond mustache. He wore a blue tunic and slash pantaloons, both garments cut wide enough to conceal the assortment of gadgetry they covered. His spy-eye, set into a filigree pin, was attached to the shoulder of the tunic.

At thirty-eight, Langtree had unlined, almost effeminate features. His pale blue eyes were narrow and expressionless with what seemed stupidity; only a trained observer would see the hardness in them. Inside himself, Langtree was tough, compact and self-sufficient. He did not believe in excess baggage. He did his fob, thoroughly and efficiently. If killing a man should be part of the job, he would do it without hesitation, and sleep soundly afterwards. Summoned from the guardroom, he had picked up his gear and costume, got into the copter, changed clothing and absorbed his briefing in flight, all in less than four minutes. His breathing and heartbeat were steady.

Now he turned to the stairhead. When the door did not open to his touch, he slipped his hand up under his tunic, withdrew an instrument with blunt, powerful jaws. He jammed the blades into the crack of the door, pressed the release. With a ringing snap, the door swung open. Langtree was through the doorway and down the steps even as he slid the tool precisely back into its loop.

He went down the stairs with light, long steps, almost seeming to float. At the ground level, he eased the door open, glanced into the street. It was empty to the corner in the direction he could see. He stepped out casually, glanced the other way. No one was in sight but a bent old woman, bright as a macaw in an absurd red-flowered dress, who was hobbling away from him toward the corner.

Langtree followed her, passed her indifferently just as she reached the intersection. One casual sideward glance was enough to fix her wrinkled, knobby face in his memory: about eighty, dark skin, foreign appearance, probably Outworld.

To his right, halfway down the cross-street on the opposite side, a little group of people in garish clothing was approaching the door of a warehouse. There were two men and a woman, all about fifty, and two children, girl about fourteen, gangling, boy about seven, fat. Langtree registered all this in one glance, kept on crossing the street.

On the opposite corner he began limping slightly, and a look of pain crossed his vapid features. Limping more markedly, he crossed to the corner of the building and supported himself against it with one hand. Leaning over, he raised his left foot and began struggling to get the shoe off. In this position, body turned to the right, he could see the whole length of the street and knew that his spy-eye was recording it as well. The warehouse door was now open and the brightly-dressed group was entering. Langtree's acute vision caught a glint of light as something tiny swooped over their heads through the doorway. The old woman had turned the corner and was now angling across the street, evidently aiming for the same destination. The fat little boy was the last one through; the door closed behind him.

Langtree had his shoe off. He shook it, probed inside with a finger, then replaced it. He straightened, his vapid expression returning. The old woman was nearly across the street. Langtree walked casually after her, timing himself so that he passed behind her just after she had pushed the door button, at exactly the moment the door swung open and she began to enter. When she hobbled in, Langtree was right behind her.

Flies were buzzing in the small bare room; Langtree had felt the minute motion of displaced air past his head as he went through the doorway, and knew that at least one of them was no fly. The old woman had not turned, and did not seem aware that there was anyone with her. A door opened in the opposite wall, beside a mound of rubbish; a weasel-faced little man in a blue tunic came out and grinned at the old woman as she went forward. Langtree stayed close behind her, a little to one side. The little man's gaze flicked over them both, returned to the old woman; he muttered something at her in Outworld jargon. She replied in a shrill cackle. The little man laughed, showing discolored teeth. He squeezed the old woman's shoulder, urged her tojyard the inner door.

The clear, small voice of the bone-conduction receiver implanted behind Langtree's ear said abruptly: "Translation. Greetings, little mother. Are you ready for the big untranslated word? Yes, yes, garbled word, always ready, ready for a long time."

As Langtree followed the old woman, the little man glanced at him again and said something too rapidly for Langtree to make out the alien sounds. He smiled vacantly and nodded.

The voice behind his ear said: "Are you two together? Reply Si." But already the little man had put one arm across the doorway and was saying something else. The old woman had paused, was turning her head.

"I don't recognize you" said the voice behind Langtree's ear. "Where are you from, what group do you belong to?" Langtree kept a vacant smile on his face. The little man turned and shot a question at the woman. She replied, shaking her head.

"Is he with you?" said the tiny voice.

The little man was looking at him coldly. "I think there 'as been a mistake," he said in badly accented Standard. The voice behind Langtree's ear continued, "No, I never saw him in my life."

Langtree allowed a look of embarrassment to creep over his face. "Isn't this 17906 Paterson?" he asked.

"No, sir." The little man shook his head. "You are on the wrong si' of town. That address is ten miles from 'ere."

Langtree shuffled his feet, looked bewildered and then stubborn. "But they told me to take the tube downtown and get off at the Imperial Plaza," he said. "Are you sure this isn't—"

"No, sir," the little man said again. He took Langtree's arm and began to propel him toward the outer door. Langtree stumbled, went along passively, making his muscles limp. "Well, I'm certainly sorry," he said. "Uh, how do I get over to where you said?"

"Take the crosstown tube, or go south to one of the power streets," the little man said curtly. Langtree was outside the door. It closed in his face.

On Spangler's console, one screen showed a moving view of a deserted street as Langtree walked along it; another, an aerial view of the closed warehouse doorway. Above, from the square intercom screen, Makaris' face looked at him stonily.

"Langtree tried to run a bluff," said Makaris, skipping off each word. "It was worth the risk, to try to get in directly. Now he'll have to do it the hard way." He paused, added unwillingly, "For a job like this, we need operatives trained to speak Outworld languages. Machine translation and relay is too slow."

"By the time we trained them, the damned jargon would be different," Spangler said.

Makaris nodded expressionlessly. His head turned, then swung back. "Results are beginning to come in from the Out-world resident survey. A little over a hundred calls made so far, using a fax quiz cover, and the percentage of completed calls is hanging right around twenty-three."

"Run a computer test," Spangler said.

"Already done, Commissioner. Correlation with the assembly in the warehouse is fifty-one per cent, plus or minus three. That means—"

"It means there may be a couple of hundred Outworlders already in that warehouse. How could this thing have gone so far before we got even a hint, a rumor, a suspicion?"

Makaris did not reply.

"What does the computer say about the purpose of the assembly?"

"Not enough data yet. Insurrection fifteen per cent, plus or minus eight. Sabotage, eleven per cent, plus or minus six. Correlation with Rithian activity, seven per cent—"

"All right. Makaris, I want heavy assault armor and Gun Units on standby in the tubes around that area. What about those spy-eyes?"

"Twenty in the building now, Commissioner, through ventilators, under doors and so on. So far we haven't been able to get any of them into that section of the warehouse. The fire doors are down, they can't get through."

"What about the ventilators?"

"Dead Storage is still hunting for the building blueprints. Meanwhile, we're trying to find the route by trial and error, but no results yet."

Spangler swore, then turned to the center screen as his eye caught a movement. A dumpy couple in bright figured clothing was approaching the warehouse door. Each held by the hand a child of six or seven.

"The children, too!" Spangler said. "That's the part I fail to grasp, Makaris. Can they be so degraded…"

A fourth screen lighted up, and Spangler saw the warehouse doorway expand, grow gigantic as the door opened. He caught a glimpse of a man's head as the spy-eye flitted through; a moment of confusion and darkness, then the view steadied. The weasel-faced little man was approaching the newcomers.

"Arro, Manel, Delí. Como gran su niyo!"

"Mesi, Udo. Mi Frank ay ja set ano!"

Spangler saw the words begin to appear on the translator screen; he watched them half-attentively.

HELLO MANEL DELI HOW LARGE YOUR CHILDREN

THANKS UDO MY FRANK HAS ALREADY SEVEN YEARS

Spangler tensed. The group at the door swelled nearer as the spy-eye drifted toward them. The door opened, ballooned bigger—the spy-eye was through.

A corridor, a doorway, then a flare of milky light, then nothing. The screen went dark.

"Again!" said Spangler, and hit the console with his fist.

In a private room at the rear of the warehouse, Pembun and a grizzled, sad-eyed man of sixty were sitting on packing crates with slender little glasses of aromatic liquor in their hands.

"Well, Enri?" said Pembun, lifting his glass.

Enri Rodriz gave him a sad, affectionate smile, and raised his glass in turn.

"To peace," Pembun said.

"To peace." They drank, and smacked their lips. "Good jolt," Pembun said.

"The best, old friend. They don't make conya like this on Earth, and their half-assed laws say you can't import it except for your own use. Tell me, why should a government tell people what they can or can't guzzle?"

"Let's talk of something more pleasant," Pembun said.

"This may be our last chance to hoist one together, Enri. I myself am as vigorous as ever, but in all honesty, you are not getting any younger."

Rodriz' brown eyes flashed with mock anger. "Do you tell me this to my face? Have you forgotten the time I picked you up by the ankles—with one hand, by God!—and tossed you into the manure cart?"

Pembun shook his head solemnly. "Truth, Enri. I came out smelling like you."

Rodriz grinned. "What a sharp tongue it has, for such a little man."

"Sharp as the tail of the scorpion your little sister hid in the towel."

Rodriz made a face of dismay. "Ai, yi," he said dolefully, rubbing his rump with one huge hand. "What a brat she was! Do you know, she has three grandbrats already?"

Pembun shook his head. "To me, she's still small enough to walk under the donkey. I couldn't even guess what she looks like, Enri, because as I remember her, her tongue is always sticking out."

"Children," said Rodriz. "Sometimes I think they are bad now, but we were worse." He picked up a slender-necked bottle from the floor, filled both glasses.

"The children," said Pembun.

"Yes, the children." They drank, smacked their lips again. "If only we could all be back in the mountains of Combé," said Rodriz sentimentally. "But a man does what he has to do."

"Some parts of it are less pleasant than others," Pembun said. They both looked at the long, carefully sealed carton that lay across two packing cases against the wall.

"True, old friend. When I think of the hours of labor that went into that alone, not to mention the rest of it! The planning, the secrecy, everything done at night—weeks and months!"

"Still, you don't have to wear it. You should have done this years ago, when I was safely elsewhere."

"There weren't enough of us here then. We were too scattered. But this will not be the last, Jawj, believe me."

"It may be the last for me."

"Courage," said Rodriz, pouring the glasses full again. "Drink, my friend, you're pale, you need it."

There was a rap at the door. A perspiring young man stepped in, closed the door and leaned against it. "In the name of God, when will you be ready? I can't keep them quiet any longer."

Rodriz twisted massively around to look at him. "Gently, gently," he said. "Where is your consideration? A man doesn't do a thing like this like putting on his hat. It takes moral preparation. When he's ready, he'll be ready, understand? They've waited this long, they can wait another minute or two."

"You wouldn't say that if you were out there," the young man said bitterly. He looked from one to the other, opened his mouth again, closed it in resignation and went out.

"Impatience," said Rodriz heavily. "That's the trouble with everybody nowadays."

"All the same, he's right," Pembun said. "If I sit here any longer, Enri, I think I may begin to get a little jumpy. I can't say I'm ready, but hell! let's get on with it."

"One more drink first," said Rodriz, giving him an anxious look. He filled the glasses. "Good will among men."

They drank. Pembun set down his glass with care and stood up. "All right, open it and let's see the damned thing."

Rodriz took a little electroblade from his pocket and began to open the long carton. He turned the lid back. Inside was a folded garment made of heavy fabric with a dull sheen. Pembun ran his fingers over it absently; then the two men lifted the thing out and unfolded it. Rodriz held it up for Pembun's inspection. It was like the empty skin of a great bird. The huge wings hung to the floor, the grotesque, beaked and crested headpiece lolled as if the neck were broken.

Pembun considered it grimly, then sat down on one of the packing cases and began to remove his shoes. Rodriz waited in sympathetic silence while Pembun stripped to his underclothes; then he opened the front of the gray garment and held the legs while Pembun stepped into them. The feet were clawed, monstrous.

Pembun got his arms into the sleeves and held them out; the gray wing-feathers spread with a rustling sound. Rodriz pulled the closure up over the bulge of Pembun's belly; the seam disappeared. "Hold still a minute," he muttered. He went behind Pembun, lifted the headpiece, lowered it carefully over Pembun's head. He walked around in front again, pulled the closure all the way up to the chin.

Where Pembun had stood, a gigantic crested gray bird stared fiercely at Rodriz over a cruel yellow beak. "How do I look?" Pembun's muffled voice asked.

"Magnificent," said Rodriz, his face shining with excitement. "Tes pelloké gri!"

The bright disc of Langtree's hand-flash swung ahead of him as he advanced through the subcellar. The deeper he went, the more he could feel the skin of his back and neck prickling with apprehension. His palms and forehead were growing moist.

Langtree did not like dark, enclosed places. It was his one disability; it dated from some buried childhood experience that the psychs had not been able to dig up. He was coldly aware of it, and had never allowed it to influence any decisions he made while on duty. But in spite of himself, his nervousness increased the farther he penetrated into this maze of subcellars under the old warehouse. He was too conscious of the darkness pressing in beside and behind him; it took an increasing effort to keep from swinging the light around to see what was there.

There had been no sound except those he made himself; he knew there was nothing there in the darkness, staring eyelessly at him… It was not any specific thing he was afraid of, only the darkness itself. The darkness, the underground feeling. If his light should go out—

Langtree's hand tightened convulsively on the flash. The light would not go out. It was powered by an atomic battery, good for a century of continuous operation. In any event, all he had to do was reach a stairway that would take him up into the rear of the warehouse—and there it was, glinting in the light of the flash, dusty gray-painted steps with a tube rail, running up to a massive firedoor.

Langtree darted lightly up the steps, then paused in dismay. The door was crossed by two heavy bars of steel, atomic-welded to the frame on either side.

"Report," said the tiny voice behind his ear, after a moment. "What's the trouble, Langtree?"

Langtree made sure his voice would be steady before he answered. "No entry here without cutting torches," he said. "Stand by." There was a long pause, then: "Negative, Langtree. Find another entrance."

"Acknowledged," said Langtree curtly. He turned, descended the stairs, started deeper into the cellar.

The bobbing disc of his flash went ahead of him; the darkness around it seemed to grow deeper. Now his mental picture of the ground plan told him that he was directly under the part of the warehouse that he wanted to reach, here was another stairway… another fire door, barred like the first. He swung the flash around. The huge space was empty except for a domed metal shape against the far wall. He went on, found a third stairway. It was blocked like the other two.

The blackness seemed to flow in around him very gently, touching his back like cool fog. The thought crossed his mind that if he merely reported there was no practical entrance, it would only mean a delay; no one would ever know; there would be no mark against him on the record… But he had seen what he had seen.

He went back, angling across to the incinerator. The chute was still connected, a metal tube, square in cross-section, about a hundred and twenty centimeters wide, that dropped from the ceiling into the incinerator shell.

He played his flash into the shell, saw the black square hole gaping in the top of the dome. His jaws were clenched; he relaxed them with an effort. "Going up," Langtree said.

On Spangler's console, a large screen now displayed a computer chart made up of dots and interconnecting lines. The red dots represented Outworld residents of the city who could not be located by visiphone; the black dots, those who had responded. The lines between them represented known associations. It was obvious, even at a glance, that the many red dots and the few black ones formed separate networks, with a few linkages between.

"Here's the report from Computing," Makaris said. His face was grim in the tiny screen. "Five hundred seven calls made; percentage of completion has dropped to nine point five. Correlation with the meeting in the warehouse is eighty-seven per cent, plus or minus one."

"Purpose of the assembly?" Spangler snapped.

"Insurrection, thirty-one per cent, plus or minus two. Sabotage, twenty-six per cent, plus or minus two. Unauthorized attempt to leave Earth, eighteen per cent, plus or minus four. Correlation with Rithian activity, still low but rising, eleven per cent, plus or minus three."

"All right—that's good enough," Spangler said. He glanced at a memex that lay open on the desk beside him. "Plan H, 103, red alert."

"Acknowledged," said Makaris. You never had to tell the man anything twice, and no order ever seemed to surprise him. He was a good subordinate—too good, perhaps. The matter was one which had occupied Spangler's thoughts before. At present, at least, Makaris was not a danger. Under certain circumstances, it would not be disagreeable to think of Makaris taking over the Commissioner's post… if, for example, Spangler had moved up to the position now occupied by Keith-Ingram…

Plan H 103 was another of the detailed, thorough operational plans which had lain unused in DeptSecur's files for over a century. It provided for protective detention, under maximum security, of up to ten thousand resident aliens. At this moment, orders would be flowing out to activate the detention centers, assign personnel, check and issue equipment.

Through his edge of excitement, Spangler felt a moment's contempt for his adversaries. This was like a game of chess— the intentions of each side were unknown to the other, except as they could be deduced from the moves on the board. But Spangler could put any number of pieces into play—powerful pieces, unlimited by any rules—armored queens, bishops bristling with machine-guns…

One of the smaller screens on the console still showed the exterior of the warehouse; the door was closed. Four more gave Spangler a view of the armed squads in jump suits now massed on rooftops near the warehouse; a sixth, seventh and eighth, the squat shapes of Gun Units in subsurface tubes now cleared of civil traffic, around the area. The ninth, tenth and eleventh screens showed variations of the same view—the interior of the anteroom behind the closed warehouse door.

Spangler cast his mind back over his handling of the situation; and could find no flaw. He was probing into the area of the seditious meeting by means least calculated to alarm the Outworlders. Every stage was backed up by another, all the way to power sufficient to crush an armed uprising.

He had resisted every temptation to take Outworlders into custody as they approached the meeting place. That was doctrine—keep a loose net, catch all the fish. Yet a feeling of uneasiness persisted. What had he overlooked?

Motion caught his eye. On the exterior warehouse screen, two more figures were approaching—a fat woman and a gangling youth. The door opened; they entered.

On the three interior screens, the now-familiar playlet was enacted. The little man came out, smiling.

"Ben, ben, a von ora—pesh!"

"No so tardé?"

"No, no, a von ora."

On the translator screen:

COME COME AT A GOOD TIME HURRY WE NOT LATE NO NO…

Spangler tensed. As the woman and the boy began to move through the inner door, the doorway seemed to swell on all three screens. Three spy-eyes were making the attempt at once.

The heads of the woman and boy ballooned, swelled out of sight. Once more, on all three screens, there was a blur of movement, then a sudden flare of light: but not before Spangler had glimpsed, on one of the three, a raised fist holding a bright plastic cylinder, an intent dark face behind it.

"Run that over!" he said sharply.

After a moment's pause, a larger screen lighted up. The spy-eye was moving forward in dream-slow motion. It turned; the face, the hand with the lifted cylinder swam into view. A cloud of glittering particles appeared at the tip of the cylinder, slowly expanded.

Spangler barely felt his fist strike the surface of the desk. A tide of exasperation threatened to choke and drown him.

"Insect spray, by God!"

In the darkness, Langtree was jackknifed into the narrow refuse chute, working his way upward a foot at a time, like a mountaineer in a rock chimney. His flash illuminated the chute above him in a hot yellow-white glare, but the darkness flowed upward against his body with an inexorable, insistent pressure. His back was against one wall of the chute, feet against the other. His back and leg muscles were already trembling with the strain, though he had climbed only a few meters. Somewhere above him was light and air; someday he would reach it, and then he would be able to resume his duty. But now there was only the darkness and the choking pressure of the chute, and the slow, painful movements that hitched his body upward.

Far up the chute, the flash picked out something anomalous, a dark thin line across the wall. Langtree stared at it, tilted his neck awkwardly. Faint sounds drifted down the chute—an indistinguishable murmur of voices, isolated shouts, all distant and blurred. There was his goal. All he had to do was to master himself, keep moving upward until he reached it. He straightened his legs, feeling his back scrape up along the wall. He raised one foot, then the other. He could feel sweat trickling along his ribs; his tunic was soaked, clinging to his skin. He pushed with his feet again: another infinitesimal gain, another pause to rest. Push again, with muscles that jerked and trembled. The dark line above was a little nearer. The sounds grew louder.

Outworlders—how he detested them! Ugly, uncouth, insolent brown faces… The thought gave him strength enough for another lurch upward. The darkness, pressing in, squeezing him tight inside this narrow box, like a fist closing around his chest so that he could not get his breath… Langtree locked his jaws, heaved upward again.

Louder now, the sounds washed down around Langtree as he inched up toward the dark line. Now, when he turned the flash away from it, he could make out a hairline of yellow light outlining three sides of a square. It was the hatchway, the exit from the chute. He was almost there.

The noise swelled to a confused roar. Straining for breath, his whole body shaking, Langtree hitched himself up the last meter until his feet were planted just above the square hatch. Now the noise was a din that made the chute vibrate and boom around him, squeezing him tighter, making it impossible to think. With the last of his strength, he raised one foot, kicked the hatch. It gave. It was swinging open, letting in a deafening blast of sound and a dazzle of light. Langtree felt himself slipping; he grabbed desperately for the top of the hatchway, clamped his hands hard, swung himself out into a confusion of color and noise.

Something huge and impossible was drifting toward him through the air…wings, fierce eyes… Then, as he staggered for balance on rubbery legs, hands seized him from behind. Something dark and smothering dropped over his face. A touch on his palm—his fingers closed around something long and heavy— A club, a weapon! It was all happening too fast, he could not think, get his balance. A shove from behind—he went reeling into darkness toward that impossible thing…

Both hands clenched around the club, he swung it with the strength of panic. There was a jolt that ran all the way up to his shoulders, a crash of something broken, yells, screams all around him. Langtree was yelling too, spittle flying from his lips, but he could not hear his own voice. The club was gone; he was clawing at the cloth over his head, dragging it away, blinking wildly in the sudden glare of light.

Over his head, suspended from a ceiling trolley, a huge gray bird swayed upright in the air—wings spread, yellow eyes glaring fiercely. Under its great clawed feet something else was dangling—circling and spinning at the end of a cord— and under that, all around Langtree, what seemed like hundreds of yelling children were milling, down on all fours, fighting and scrambling to get at the heap of bright objects that lay under the gray bird.

A flushed little girl straightened up, holding something in both hands. Her dark pigtails, standing out stiffly on either side of her head, were tied with huge pink bows of ribbon. The thing in her hands was a doll—a painted, staring doll… A boy in a mussed white tunic was working his way out of the crowd, clutching a red wagon…

The things on the floor were all toys, and glittering plastic bags of candy. Langtree could not take it in. His brain was numbed by the suddenness, the noise, the shouting. The thing that spun and circled under the claws of the gray bird, slowing now, was the brown, broken top half of what might have been a gigantic earthenware jar. It was gaily painted with stars and lightning-strokes of primary red, blue, yellow, glittering with scraps of silver paper.

Dazed, Langtree saw that hollow fragments of the jar were lying among the dwindling heaps of toys. That was the thing he had broken; there on the floor was the wooden club he had done it with.

He was aware that men and women in bright costumes were closing in around him. Someone laid a hand on his arm, said something unintelligible. With a convulsive movement he backed away, brought up with a crash against the cold metal of the refuse chute. His hand found the gun at his waist, swung it up. "Keep off!" he shouted hoarsely. "You're all under arrest!"

He was crouched, every muscle tense, ready to fire at the first movement toward him. Yet at the same time, with a sense of doom, he realized that something was terribly wrong.

The huge room was hung with streamers and pendants of twisted, colored paper. The noise around him was dying away a little, faces turning toward him. There were hundreds of Outworlders in the room, all in bright, stiff tunics and flowered dresses; and the children, hundreds of children, all painfully clean, hair combed and shining…

As if in a nightmare, he saw the great gray bird fold one wing toward its head, saw the cruel beak tilt up and a human face appear under it. It was a broad, brown face, staring down at him with an expression of surprise and concern—a face he recognized.

"Pay!" someone was shouting. "Pay! Pay!" The din of voices lessened still more.

"I know you," Langtree gasped, staring. "Pembun, from Manhaven. Don't make a move, any of you—I'm Sergeant Langtree, from Security. I want to know—I demand to know."

The gray bird said something sharply in Outworld language. The men around Langtree darted forward, began herding the children away. After a moment the bird swayed, dropped half a meter, then another. The broken top of the brown jar struck the floor, bounced, rolled. Then the bird with Pembun's face was standing before Langtree, peeling open its gray breast, pulling the beaked headpiece back over a perspiring forehead.

"There's been some mistake, Sergeant," Pembun's voice said. "I'm afraid you've come all this way for nothing."

Langtree's mouth was dry; his tongue would not work properly. "But all this—this—"

Pembun's heavy face turned mournful. "Sergeant," he said gently, "there's no law on Earth against celebrating Christmas, is there?"