The White Papers
(1996)*
James White

Contents

	Introduction by Mike Resnick
	James White by Walt Willis
	Fiction
		Custom Fitting
		Commuter
		House Sitter
		Sanctuary
		Christmas Treason
		The Secret History of Sector General
		Accident
		Medic
		Countercharm
		Visitor at Large
	Fan Writing
		An Introduction to Real Virtuality by Bruce Pelz
		The Last Time I Saw Harris
		The Beacon
		The Not-So-Hot Gospeller
		The Long Afternoon of Harrogate
		The History of IF #3
		The Quinze-y Report
		Fester on the Fringe
		The Exorcists of IF
		The Unreal George Affair
	More about Sector General
		Sector General Timeline by Gary Louie
		Notes on the Classification System
		The Classification System by Gary Louie
	Acknowledgements

The White Paper

INTRODUCTION
by Mike Resnick

	I'm about to make public a secret vice. Its name is James White, and for well over a third of a century I have been searching for a James White book or story that I could put down before finishing.

	I haven't found one yet—and I've read every word of science fiction he's written to date. I even stopped by a British book store to buy Underkill, the one novel he didn't sell to the United States.

	The strange thing is that each time a new White book comes out, I look at the cover blurb and say, "This time you've done it, James my boy. This time you've picked a subject even you can't make interesting."

	I must confess that over the years I've learned to say it very softly, because he makes a liar out of me every time.

-

	I do a lot of speaking at conventions, and I write some columns about science fiction, and one of the things I keep pointing out is that there is really no need for five-book trilogies, that good writers can usually say what they have to say in one well-conceived and well-executed book. I take great pride in the fact that I turned down a StarTrek novel and a Star Wars trilogy in the same calendar year.

	That said, I must point out that there are exceptions to every rule— and I publicly promise that if James White ever stops writing his Sector General books, I will personally break one of his knees each day until he relents. And if it takes him more than two days to give in, I'll go to work on his elbows.

	If White is addictive (and he is), then beware the tales of this fabulous hospital in space, because once they grab hold of your sense of wonder you will be hopelessly hooked for life. And like any addict, you'll find that you don't mind in the least.

-

	The stories are populated by the most memorable crew of aliens ever created—and that includes every creature from Stanley Weinbaum's to (insert the author of your choice here). The four-letter biological classification system is a marvel, and has been swiped—well, let's be generous and say built upon—more than once. The tapes that each surgeon carries around inside his head are another touch of genius. The problems O'Mara and Conway and the empath Prilicla and the elephantine Thornnastor and the rest of the crew must face in each story are always fascinating, and the solutions are both logical and fair.

	The books began as simple—well, actually, incredibly complex— medical problems in the brilliantly realized Sector General, but as the series has continued, the focus has become more serious and mature. By the time of The Genocidal Healer, White was dealing with themes as important and powerful as any writer in the field—and handling them better than most.

	White didn't exactly create the sub-genre of Medical Science Fiction, but I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind at this late date that the Sector General stories define it.

-

	I don't want you to get the idea that James White is a one-shot artist, a guy who lucked out on the Sector General stories and didn't do much else worthwhile.

	Take, for example, The Escape Orbit. Here's a good old-fashioned science fiction problem story. There's a war. Human prisoners are dropped onto a planet that possesses no metals and no fissionable materials. The enemy ships never land.

	Okay—how do you plan an escape?

	White not only plans it and pulls it off, he has you believing it. The only problem I have with the book is why Hollywood hasn't bought it, adapted it, and made umpteen gazillion dollars at the box office with it.

	Then there's All Judgment Fled, my personal favorite. I never knew quite how to describe it until Rendezvous with Rama came out and won the 1974 Hugo. Now I just tell people that if they want to read Rama done right (sorry, Arthur), pick up All Judgment Fled.

	Like Rama, this one has a mysterious space vehicle approaching the Earth, and, like Rama, a human crew goes out to investigate it.

	But unlike Rama, the solution to the multitude of frustrating puzzles is logical and satisfying—and you don't have to hunt up the sequel(s) to find out what it is.

-

	What can I tell you about Lifeboat except to say that it's a totally fresh and intriguing handling of an old theme. Too bad Hitchcock didn't make this one instead of the mundane one about a bunch of men and a Tallulah duking it out in an ocean liner's lifeboat.

	Deadly Litter? It's a notion so unique, so out and out brilliant that I use it whenever I'm lecturing beginners about what science fiction actually deals with when it's done properly.

	The Watch Below? Fabulous story. In fact, two fabulous stories that dovetail beautifully by the end of the book.

-

	Hopeful science fiction writers could learn a lot about then craft by studying White's various novels and short stories. No one presents a wider selection of consistent, believable aliens. But just as important, I consider him without peer in creating alien environments.

	He's not so bad on human environments, either, Once he's described a room, or a ship, or a hospital for that matter, you feel like you've been there. He doesn't content himself with physical outlines, but adds textures as well.

	Perhaps the most distinctive thing about him—it runs through every story, never intrusive but always there—is his devout belief in a benevolent, ultimately reasonable, universe. Like Clifford D. Simak before him, James White believes in the decency of all intelligent beings.

	So why (I hear you ask) do I, who can most charitably be termed cynical, and whose endings are not always the happiest, have such admiration for James White?

	First, because the man's a craftsman and an artist, and I have unbounded respect for both traits.

	And second, and perhaps more importantly, because while I may write about my universe, I wish I could live in his.

JAMES WHITE
by Walt Willis

	This is not the first such piece I have written. The very first one was written at the request of a now almost forgotten fan called Henry Oden, before James started his professional career and while he was known only as Art Editor of our fanzine Slant. Each of us wrote a brief description of the other, and I wrote the following in response to James's picture of me dashing off the tennis court to supervise the printing of Slant.

Those keen-minded, or crossed-eyed, readers who have been reading between the lines of that account may have conjured up a mental picture of James spending the long summer evenings slaving over a hot press turning out Slant while I enjoy myself in the sunshine, tanning my knobbly face and thin sensitive knees. They may even have got the impression that James does all the real work on Slant while I collect all the egoboo.

Nothing could be nearer to the truth. With real feminine intuition, Lee Hoffman, without ever hearing directly from James, summed him up as follows: "I've always had a special sense of affection for James White, partly because he is—so far as one can tell—so quiet. He seems to go quietly about his tasks, performing them all with efficiency and dispatch, and never gets so much as a nod or a thank you for doing them." This is very true indeed. James puts more into fandom and gets less egoboo out of it than anyone I know. Each issue of Slant is more his work than anyone else's, and yet he is so quiet and unassuming that even me and Bob Shaw, who like and respect him more than anyone we've met, are inclined to overlook the fact that he is the mainspring of Irish fan publishing, the power behind the zines. Nevertheless, it is quite true to say that without James, Slant would not be what it is today, nor even exist at all. Apart from the linocuts, where without any previous training or experience he has worked up a technique which puts most professionals to shame, every issue represents hours of patient work by him setting type and working the press. We all look up to James here, and not just because he is about 6 1/2 feet tall.

	That piece for Henry Oden wasn't quite the first published writing by James. That distinction belongs to a disclaimer "These views on the great Smith are not those of the typesetter, J. White" diffidently but stubbornly inserted after a disrespectful reference to E.E. Smith in Clive Jackson's column in Slant 4. More important was a report James wrote on the London Convention of 1951. It was too long for Slant ... after 24 closely hand-written pages it had reached only 8:30 p.m. on the night before the convention started. They don't write convention reports like that nowadays. However I persuaded him to send an extract from it to Vince Clarke, who duly published it in his SF News under the title "The Unconventional Fan." Bob Shaw and I were determined that this debut shouldn't pass unnoticed, and for weeks Vince was getting letters of comment like these:

-

Dear Sir,

I have been writing to fanzines for 74 years now, yet I have never read one before. But something drove me to read James White's story in the current SFN. I was profoundly stirred, as if I had swallowed an eggbeater. This story, Sir, is a masterpiece. It will stand the test of time. Indeed I venture to say that when the ephemeral scribbles of lesser authors. ..Heinlein, Van Vogt, even Willis ... are forgotten, this story will live on, bringing inspiration to countless thousands. When I read this story first I was unable to contain myself, and pored over it again and again. But now I am exhausted and can only offer these pithy comments.

Yours thintherely,
Prof. Harold Urine (No. 1 Fan)

-

	Or this, on the back of a picture postcard of Windsor Castle:

-

Dear Mr. Clarke,

We were amused by the story about the UNCONVENTIONAL Fan by Mr. White. This is one of our favourite Subjects.

	X This is Our room.

-

	My grandmother's postcard album wasn't restricted to British scenery:

-

CAPETOWN. Great. Colossal. Goshwowboyoboy. This guy White is terrific. Why doesn't he try for Slant? Don't let Gold get him. Throw out all those other hacks of yours and let White fill the whole magazine. Give him his head. What are you doing with it anyway?

	Yours for more White A White Fan
(A Caucasian Winnower, Mr.)

Dear Vincy-wincy,

I have just read your cute little SFN. I love every line of it. Would you do a little girl like me a b-i-g favour. You would! Oh you dear boy. Just send me the address of James White who wrote that adorable story. I feel we are soul mates. I can just imagine him—dark, strong, and ever so brutal. I must meet him—that super-duper story convinced me. It was great! So vital, don't you think?

	Yours sincerely,
Lava Firestone (Miss)

-

	Meanwhile the crack of doom was about to sound for our little fanzine. We were printing it on the cheapest available printing press, an Adana, which consisted of nothing more than a steel box with a cast iron lever designed to force the lid, holding the paper backed by a cork table mat, against the type, held in the box. It was a very elementary machine, designed for little more than printing letterheads and visiting cards, certainly not whole pages of type. I noticed after a while that the steel bed for the type had become quite convex, but also noticed that, through some merciful dispensation of Providence, the lid had fortunately become correspondingly concave. Admittedly it seemed to be getting more difficult to get an even impression, but really there wasn't much a few little pieces of type could do when levered against a cork table mat by an enthusiastic fan. We just seemed to go through a lot of table mats; literally.

	James had the job of operating the press because he is bigger and heavier than I am. He had the process down to a fine art, if you can describe as a fine art anything so awesomely brutal. Having closed the press, he would take a deep breath, grasp the lever firmly with both hands, and push himself into the air, where he would remain for a moment before returning to the floor. I estimate he had made this ascent twelve thousand times, and the first 25 pages of Slant #3 were stacked neatly in the corner of the room, when disaster struck. We had set up and proof-read the last page, the back cover, and were ready to run it off. The time was about 10 p.m. The page we were printing was even more crammed with type than usual, and James realised that an even greater effort than usual was called for. Besides, this was the last page of an issue to which we had devoted our entire spare time for six months, he was going to finish the job properly. He eyed the press grimly, making sure it was firmly based. Then, retreating about three feet, he reached forward for the lever. Grasping it firmly in his two large hands, he bent at the knees and launched himself upwards in a parabolic arc, descending on the printing press from the vicinity of the ceiling like some heavyweight avenging angel. We cowered in anticipation of the crunch of half a square foot of type being rammed halfway through a cork table mat; but instead there was an ear-splitting CRACK! Pieces of shrapnel ricocheted off the walls as James fell heavily onto the table and slid to the floor still clutching a stump of lever.

	At the time there was still a blacksmith to be found in the suburb, formerly the village of Ballyhackamore, where I lived, and he willingly produced a substitute lever. But it was never the same. It bent when James tried to use his full strength. Our publishing problems were finally solved when an American fan, Manly Banister, crated up his printing press and sent it to us by boat, but I always felt that an era had come to an end with the explosion of the old lever.

	So, I think, did James, and I tend to look on that episode as marking the beginning of his career as a professional writer. His first sale was of a story called "Assisted Passage," to the British magazine New Worlds, but to us his real apotheosis took place with the publication in Astounding of a story called "The Scavengers," in October 1953. I remember vividly the evening in May of that year when James arrived at my house, on his bicycle from the Lower Falls on the other side of Belfast, clutching a letter from John W. Campbell Himself disclosing that he was willing to pay $285 for the story. This was a fabulous sum, but more important was the glory which had settled on our little fan group, born and nurtured on Astounding. It was like a country vicar who receives a pale blue tablet of stone announcing that his sermon last Sunday had found so much favour from on high it was henceforth to be included in the Bible.

	The letter said that James had to get his signature on the contract witnessed by a Notary Public, and his problem was that this form of life did not seem to exist in the United Kingdom. Momentarily sobered by my responsibilities as leader of the fan group, I deduced our equivalent might be a Commissioner For Oaths, and even remembered seeing a brass plate with those words on it on a gate down the road. So we walked down the Upper Newtownards Road, disturbed an amiable gentleman called Norwood, and got him to sign his name to a statement that James's signature was genuine. Having assured James's immortality, I felt quietly proud for having encouraged him as a writer and insisting he send that story to Astounding. After we had put in some serious gloating, James cycled home again and I hurried to the nearest public telephone kiosk to send a telegram to Chuck Harris with the great News.

	The next few years were studded with similar pleasant surprises, as when Groff Conklin anthologised "The Conspirators" from New Worlds of July 1954 for his Adventures in Mutation, and James sold his first pocketbook to Don Wollheim for Ace, and the Sector General stories began to make their appearance, but there were always two things you could rely on in anything written by James. First, it would be as honest and true as he could make it. Despite his admiration for E.E. Smith, he himself belonged more to the school of Hal Clement.

	Second, you yourself were always a better person for reading a James White story. Without lecturing his readers, he always made clear what was the right way to behave in any circumstances, and why. And in his recent, and, I think, his greatest work, The Silent Stars Go By, he tackles head-on the greatest question humanity has yet faced, namely, what is the role of the individual in history. Can one individual really make a difference? This has become a burning issue with the worldwide discrediting of the communist theory that the course of history is determined by factors arising from economic classes. One deduction commonly made from the theory of economic determinism is that people are not really responsible for the consequences of their actions, or conversely that individual decisions are not really important.

	The Silent Stars Go By, however, is based on the quite different assumption that certain events, arising out of moral decisions made by individual human beings in the distant past, can lead to a probability world quite different from our own, in this case one in which a Celtic superstate runs Western civilisation, according to quite different moral principle. Such unpredictable consequences of human actions are quite normal, according to modern students of chaos theory, but James White, so far as I know, is the first author to explore the implications of chaos theory for human history, and readers of his work are, to my mind, at the cutting edge of human intellectual development. This may be temporarily obscured by the fact that The Silent Stars Go By is also a rattling good story.

-

CUSTOM FITTING

	For many years Hewlitt had been in the habit of spending hall an hour sunning himself at the entrance to his shop when the sunlight was available in sufficient strength, the period was determined by the length of time it took for the sun to clear the eaves of the buildings on his side of the street and to move far enough out to necessitate his pulling out the shop's awning so that the cloth on display would not fade. He spent the time watching the passersby—hoping that some of them wouldn't—and anything else of interest. Usually there was nothing interesting to see, but today was an exception.

	A large, plain furniture van, preceded by a police car and followed closely by an Electricity Department truck, turned into his street from the main road. The presence of the police vehicle was explained by the fact that the convoy was moving in the wrong direction along a one-way street. When the procession finally halted, the removals van was directly facing him.

	For perhaps a minute there was nothing to see except the reflection of himself and his doorway in the dark, glossy flanks of the van. It was the slightly distorted picture of a thin and rather ridiculous figure wearing a black jacket and waistcoat with striped trousers, a small flower in the lapel, and a tape measure—the outward sign of his profession—hanging loosely from his neck. The lettering on the door behind the figure was executed in gold leaf in a bold italic script and said, in reverse:
 
George L. Hewlitt,
Tailor.
 
Suddenly—as if some hypothetical film director had shouted "Action!"— everything happened at once.

	Two senior police officers carrying traffic-diversion signs left their vehicle and moved in opposite directions to seal off each end of the street.

	The Electricity Department truck disgorged a gang of neatly overalled workmen, who quickly began unloading collapsible screening, a night-watchman's hut, and a man wearing a well-tailored suit of dark gray worsted and a tie which was strictly establishment. He also wore a very worried expression as he glanced up and down the street and at the windows overlooking it.

	"Good morning, Mr. Hewlitt," the man said, coming forward. "My name is Fox. I'm with the Foreign Office. I, ah, would like to consult you professionally. May I come inside?"

	Hewlitt inclined his head politely and followed him into the shop.

	For a few minutes nothing else was said because Fox was pacing nervously about the interior, staring at the shelves of neatly rolled cloth lengths, fingering the pattern books which were placed strategically on the polished wooden counters, and examining the paneling and crystal-clear mirrors in the big fitting room. While the Foreign Office official was looking over the premises, Hewlitt was studying Fox with equal attention.

	Fox was of medium height, slimly built, with a head-forward tendency and prominent shoulder blades. From the small but noticeable lateral crease behind the jacket collar, it was obvious that he tried to correct the HF and PSB tendency by carrying himself unnaturally erect. Plainly Fox's tailor had had problems, and Hewlitt wondered if he was about to inherit them.

	"How may I help you, sir?" Hewlitt said when his visitor had finally come to rest. He used a tone which was friendly but one with that touch of condescension which very plainly said that it would be Hewlitt's decision whether or not he would build a jacket around Fox's prominent shoulder blades.

	"I am not the client, Mr. Hewlitt," Fox said impatiently. "He is waiting outside. However, this matter must be treated in the strictest confidence—kept absolutely secret, in fact, for the next two weeks. After that you may discuss it with whom you please.

	"From our thorough if necessarily hasty inquiries," the Foreign Office official went on, "we know that you live above these premises with your wife, who is also your seamstress and a partial cripple. We also know that your work is competent, if a little old-fashioned as regards styling, and that your stock is remarkably lacking in materials using man-made fibers. For many years your financial position has not been good, and I should say at this juncture that your silence as well as your workmanship will be very highly paid.

	"The garment itself should present no difficulty," Fox ended, "since all that is required is a fairly well-fitting horse blanket."

	Coldly, Hewlitt said, "I am completely lacking in experience where horse blankets are concerned, Mr. Fox."

	"You are being proud and unnecessarily stubborn, Mr. Hewlitt. This is a very important client, and may I remind you that across the street there is a branch of a well-known multiple tailoring company which is also capable of doing the job."

	"I agree," said Hewlitt dryly. "That company could do a pretty good job—on a horse blanket."

	Fox smiled faintly, but before he could reply one of the workmen entered and said, "The screens are in position, sir, and the van is blocking the view from the other side of the street. Now we need the pole to pull out the sun awning. That will hide the shop front from upper-story windows on the other side of the street."

	Hewlitt pointed toward the recess behind the display window where the awning pole was kept.

	"Thank you, sir," said the workman in the tones of a senior public servant who is addressing a lowly member of the public he serves, then he turned away.

	"Wait," said Fox, visibly coming to a decision. "When you've done that, ask His Excellency if he would be good enough to come in, please."

	The strict secrecy being observed, the Foreign Office involvement, and the type of garment required had led Hewlitt to expect some highly controversial political figure: an overweight person from an underfed nation who was intent on expressing his individuality and independence by wearing an English-tailored native garment. Such a person might well be frightened of an assassin's bullet and feel it necessary to take these elaborate precautions; but that, after all, was not any of Hewlitt's business. But when he saw the client ... 

	I'm dreaming, he told himself firmly.

	The creature resembled a centaur, complete with hooves and a long, streaming tail. At first glance the torso from the waist up resembled that of a human being, but the musculature of the arms, shoulders, and chest was subtly different, and the hands were five-digited, each comprised of three fingers and two opposable thumbs. The head, carried erect above a very thick neck, was made to seem disproportionately small. The face was dominated by two large, soft, brown eyes that somehow made the slits, protuberances, and fleshy petals which comprised the other features visually acceptable.

	Apart from a large medallion suspended around its neck, the being wore no clothing. Its skin was a mottled pinkish-brown color, and the creature twitched continually as if to dislodge invisible flies. It was obviously male.

	"Your Excellency," said Fox smoothly, "may I present Mr. George Hewlitt. He is a tailor, or maker of clothing, who will produce for you garments suitable for your stay on Earth."

	Instinctively Hewlitt put out his hand. He discovered that his client's grip was firm, the digits warm and bony, and the way the lower thumb curled upward into his palm was indescribable but not unpleasant. For some odd reason he could no longer think of the being as an "it."

	"The initial requirement," Fox said briskly, "is for a garment which will be comfortable and will keep His Excellency warm during the presentation ceremonies and socializing that will follow. The garment should be black, edged with gold or silver braid, perhaps, and should carry pseudo-heraldic decorations. No existing family crests can be used, obviously. He will also require a second garment, less formal, for use during sightseeing tours out-of-doors."

	"A braided and decorated horse blanket, then," said Hewlitt, "and a plain one for walking out. But if you could tell me the kind of function His Excellency is to attend, I would be in a better position to produce something suitable."

	Fox shook his head. "Security."

	"I can, if necessary, work blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back," Hewlitt said, "but I do not produce my best work under those conditions. However, if His Excellency would kindly follow me into the fitting room?"

	With a soft, irregular thumping of hooves the client, accompanied by Fox, followed into the fitting room and stood looking at himself in the angled mirrors. Rarely had Hewlitt seen a customer more ill at ease. The other's hide was twitching and tightening along his back and flanks before Hewlitt had even laid the tape on him.

	Without being obtrusive about it, Hewlitt studied the twitching hide, looking for insects or other evidence of parasitic presences. Relieved at not finding any, he thought for a moment, then switched on the wall heaters, which were never used during the summer months. Within a few minutes the room was uncomfortably warm and the twitching had stopped.

	While Hewlitt went to work with his tape measure and pad, he asked, "I assume that my client's home planet is warmer than Earth?"

	"Yes," said Fox. "Our weather at present would approximate to one of their sunny days in late autumn."

	From small of back to root of tail, 63 inches, Hewlitt wrote carefully. He said, "In cool weather they wear clothing, then?"

	"Yes, a form of toga wrapped around their bodies in a loose spiral, with—Oh, now I see why you switched on the heaters. I should have thought of that; it was very remiss of me. But His Excellency does not want to wear his native clothing for very good reasons, so he thought it better to suffer a little discomfort rather than to take the risk of your being influenced, even unconsciously, by his native dress. It is most important that he wear clothing which is made and styled on Earth."

	From center line back to foreleg knee joint, 42 inches, Hewlitt wrote. To Fox he said, "The requirement is for a blanket-like garment, but surely my client will require additional clothing if he is to feel—"

	"Just the blanket, Mr. Hewlitt."

	"If the positions were reversed," said Hewlitt patiently, "you would no doubt feel reasonably warm in a blanket; but you would feel much more comfortable if you were wearing shorts as well."

	Irritably, Fox said, "Please follow instructions, Hewlitt. Your fee will be generous, regardless of how many or how few garments you make for His Excellency. Your attempts to drum up extra business is a waste of your time and ours."

	"The majority of civilized people on Earth wear undergarments," said Hewlitt, "and unless climatic conditions, religious beliefs, or the dictates of local fashion rule otherwise, I should think that the same applies on other worlds."

	"You are being argumentative, uncooperative, and you are introducing unnecessary complications into what is a very simple set of instructions," said Fox angrily. "Let me remind you that we can still go across the street!"

	"Please do so," said Hewlitt.

	Fox and Hewlitt glared at each other for several seconds while the alien, his features unreadable by virtue of their complete alienness, turned his outsize brown eyes on each of them in turn.

	Suddenly a soft, gobbling noise issued from one of the fleshy slits in his face and, simultaneously and much louder, a pleasant baritone voice spoke from the ornament suspended from the alien's neck. It said, "Perhaps I can resolve this difficulty, gentlemen. It seems to me that Mr. Hewlitt has displayed qualities of observation, good sense, and concern for the comfort of his customer, myself. Therefore, I would prefer him to continue to act as my tailor providing he is willing to do so."

	Fox swallowed, then said weakly, "Security, Your Excellency. We agreed that you would not speak to any member of the public until ... the day."

	"My apologies, Mr. Fox," the alien replied through his translation device, "but on my world a specialist like Mr. Hewlitt is considered something more than a member of the public."

	Turning to Hewlitt, he went on, "I would be most grateful if you could give the matter of my underwear your attention. However, for reasons which Mr. Fox would prefer to remain secret for the present, this garment must also be of Earth material and styling. Is this possible?"

	Hewlitt bowed slightly and said, "Of course, sir."

	"Not sir!"said Fox, obviously angered because his instructions had been ignored by the alien. "This is His Excellency the Lord Scrennagle of Dutha—"

	Scrennagle held up one double-thumbed hand as he said politely, "Pardon the interruption. That is only an approximation of my rank and title. 'Sir' is sufficiently respectful and conversationally much less cumbersome."

	"Yes, Your Excellency," said Fox.

	Hewlitt produced a swatch of patterns and a style book from which Scrennagle chose a soft lambswool in pale cream which would not, the tailor assured them, react in any fashion with his skin. The style plates fascinated him, and when Hewlitt began to sketch similar designs modified to fit his centaur-like body, the alien was practically breathing down the tailor's neck.

	Polite questioning had elicited the facts that Scrennagle insisted on dressing himself and that the area of skin covering the spine between waist and tail was the part of his body most susceptible to cold.

	"If you wouldn't mind, sir," said Hewlitt at that point, "I would like you to advise me regarding the positioning of fastenings, openings for the elimination of body wastes, and so on ..."

	Scrennagle could twist the upper part of his body so that his hands could reach either flank as far back as the tail, although he could only see the lower end of his back. The undergarment which Hewlitt had to devise would have to be stepped into and pulled up onto the fore and hind legs in turn. It would be double-backed and buttoned through, with one wide flap of cloth going over the back to the opposite flank and fastening there, while the other flap passed over the back in the opposite direction to button on the other flank—rather like a double-breasted suit worn back-to-front. Scrennagle said that the double thickness of cloth at the back would be very comfortable, the local temperature being what it was, and he found no fault in the more complicated flap and fastening arrangements for the fly and rear.

	He was politely insistent, however, that his tail should not be even partially concealed. There were strong psychological reasons for this, apparently.

	"I quite understand, sir," said Hewlitt. "And now if you will stand quite still I shall measure you. The dimensions and contour descriptions required will be much more complex than those needed for the blankets. Once I have drafted a properly fitting pattern for the garment, however, making additional ones will present no problems. Initially a set of four undergarments should be sufficient to …"

	 "Hewlitt—!" Fox began.

	"No gentleman," Hewlitt said very quietly, "no matter how high or low his station, would undertake a major journey with just one set of underwear."

	There was, of course, no reply to that; and Hewlitt resumed measuring his client. While he worked he told Scrennagle exactly what he was doing and why. He even went so far as to discuss the weather in his attempts to make his client relax bodily so that he would not shape the garment to a figure that was being held in an unnatural pose through tension.

	"I intend making the leg sections reach less than halfway between the hip joints and knees, sir," he said at one point. "This will give the maximum comfort and warmth commensurate with the length of the overgarment. However, it would assist me greatly if I knew something more about the purpose of this blanket—what movements you would be making in it, whether or not you are expecting to be photographed, the geographical or architectural surroundings so that the garment will not look out of place."

	"You're fishing for information," said box sharply. "Please desist."

	Hewlitt ignored him and said to Scrennagle, "You can rely on my discretion, sir."

	"I know that," said Scrennagle. Turning so that he could see Fox in the fitting-room mirror, he went on: "A certain amount of curiosity is natural in these circumstances, and if Mr. Hewlitt has been entrusted with the secret of my presence in this city, surely the reason for my being here is a minor additional confidence which should not overstrain his capacity for—"

	"With respect, Your Excellency," said Fox, "these matters must not be made public until all the necessary preparations have been made."

	Hewlitt wrote Girth at forelegs, 46 inches. Controlling his exasperation, he said, "If the material, finish, and decoration of these garments are to fit the occasion—an important occasion no doubt—I really should be told something about it."

	There was silence for a moment, then Scrennagle and his translation device made noises which were possibly the equivalent of clearing an alien throat. His head went up and he stood very still as he said, "As the accredited representative of Dutha and of the Galactic Federation on Earth, I shall be presenting my credentials at the Court of St. James with the usual attendant ceremonies. In the evening of the same day there will be a reception at which the Sovereign will also be present. Although I am officially only an ambassador, the honors will be similar to those accorded a visiting head of state. The reception will be covered by the media, and interviews will be given following the official ..."

	Hewlitt was no longer listening to him. His sense of outrage was so great that no word could filter through to his mind with any meaning in it. Quietly he excused himself to Scrennagle; then to Fox he said, "Could I have a private word with you outside?"

	Without waiting for a reply he stalked out of the fitting room and across to the door, which he held open so that Fox could precede him into the hallway. Then he closed the door firmly, so firmly that the glass shattered and tinkled onto the porch tiling.

	"And for this," he whispered fiercely, "you want me to make a—a horse blanket?"

	Just as fiercely, Fox replied, "Believe it or not, I sympathize with your feelings. But this could be the most important event in human history and it must go well! Not just for Scrennagle's sake. What we do here will be the yardstick, the example, for embassies all over the world, and they must have no room for criticism. Some of them will feel that they should have had the first visit, and would welcome the chance to criticize. They must not be given that chance."

	One of the Special Branch men in the too-clean overalls came onto the porch, attracted by the sound of breaking glass. Fox waved him away, then went on, "Of course he should wear more than a horse blanket. I know that as well as you do. But I didn't want you to know how important this is. Apart from the danger of a leak, a very small risk in your case, I didn't want you to worry about the job so much that you would go to pieces.

	"At the same time," he went on harshly, "we cannot afford to have him appear ridiculous, to look like a cross between a dressed-up horse and a tail-coated chimpanzee from a circus. He is far too important an individual, and this is much too important an occasion for our planet and our race, for us to risk anything going wrong."

	More quietly he went on, "Scrennagle wants to make a good first impression, naturally; but we as a species must also make a good impression on him. So it is probably safer in many respects to let him wear a blanket, even though it lacks both imagination and dignity. But, Hewlitt, if you want to tailor something more elaborate for the first ambassador from the stars, it must be exactly right for the occasion. Do you want to take on such a heavy responsibility?"

	Hewlitt's vocal equipment seemed to be completely paralyzed by a combination of extreme anxiety and sheer joy at what was the ultimate challenge not only to an individual, but to a member of one of the oldest crafts known to mankind. He nodded.

	Fox's relief was obvious. He said, very seriously, "You are assuming a large part of the responsibility which is properly mine. I'm grateful, and if you have any suggestions which might help ..."

	"Even if they are none of my business?" Hewlitt asked; then he added, "My tailoring business, that is."

	"Go on," Fox said warily.

	"We were discussing dressed-up horses just now," Hewlitt went on. "My client resembles a horse much more than he does a human being. He is too much of a diplomat to complain; but put yourself in his place for a moment and think of the effect on you of the pomp and pageantry, the transport arrangements and—"

	"Scrennagle has already studied and adapted himself to the more personal aspects of our civilization," said Fox. "At meals he lies with legs folded underneath his body, allowing his erect torso to rise to a comfortable height for eating and conversation. Since he has no lap, the napkin remains folded by his plate. Where toilet facilities are concerned—"

	"I was thinking," said Hewlitt, "of how he might feel about horses pulling him or their being ridden by human beings. I would suggest that a state limousine rather than a coach be used, and that the escort and guards be chosen from regiments other than the Household Cavalry or Horse Guards. There are several physiological similarities between Scrennagle and terrestrial horses. Not as many as those between an ape and a human being; but it might be better not to have too many animals around which closely resemble the visiting ambassador, wouldn't you say?"

	"I would say;" Fox said, and swore quietly. "Somebody should have thought of that."

	"Somebody just did," Hewlitt said, opening the door and motioning Fox to precede him over the broken glass and back to the fitting room, where the most important client an Earth tailor had ever had was waiting and gently stamping all four of his feet.

	"My apologies for the delay, sir," said Hewlitt politely, "but I now have a clearer idea of what is expected of me and of you, sir. Before I resume measuring, do you have any allergies toward certain materials, or any particularly sensitive areas, which might cause you discomfort?"

	Scrennagle looked at Fox, who said, "We have investigated this matter in great detail; and there is a long list of items which could cause trouble—some of them serious trouble—if they were allowed to remain in contact with His Excellency's skin for long periods.

	"The situation is this," he continued. "Extraterrestrial pathogens cannot live in human bodies, and vice versa. This means that we cannot possibly contract a disease from Scrennagle and he is likewise impervious to our germs. However, purely chemical reactions are a different matter. One of the things likely to cause His Excellency to break out in a rash or worse is the synthetic fibers used in clothing, virtually all kinds of synthetics. You see the problem?"

	Hewlitt nodded. The ambassador's underwear, shirts, ties, and socks would have to be made from pure wool, cotton, or real silk; the suiting materials would have to be woolen worsted and, for the casuals, Harris or Irish Thornproof tweed. Bone buttons would be required and zip fasteners made from metal rather than nylon. Trimmings, the canvas stiffening, the wadding for shaping and softening the outlines would also have to be non-synthetic, and the thread used to hold everything together would have to be the old-style sewing cotton rather than nylon thread. He could see the problem, all right, and like most big problems this one was composed of a lot of little ones.

	"One of the reasons why you were chosen for this job," said Fox, "was that you were old-fashioned enough in your ideas to keep such things in stock. But frankly, I was worried in case you would be too old-fashioned to react properly toward an ... unusual ... client. As it happened, you showed no sign of xenophobia whatsoever."

	"I used to read a lot of science fiction, before it became too soft-centered," Hewlitt said dryly. Then he turned to Scrennagle. "I shall require additional measurements, sir, since I shall be building something a little more ambitious than a blanket. And it will be necessary to draft patterns for the garments as I go along. Making up, fitting, and finishing will take time if the work is to be done properly. I shall therefore board up the broken pane and attach a notice saying that I am closed for alterations ..." He looked along Scrennagle's extraterrestrial body contours and thought, There will probably be a lot of alterations. "And I shall, of course, work on this order exclusively. But I cannot see it being completed in less than ten days."

	"You have twelve days," said Fox, looking relieved. "I shall have the broken pane replaced as soon as possible. During our investigation your shop front was photographed, so we shall be able to reproduce the gold lettering. After all, the breakage was indirectly my fault."

	"I venture to disagree," Scrennagle broke in. "As the prime cause of the trouble, I would be obliged, Mr. Hewlitt, if you would allow me to replace the glass from material in my ship as a memento of my visit. The material is transparent and proof against both meteorite collisions and minor emotional disturbances."

	"You are very kind, sir," said Hewlitt, laughing. "I accept." He wrote on the measurement pad, From center back to wrist, 35 inches.

	It took nearly three hours to complete the job to his satisfaction, including a half-hour's discussion regarding the musculature and jointing of the limbs and torso and the provision needed to give comfort as well as style to the garments, particularly in the areas of the neck, chest, armpits, and crotch.

	When Scrennagle and Fox left, Hewlitt locked the door and climbed the stairs past his first-floor stockrooms to the flat above to break the news to his wife.

	Mrs. Hewlitt had been a virtual cripple since a street accident eighteen years earlier. She could walk about the flat for three hours a day without too much discomfort, and these hours she saved for the evening meal and for talking to her husband afterwards. The rest of the time she spent rolling about the flat in her wheelchair, tidying, cooking, sewing if there was work for her to do, or sleeping, which she did not do very well even at night.

	He told her about his extraterrestrial client, and of the necessity for keeping the matter a close secret for the time being. She studied his sketches and measurements with interest, working out the yardages of material and trimmings needed for the job. Hewlitt should be ashamed of himself, she said, for trying to make her believe such a tall story. She reminded him that in her youth she once had to make a costume for a stage horse. The reason for the number of costumes required, particularly the sets of underwear, was unclear, she said, but no doubt they were being used in a sophisticated pantomime or farce in which the stage horse was expected to partially disrobe. The detail required in the fly fastenings, she added disapprovingly, probably meant that it was a very sophisticated and naughty show.

	"Not at all, dear," said Hewlitt with a perfectly straight face. "It will be more in the nature of a spectacular, and you'll be able to see the highlights, and our costumes, on TV."

	Hewlitt, who had always held moral cowardice to be the better part of valor, noted her pleased and excited expression and said nothing more.

	During the three days and for most of the intervening nights before Scrennagle was due for his first fitting, the pleasure and the sense of excitement remained with Mrs. Hewlitt, even though on one occasion she said that there had been a time when they would have refused such a gimmicky commission. Hewlitt replied by saying that the work required the highest standards of tailoring and finish, regardless of its ultimate destination, and that the work was the most professionally challenging as well as the most remunerative he had ever been given. But secretly he was becoming prey to self-doubts.

	His problem was to design, cut, and build a suit which would not make a horse look like a man but like a very well-dressed and dignified horse. The whole idea was ridiculous, yet Scrennagle was much too important a personage to be left open to the slightest suggestion of ridicule.

	As Hewlitt had expected, the first fitting was visually a disaster. The fore and hind trouser legs were unpressed, shapeless, and held together temporarily with tacking stitches, while the embryo morning coat looked even worse with just one sleeve attached and tacking cotton holding together the lapel canvas, fronts, and shoulder wadding. While he plied his needle, chalk, and pins, Hewlitt transmitted confidence and reassurance for all he was worth; but it was obvious that neither Scrennagle nor Fox was receiving.

	The Foreign Office official looked desperately worried and unhappy, and the pattern of wrinkling and puckering on the ambassador's features was almost certainly the extraterrestrial equivalent of these emotions.

	Hewlitt kept his own doubts to himself and did his best to retrieve something from the situation by producing the first two sets of underwear, both of which fitted perfectly. He explained that these were relatively simple garments made from material which stretched and clung. He ignored the hints dropped by both Scrennagle and Fox that it might, after all, be better to settle for the horse blanket over underwear idea, and he requested a second fitting in four days time.

	Scrennagle's jacket was a large and structurally complex garment which covered not only the forward torso but the body back to the hind quarters. It was cut away sharply at the front, after which the skirt maintained a level line two inches below the point where the legs joined the body. But the jacket, because of the length and area of material used, made the trouser-clad legs look disproportionately thin.

	Hewlitt apparently had been able to reduce the area of the jacket by introducing a set of false pleats running along the spine and dividing at the tail opening; and he had used a series of strategically placed darts to shape the garment at awkward body contours. But he had had to scrap and recut the original trousers, making them nearly twice as wide but with a neat taper to approximately double the hoof diameter at the bottoms. This meant redesigning the method of suspension across the back and modifying the crotch, but the over-all effect looked much better balanced.

	During the second fitting Hewlitt was pleased to find that he had been able to cure a troublesome tendency to crease where the foreleg muscles periodically distorted the waistcoat while Scrennagle was walking. But the garments, to Scrennagle's and Fox's untutored eyes, still looked like the proverbial pound of tripe. It was obvious that they were both coming to a decision—almost certainly the wrong one and Hewlitt tried desperately to head them off.

	"We are extremely lucky," he said, smiling, "in that a size 16 neckband shirt is a perfect fit on you, sir, as is a size 8 hat. The hat will be carried rather than worn for the most part, likewise the gloves, which don't quite fit—"

	"Don't you think," said Fox suddenly, "that you may be trying for the impossible, Mr. Hewlitt?"

	More quietly, Scrennagle joined in. "This is by no means a criticism of your professional ability, and you may well produce the garments required; but wouldn't you agree that something in the nature of the blanket already discussed would serve as a useful standby? It would also relieve you of a heavy responsibility."

	"I did not ask to be relieved of the responsibility," said Hewlitt. The responsibility was beginning to scare him sick. He really should take this easy way out—but he had too much confidence, or perhaps over-confidence, in his ability. He went on, "I have undertaken to clothe you suitably for the forthcoming social and formal occasions, sir, and you can trust me to fulfill my obligations.

	"However," Hewlitt continued quickly, "I have a minor problem regarding foot coverings. The black woolen socks can be adapted and cut to fit, but Earth-type shoes would look out of place and would be difficult for you to wear with confidence. Would it be possible to use a nontoxic paint to color the osseous material of your hooves—glossy black for the formal occasion and brown for the walkabouts? They should also be padded, since hoof sounds might also be considered out of place." It would make you sound too much like a horse, Hewlitt said silently. Aloud: "And there is the matter of displaying the tail, sir. It is a long, luxuriant, and remarkably handsome tail—"

	"Thank you," said Scrennagle.

	"—but it is constantly in motion and likely to be a distraction to people holding a conversation with you. Mr. Fox tells me that these movements are involuntary. However, as I see it, your tail is analogous to the cranial and/or facial hair in an Earth-person. Those who have such hair frequently display it to the best advantage on formal occasions. It can be pleated, braided, decorated in various fashions, and combed or oiled to give it a richer texture. If you have no objections, sir, we might plait your tail, adding, say, a few lengths of white or silver cord, then coil it neatly and secure it with a retaining strap which I can add to the center seam?"

	"I have no objections, Mr. Hewlitt," said Scrennagle. "We do something similar on Dutha."

	"These are details, Hewlitt," said Fox. "Important details, I admit, which will apply to whatever type of garment is worn. But—"

	"There is also the matter of decorations, sir," Hewlitt continued. "These are colored ribbons and pieces of engraved metal which indicate that the person wearing them has achieved some great feat, or that an ancestor has done so. The evening reception will include many people wearing dress uniforms and full evening wear to which are added the kind of decorations I have been describing. I would like you to wear some kind of decoration or award," he went on seriously, "but preferably one that has not simply been invented for the occasion. Can you suggest something which might be suitable, sir?"

	Scrennagle was silent for a moment, then he said, "My race has no equivalent of these awards, except possibly the translator which is necessary to the performance of my work. There is a somewhat larger version, decorated with the Federation symbol, which is worn when more than one translation has to be handled at the same time. But these, also, are merely the tools of our profession."

	"But it is not a common profession, surely?"

	"It is not," said Scrennagle. The expression which twisted the alien features might have been one of pride.

	"Would you have any objections to displaying this device on a colored ribbon?"

	"No objections."

	"Thank you, sir," Hewlitt said. He went on briskly, "The morning wear will be ready for collection before breakfast time on the day required, and the evening wear in the afternoon of the same day. Your walking-out suits and accessories, which will not be required until your list of formal visits is complete, will be much easier to make as a result of experience gained with the first garments—"

	"Which will be," said Fox very firmly, "a well-cut and tastefully decorated blanket."

	Hewlitt pretended to ignore him as he said, "You may trust me, sir."

	"I am trusting you, Mr. Hewlitt, more than any other person on this planet ..."

	Long after they had gone, Hewlitt thought about Scrennagle's parting remark. While his wife and he worked on the recutting and finishing of the first outfit, he worried. Was he being a stupid, self-opinionated, sartorial snob or did he really have the right to dictate to Scrennagle as he had been doing?

	The ambassador was an extremely important being who was, in the way of all representatives of other governments, anxious to make a good impression. But he would also be receiving impressions, favorable or otherwise, from the people he was meeting. Being realistic about it, the latter impressions were the more important as far as the human race was concerned. In all probability Scrennagle was important enough to make the decision whether his world and the rest of the Federation maintained contact with Earth or left it strictly alone.

	And this was the being that he, a conceited and impoverished little tailor, was going to dress for the most important occasion in human history. He was, of course, going to dress him to the best of his ability; but the media were fond of poking fun at VIPs. Given half a chance, they would tear Scrennagle apart and the ambassador would go away and neither he nor his friends would ever return to the place where the people lacked manners and where the Federation representative had been made to look a fool.

	Many times while he was reopening a seam to remove an unsightly fullness or while giving the pockets the swelled edges that were his own particular signature on a suit, he thought about putting aside the work for the few hours necessary for him to make a blanket. He thought about it long and seriously, but he kept working on the job in hand while he was making up his mind. When he and his wife went to bed in the early hours of the following morning, and arose to resume work a short time later, he still had not made up his mind.

	Producing a glorified horse blanket would be insurance against the dress wear turning out to be a sartorial disaster. But if he made the blanket he would simply be obeying orders and shifting the responsibility back to Fox. He would also be allowing a man who knew less than he did to tell him what to do.

	Then suddenly the morning coat and trousers were finished, pressed, and hanging with their accessories on the form which Hewlitt had adapted from the limbs and torsos of one and a half window-display models, and there was no longer enough time to make a blanket because it was the morning of The Day and Scrennagle was due at any moment.

	The ambassador said little while Hewlitt was showing him how to fasten the shirt, knot the tie, and fit, among other items, the footless dark socks over his black-painted hooves. While fitting the trousers, waistcoat, and jacket the tailor talked about the desirability of moving slowly—sudden movements lacked dignity and looked bad on TV. He was aware that he was talking too much and that he was making himself sound ridiculous by punctuating every few words with a yawn.

	Perhaps Scrennagle would not realize how nervous and unsure of himself Hewlitt felt because the over-all ensemble did not look exactly as he had envisaged it—and in his present physical and mental state of fatigue he did not know what it looked like.

	During the proceedings Fox maintained the tightest-lipped silence he had ever experienced; but he tossed Hewlitt a copy of the morning paper and nodded worriedly as they left.

	The news about Scrennagle was published as a Court Circular:

-
His Excellency the Lord Scrennagle of Dutha will be received in audience by the Queen this morning, and will present his Letters of Credence as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the Galactic Federation to the Court of St. James. A State Reception will be held in his honor at the Palace, during which sound and vision broadcast facilities will be available.
-

	Hewlitt moved the TV into his workroom so that he could watch without disturbing his wife, who was still asleep, while he worked on the evening suit.

	But the TV coverage was unsatisfactory. Apparently the Court Circular had been treated by the press as some kind of hoax. A tourist had been able to film Scrennagle's arrival at St. James', and he would probably receive a fortune for a few feet of badly focused film which did not give any indication of how well or otherwise the ambassador's suit fitted him.

	Hewlitt waited for a couple of hours, then switched on his transistor radio to hear an excited voice saying that news had just been received from the Palace to the effect that Dutha was an inhabited planet circling a sun some two thousand light-years from Earth and that the Duthan, Scrennagle, was being accorded the honors of a visiting head of state as well as those of an ambassador. Whether the whole thing was a hoax or not, the voice went on, tonight's reception would be covered to the same extent as the early moon landings.

	His wife heard the same news item. She looked dreadfully tired but happier than he had seen her for a great many years. But she was not talking to him for the time being because he had told her the truth and had deliberately made it sound like a lie.

	Hewlitt's mind and fingers were so stiff and tired that he was almost an hour late in completing the suit. But that did not matter: Scrennagle did not call for it. Just two hours before the reception was due to begin, a uniformed inspector arrived to say that there had been unforeseen delays and that he would collect the outfit and take it to Scrennagle's ship. A few minutes later, a more senior police officer arrived to say that since there was no longer any need for secrecy they were removing the screens from his shop front and that a couple of glaziers had also arrived to replace his door window.

	"Can't it wait until morning?" Hewlitt asked, clenching his teeth to fight back a yawn.

	"You look very tired, sir," the policeman said. "I would be happy to stay here until they've finished, and lock the door as I leave. I'll put your key in the letter-box."

	"That is very considerate of you," said Hewlitt warmly. "I do need rest. Thank you."

	"My pleasure, sir," said the officer, so respectfully that he seemed to be ready to salute.

	The warm feeling left by the unusually friendly policeman faded as Hewlitt mounted the stairs. He thought about the probable reasons why Scrennagle had sent for his suit rather than collect it himself. The outfit he had worn this morning had probably been a mess, and this evening he would be wearing a horse blanket tailored on short notice by someone else. Being a diplomat and a considerate being as well, Scrennagle would not want to complain in person to Hewlitt, or to pass on the criticisms which had doubtless been made about his appearance. He would simply take delivery of the second outfit and say nothing.

	But Hewlitt's misery was short-lived. As he slumped into his chair before the TV screen, a panel of experts were discussing the implications of contact with an extra-solar race, and pundits always put him to sleep.

	The first few bars of the fanfare which opened the late-night newscast, especially extended to cover the visit of the extraterrestrial, jerked Hewlitt awake. Quickly he wheeled his wife in from the kitchen, then settled back to see how Scrennagle had comported himself.

	Unlike the amateur film taken at St. James', Scrennagle's arrival for the reception was covered in close-up, middle distance, and from every angle.

	The ambassador was not wearing a horse blanket.

	His jacket was a good fit at the collar and shoulders, but showed a tendency to wrinkle across the back when Scrennagle straightened after making a bow—something he had to do every few minutes. The trousers hung well, making the legs look neither too blocky nor too thin, and the black socks and dully polished hooves were elegantly inconspicuous. The tail was coiled and tied forward like that of some heraldic beast, and its occasional twitchings were barely noticeable.

	The only touch of color was the wide silk ribbon that diagonally bisected the white shirt front and waistcoat. It was pale blue with a thin edging of red and gold on which was centered the intricately decorated translation device which bore the symbol of the Federation, Although not the most impressive decoration there, it still managed to hold its own among all the Baths and Garters.

	Scrennagle of Dutha, Hewlitt realized suddenly, looked well ... 

	 Then the Duthan was making his speech, outlining briefly the purpose of his visit and touching on some of the advantages which membership in the Galactic Federation would confer in both directions.

	It had been just over one hundred and fifty years earlier that one of the Federation's unmanned searchships found intelligent life and a rapidly developing technology on Earth. The long delay in responding to the situation, Scrennagle explained, was due to the fact that the searchships—which rarely found anything—were not fitted with power-hungry ultimate drive because machinery, unlike Duthans, Earth-humans, and members of other intelligent species, did not age or become bored. The searchship had spent many years in orbit photographing, analyzing, evaluating specimens of flora and fauna, the written and spoken languages—the last being particularly difficult for its soft-landed probes to obtain because radio and television had not then been invented.

	When the data had been returned to Dutha for study, several difficult decisions had had to be taken. There was, of course, no question that contact should not be attempted with the rich and varied cultures on Earth. But at the time the material had been gathered, many sociopolitical groupings were showing signs of imminent collapse while others were rapidly growing in power and influence.

	At that time the British Empire, with its center of power and commerce in London, was the most important and influential grouping, but it, too, was showing signs of collapse. It had grown slowly, however, and its traditions and laws were deeply rooted. The indications were that it would not collapse catastrophically, but wane slowly and disintegrate in a stable fashion. It was also thought that the manners and practices observed a century and a half earlier would not significantly alter in such a long-lived grouping ... 

	"That is why I landed quietly in this country rather than in one of the others," Scrennagle continued. "I now know that the decision was the correct one. But we, too, have certain rules of behavior in these circumstances. You might think that for a highly advanced Galactic culture we are surprisingly old-fashioned. But an acceptable code of behavior plays a vital part in dealings between species so widely varied as the members of our Federation.

	"One of our strictest rules," he added, wrinkling his facial openings in what was undoubtedly a smile, "is that visitors such as myself conform to all of the social practices and customs of the host planet, even to the extent of wearing its clothing ..."

	He concluded by saying that his intention was to make a round of official visits to heads of state on Earth. Then, later, he would return to take a leisurely, sightseeing tour of the planet which would enable him to meet people in more relaxed conditions. He added that Earth had been the first new world to be offered membership in something over four centuries, and he would be happy to answer questions on every subject under this or any other sun.

	The next item was the TV interview, during which, at long last, the subject of Scrennagle's clothing came up.

	"...  we will need much more time to consider the wider aspects of your visit," the interviewer was saying, "but right now, Your Excellency, I would like to ask a question, and also compliment you, on your clothing. Or perhaps I should compliment your extraterrestrial tailor?"

	"You should compliment my terrestrial tailor," Scrennagle said, then went on: "On many worlds clothing is simply a means of giving protection from extremes of weather, while on others the fabrication, styling, and wearing of clothing has been raised to the level of a major art form. Earth is in the latter category and possesses at least one tailor who is capable of making an extraterrestrial ... presentable."

	The interviewer laughed and asked, "Who is he, Your Excellency?"

	"I would rather not say at present," Scrennagle replied. "He and his wife have worked long and hard, and they deserve at least one night's sleep before fame descends on them. Suffice it to say that my tailor is relatively unknown but a craftsman of the highest order. He is also something of a tyrant in sartorial matters, a characteristic common to tailors throughout the Galaxy. He is not afraid to accept a professional challenge, as you can see."

	"Yes, indeed," said the interviewer.

	"No doubt there will be other challenges," Scrennagle went on, turning his face directly into the camera, but Hewlitt knew that he was not speaking solely to the interviewer. "My race was chosen to make first contact with Earth-humans simply because my people most closely resembled yours—despite what you must think are major physiological differences. Other races in the Federation have much more varied and interestingly arranged limbs and appendages; and to the uninitiated they may even appear to be quite horrendous. But ambassadors from all these species in time will visit Earth to present their credentials and their good wishes. And they will all require to be suitably attired for the occasion. They will be very pleased and reassured to know," he ended, "that there is an Earth-human tailor in whom they can place their complete trust ..."

	The intense feelings of pride and excitement which should have kept him awake that night, but did not, were with him in undiminished intensity when he opened the shop next morning. His reflection in the store window opposite looked the same as always, but something different about the reflected picture made him turn around quickly.

	The new door pane was not quite the same as the old one. It now read George L. Hewlitt, Tailor centered above a beautifully executed copy of the design which appeared on Scrennagle's translator—the symbol which represented all the worlds of the Galactic Federation—followed by the words By Appointment.

COMMUTER

	The suspect was disheveled and, if he was contused as well, the sergeant had left his marks in places where they did not show. Never a very pleasant man at the best of times, Sergeant Greer was completely lacking in charm when he was angry. One of the things that made him very angry was the kind of crime that this suspect had almost certainly been intending to commit, and another was suspects who tried to be smart when they had been caught trying to commit them.

	In this instance Inspector Michaelson agreed with his sergeant.

	"This could be a very serious charge," said Michaelson. "Why wouldn't you give the sergeant your name and address?"

	Michaelson kept his tone firm but friendly, suggesting that the other's lack of cooperation had been due to an understandable dislike of the arresting officer, which need not, however, include the inspector. If the other did not give his name at once, he should at least begin to talk—if only to demand details of the charge he was being held on, or to make formal complaint about his rough handling or to ask for a lawyer. But the suspect remained silent.

	Irritated, Michaelson said, "I take it he speaks English?"

	"Fluently," said Greer.

	"I see."

	"No, sir," said the sergeant, "not four-letter fluent. When I was sure he wasn't armed I eased my hold on him—that was when he became fluent. When he saw that I wasn't believing any of the stories he was trying on me, he said that he wasn't carrying much money but that I was welcome to it if I let him go and that he had not intended harming the old lady, just watching her. I told him that attempting to bribe a police officer would get him into worse trouble, and since then he hasn't said a word."

	He may not have known that you were a policeman when he offered the money," said Michaelson coldly, "and he stopped doing so as soon as you identified yourself."

	Greer, who was long used to the inspector's unorthodox interrogations during which he sometimes gave the impression that he was giving his subordinates a harder time than the suspects, played his part by looking surly.

	"But it isn't very polite," he went on to the suspect, "talking about you as if you weren't there. Sit down, please. Can you tell me your first name, at least?"

	The suspect opened his mouth, then closed it again.

	"Your age, then?"

	"Twenty-three."

	Michaelson nodded. "I expect your parents will worry if you're late getting home—"

	"They died, a long time ago."

	"I see," said Michaelson sympathetically. A good defense counsel with that sort of background to enlarge on and with expert psychiatric support could make a judge react sympathetically as well, but his sympathy would be real. He added, "Both at once, I suppose. Traffic accident?"

	"No, they died when ..." the suspect began, then stopped as if he had almost said too much.

	Knowing that it would be useless to continue asking questions until the other had a chance to relax his guard, Michaelson nodded for Greer to make his report. While the sergeant went through the preliminaries of setting the time and place, Michaelson studied the suspect more closely. There was something about his appearance which bothered him.

	Certainly it was not the suspect's clothing, which had been neatly casual before Greer had treated their wearer like an opposing halfback. If anything the man was too conservatively dressed for his age and his hair was too short. That was it—his hair was unusually tidy and short. Not skinhead short but neat, combed and parted. Michaelson began to study the suspect's face, closely.

	The play of expression on a face, the lines and contours pulled into it by experience of one kind or another, could tell an awful lot about its owner. But there were occasions, Michaelson knew, when it could tell an awful lot of lies.

	If there was any such thing as a criminal face, this certainly was not it. Oh, the man was worried, of course, and hiding something—the bumps of tension along his jaw, the listening look and the sweaty highlights developing on his forehead and around his mouth were clear indications of guilt of some kind. But the overall impression was one of innocence, and he looked far too honest and clean-cut to be true.

	Michaelson had known high court judges with faces like pickpockets, and he himself had steadfastly refused to grow his hair longer or wear colored shirts. But being old-fashioned and neatly trimmed at his age was normal. In the suspect's age group it was rare, perhaps abnormal.

	"... He was seen in the shop and several times in the street since the rumor began going around that Mrs. Timmins had come into money," Greer was saying. "Three times he visited the shop yesterday, buying newspapers on each visit—the same newspaper on two of the occasions. But the old lady hasn't served in the shop since—"

	"Did she. come into money?" Michaelson preferred facts to rumors, even though a rumor like this was enough to make the vultures gather.

	"If she did, it came too late to do much good," said Greer, who obviously was feeling so strongly about it that he had forgotten to answer the question. Michaelson understood why.

	Mrs. Timmins had been forced by age and ill health to sell her shop and live in the flat above sixteen years earlier, and she had been virtually bedridden for the past five years. By rights she should have given up trying to work long before then, but she had never been quite right in the head—a condition which, Michaelson had heard, dated from the time her husband had deserted her during the second year of their marriage. And she was old, she had been old even when Michaelson had been a kid at school.

	He remembered hanging around the bright window of her shop with some of his classmates, all of them flat broke and their pocket money not due for three days. It would have been very easy to create a diversion or for a few of them to keep her talking while the others loaded up with apples or chocolate or her teeth-destroying peppermint rock, but in those days boys did not often think along those lines.

	Instead they had smeared the display window with their dirty faces and even dirtier hands, wearing expressions of distress and projecting hunger for all they were worth. She had been a very soft touch and had nearly always asked them in for a handout, saying that they could pay by doing odd jobs or by tidying up.

	But the shop, the old lady herself, was always clean and tidy so that they were never overworked. She had talked to them about their lessons or the running of the shop or her long-absent husband as if they were members of her non-existent family. When they came away they had laughed and tapped their heads at some of the things she had said, but with less and less frequency. She had become a very pleasant and important part of their young lives.

	Michaelson had been much older when he overheard his parents discussing the old lady. His mother had wondered why she had not married alter the statutory seven years had passed since her husbands desertion and he could be presumed dead by law—she had been a beautiful girl—and his father had replied that her husband must have been a good con man to make her remain faithful to his memory like that.

	It had been about that time that Michaelson had decided that the old lady was too good and kind and trusting for people to be allowed to take advantage of her. Later he realized that there were a lot of kindly, vulnerable people needing the same kind of protection, but by then he had already decided what he would do with his life.

	She must be nearly ninety, Michaelson thought. When he had visited her three years ago she had looked frighteningly old and shrunken, and he had been kept too busy to visit her since then. She had mistaken him for one of the other boys, but she had called him "son" the way she always had done and had talked about the importance of education if he wanted to get on, the necessity of cleaning his teeth after eating her candy and, inevitably, about her husband.

	Michaelson sighed and checked his headlong gallop down memory lane. He repeated, "Did she come into money?"

	"Sorry, sir," said Greer, "we won't know until we've had time to ask more questions, but she had a big-screen color TV delivered three weeks ago, her doctor and nurse visit her every day instead of every week or so, and she has a cleaning lady coming three days a week. The man downstairs—the one who bought the shop from her—says that she did not tell him anything but that all these things began happening at once."

	"The point is," said Michaelson, "that everyone in the county thinks she has money and some of them may not want her to keep it." He opened the big envelope containing the suspect's personal possessions and tipped them onto his desk.

	There were two soiled handkerchiefs, a bunch of keys and a leather wallet. The usual junk which accumulates in pockets was absent, and the wallet was unusually thin. It contained a more than adequate number of banknotes and two small photographs in transparent pockets.

	They were a little more than an inch square—too small for the windows—and showed the suspect and a girl of about the same age. The focus was soft and they had been cropped to show only the features.

	"Girl friend?" Michaelson asked.

	"Wife," said the suspect.

	The girl's face showed character, all of it good, and she was beautiful. He had no doubt about that because she was wearing little if any makeup and her face had a freshly-scrubbed look that was almost nunlike Perhaps she, too, had strict parents.

	But he was forgetting that the suspect had no parents. He did have a beautiful young wife, though, so why was he playing Peeping Tom with an old lady if he had not intended committing a crime of some kind? And why had he removed all identification from his clothing and wallet? In short, was the suspect sick, or crazy?

	For a few seconds Michaelson tried to think like an expert witness for the defense. It was possible that the loss of this man's parents at an early age had caused serious psychological damage or, despite his prepossessing appearance, outright psychosis. The relatives or friends responsible for bringing him up might have been too strict—his tidy, well barbered look and conservative dress were symptoms of repression Perhaps his wife had been chosen by the people who had made him what he now was. Perhaps his condition was aggravated by the fact that his wife was not the angel she appeared to be.

	In his profession Michaelson was continually being reminded that devils were fallen angels and that few of them had had time for plastic surgery on the way down.

	This suspect did not look crazy, nor, so far as Michaelson could see, was he sick, either—but he had to be one or the other. The absence of spoken or documentary identification indicated careful pre-planning. Perhaps he considered the reward worth the risk of a period under psychiatric care should he be caught.

	"What," said Michaelson again, "is your name?"

	The suspect shook his head.

	Michaelson said, "You must realize that we will learn your name sooner or later—-much sooner than you expect, believe me—and that your behavior increases our suspicions and reduces any chance of sympathetic treatment when we do discover—"

	"I can't tell you anything," the suspect broke in, beginning to sound desperate. "I wasn't going to hurt the old lady. There is no crime that I'm guilty of and so you won't be able to prove that I committed one and eventually, even though I won't give my name, you'll have to let me go."

	Michaelson nodded. A tricky one ...

	He was thinking of old Mrs. Timmins, bedridden, frail and with a bone structure as fragile as a bird's and her only hold on life an innocent obsession with the blackguard who had deserted her. He thought of her being beaten into disclosing the hiding place of her money or being rolled on the floor while the suspect tore the mattress apart. He thought of the livid, permanent bruising and the broken bones too old ever to knit and of the months or years of pain which resulted from a simple robbery with violence when the victim was senile. Michaelson had worked on too many cases just like that.

	"Your property will be returned to you," he said finally, "if I ever let you out."

	While the suspect was being returned to his cell, Michaelson prodded the bunch of keys with his forefinger. There were no car keys and the five in the bunch, presumably the door, room and garden shed keys, were old in design, indicating a dwelling in the older part of the city, and the remaining two, which were duplicates, were new and distinctive with a long serial number etched into them. Greer was practically breathing down his neck as he wrote the number on his pad.

	"I've seen that type of key before, too," said the sergeant. "There are five or six new office buildings using them. We were notified because the locks are supposed to be thief-proof, but obviously the keys aren't. Or do you think they are his own?"

	When Michaelson did not reply he went on, "Those buildings maintain a round-the-clock security guard. I can call them with the serial number right now, and if their key registers are up to date, find out the office and the occupier's name. He may know something about the suspect, and I can call at his office first thing in the morning."

	"I'll call at his office," said Michaelson, "as soon as you come off the phone."

	"Aren't you a bit senior to be personally investigating a—"

	Michaelson nodded, and said, "This one bothers me."

	Half an hour later he was reading the tasteful cream lettering on the grained door of Office 47 in the Dunbar Building while the patrolman on night duty, an ex-policeman called Nesbitt, stood watchfully behind him. The company occupying the office was SMITH PHILATELIC SUPPLIES, and the Smith in question, Michaelson had discovered on the way up, answered fully to the description of the suspect.

	"I intend having a look around," said Michaelson, "and I shall not remove any of Mr. Smith's property unless a more detailed examination becomes necessary, by which time I shall have a warrant. In the meantime I would appreciate it if you would accompany me while I look around, and, of course, give me as much information as you can about Smith. Last time I saw him he could not even give me his name."

	He was not actually lying to Nesbitt, but he had managed to give the other a very strong reason for believing that the suspect was an amnesia victim.

	The suspect—Michaelson could not believe that his name was really Smith—occupied a small suite of offices. The outer office contained two desks, a few chairs and even fewer filing cabinets. Dominating the inner office was a large desk covered by a thick asbestos board on which lay an electric toaster, kettle and frying pan. The desk lamp was angled to point at the head of the camp bed which was neatly made up behind the desk. Most of the built-in shelving contained nonperishable groceries, also neatly stacked, while a refrigerator in one corner took care of the perishable kind. The desk's telephone table had been removed to another corner, where it supported a color TV. A washroom opened off the smaller office, where shirts and socks were dripping dry into a bath.

	"It isn't usual," said Nesbitt in answer to Michaelson's unspoken question, "but so long as there is no fire hazard, and Smith is very careful that way, there is nothing in the rules which actually forbids it. Besides, at the prices we charge for these offices we can't afford to be too strict."

	Michaelson nodded and began taking a closer look around. The towels looked new—not brand new, but not very old, either—and the shaver and other bits and pieces had also been bought recently. A closer examination of the inner office showed that the suspect was very clean and tidy in his habits. There were books here and there, not enough to be called a library but they all looked as though they had been read several times—cheap editions or paperbacks on pretty heavy, nonfiction subjects for the most part. The exception was a small pile of science-fiction paperbacks. He noted Asimov's The End of Eternity, Heinlein's Door Into Summer, Shaw's The Two-Timers and Tucker's Year of the Quiet Sun ... 

	The suspect's taste in s-f was good if somewhat restricted, Michaelson decided as he returned to the outer office.

	"Has Mr. Smith spoken to you?" Michaelson asked as he lifted the dust cover off what he thought was a typewriter but turned out to be a small record player.

	"Often," Nesbitt replied, then explained, "He isn't very organized about his paperwork, and when I suggested that he get himself a secretary, he asked me what exactly would he involved. I told him about medical and unemployment insurance payments and income tax deductions and so on: he seemed to lose interest."

	There were sheets of printed music and blank manuscript pages scattered over the top of the desk, which apparently had not been disturbed for some time. On the manuscript pages the same few bars of a melody had been written over and over again. The desk drawers were filled with more manuscript blanks and dozens of records, which, like the sheet music on top of the desk, were mainly ballads. A few were familiar—pleasant enough tunes, but too derivative for Michaelson to really approve of them. There were no musical instruments in the room.

	The other desk, which seemed to be in current use, was scattered with philatelic magazines and reference books. The drawers contained magnifiers and large sheets of unused stamps in plastic folders with a few singles, also in transparent envelopes, which were even older. Michaelson had never been a stamp collector. "Are these valuable?"

	"They aren't rare," replied Nesbitt, in tones that said that he had been a collector and probably still was. "But in quantities like that, in mint condition, they are worth a considerable sum of money. If I'd known about them I would have advised him to keep them in a fireproof safe."

	"He takes your advice?"

	"He listens to it."

	Michaelson smiled. "How well do you know him?"

	"I call in most nights during my rounds," said Nesbitt. "Being alone he doesn't have to work normal hours, and if he is awake or working late he leaves the door open so I can come in for a cup of coffee, or to watch the wrestling matches if it coincides with my break."

	"So his hobbies are drinking coffee and watching wrestling," said Michaelson dryly.

	"No, sir. He switches channels for me. I usually find him watching current affairs programs. He is a very serious-minded young man."

	"Worried about something, do you think?"

	"He hasn't looked very happy recently, but from what I've heard he doesn't have any financial worries."

	"Any idea where he stayed before coming here?"

	"At a hotel a few blocks away, the Worchester. Some of his mail is Still being forwarded from it."

	"Why did he move?"

	"I think it was red tape again," said Nesbitt. "He had been living there for nearly two years—well, not exactly, he used a room to carry on his business and sometimes he lived in it if it was too late to go home in the evening. The hotel did not mind at first—it is a small place with an easy-going manager. But apparently it contravened regulations for a guest to carry on a business on a permanent basis from his room. Rather than try to sort it out, he moved here."

	"He confides in you a lot?"

	"Not at first. But one night he came in drunk, really sick drunk. I think it must have been the first time he had tried alcohol, and he had tried everything in sight. While I was helping him to bed he told me that he had a problem, but not what it was, and that he had to talk to somebody here. After that we talked for a few minutes, sometimes longer, every night—but never about his problem. I got the impression that it was a very personal thing."

	"Yes," said Michaelson. "Did he go out much at night?"

	"Recently, yes," said Nesbitt. "I expect he got himself a girl friend.

	A good thing, too—he had been very worried about something for the past three weeks. He had told me that his problem was worse than ever and that now there would never be a solution to it. But earlier this week he started going out every night for three or four hours and sometimes staying away all day, so probably there was a solution to it after all."

	"Yes," said Michaelson.

	He was thinking about Mrs. Timmins and the solution that she represented to the suspect's very personal problem, and he could not trust himself to say anything else.

	His quick look around was gradually developing into a full-scale search, but so far the night security man had made no objections. He believed that he was helping the suspect, and it was obvious that he was so convinced of "Smith's" honesty that the thought that he might be harming the other man had never entered his head. The fact that he was an ex-policeman and Michaelson an inspector would also have something to do with it.

	Michaelson wrestled briefly with his conscience, but the process was little more than a token bout.

	Looking disinterested, he began sliding open the desk drawers one by one. "Apart from his recent absences, did he have any other hobbies or outside interests?"

	"He was keen on local history," said Nesbitt. "He kept a scrapbook of old newspaper clippings, on the shelf behind you."

	Michaelson picked up the scrapbook and went through it quickly but thoroughly. There were a few old street maps, plans of urban road systems and developments long since completed and clippings going back over half a century. He was not surprised to find several mentions of the city's moment of stark drama some sixty years earlier when the physics building at the university had blown up, taking the physics professor—a stuffy but very brilliant old gentleman tipped for a Nobel Prize—and a mercifully small number of post-graduate assistants with it. He read the chancellor's statement that, so far as he knew, no explosives had been kept in the building, descriptions of the peculiarly sharp detonation and the theories, based on evidence of fusing in parts of the debris, which ranged from an old-fashioned thunderbolt from on high to a meteor strike or the premature invention of a nuclear device ... 

	"No other hobbies?"

	"Not that I know of," said Nesbitt, then added, "At one time I thought he might be taking up radio as a hobby—he had read some technical articles and wanted to know if I could tell him anything about a standing wave. He gets suddenly curious about lots of things."

	Michaelson had a vague idea of what a standing wave might be, having listened to the engineers talking shop during a course he had taken on TV traffic monitoring systems, but he did not see how it could help his current investigation. He opened another drawer.

	And hit the jackpot.

	It contained a large desk diary, a day book recording income and expenditure, and an address book. As he leafed through them the look of disinterest on his face required an increasingly greater effort to maintain.

	There were appointment notes and memos reminding the suspect that he needed stamps for various retail outlets. There was not, so far as Michaelson could see, a corresponding supplier for the stamps. Other notes, none of which were recent, comprised current song titles with remarks like, "Piano arrangement not too difficult" or, "Very simple melody" or, "Good, but complicated orchestration needed—I can't memorize it." The final entry, dated three weeks earlier, said, "Found another possibility, will investigate the old lady tomorrow."

	The last entry in the address book, which otherwise contained only business contacts, was that of Mrs. Timmins. It had been written so heavily that her name and address had been embossed on four of the underlying pages.

	An emotional type, thought Michaelson coldly as he began going through the cash book.

	The entries were meticulously neat and, possibly because he had forgotten which book he was using, interspersed with reminders. Like the desk diary it showed ample evidence of income from the sale of stamps, but no indication of where he got them. His expenditure seemed to be confined to rent, food, clothing and sheet music. One of the latter items was for a song with "Memories" in the title, and he had added, leaning very heavily on his ballpoint, "Memories don't sell as easily as stamps, but they are all I can take." The last four entries, all dated within the past few weeks, showed the expenditure of considerable sums of money to an undisclosed company or person, with a bracketed notation that said, "In used notes by registered mail." Michaelson noted the amounts.

	"Can I telephone?" asked the inspector.

	"He has a night line," said Nesbitt.

	The night receptionist at the Worchester remembered Smith and, because he was not very busy, did not mind talking about him. Smith had stayed there for nearly a year, conducting a stamp business from nine to five—he lived somewhere else. He kept a very smart if conservative wardrobe in his office room—for impressing customers, he had said— but traveled to and from work in an old, shapeless suit. No, he had not acted in any way suspiciously or oddly, except that sometimes he arrived in the morning without a raincoat when it was pouring wet, and vice versa. But then the weather could change so suddenly. In this morning's forecast they had promised sunny periods ... 

	During the next pause for breath Michaelson thanked the receptionist and hung up.

	A man who avoids red tape and who sells stamps without buying them and buys sheet music and copies it over and over again, apparently to memorize it. Stamps were a peculiar commodity in that they could not be stolen in bulk without the fact showing up—especially when they were over half a century old. And where could freshly plagiarized music be sold? Any country or broadcasting company who bought it would signal the fact to the whole world, and if they were pirates they would hardly pay for the music in the first place.

	To make any sense at all of this puzzle, he would have to look at all the pieces very carefully and move them around to see how or if they fitted. Michaelson considered the suspect's manner, appearance, everything he had found out about him and his oddly run business. Potentially they were all important pieces, and he had to try fitting all of them together before he could risk discarding any as belonging to some other puzzle.

	"Would you like some coffee?" said the night patrolman. He said it three times before Michaelson heard him.

	"No, thanks," he said absently. The pieces, all of them, were begin ning to fit together. "I would like to make another call before I leave."

	Doctor Weston had a large local practice. He also had the information on Mrs. Timmins which Michaelson needed, and eventually, and with great difficulty, it was coaxed out of him. The details of her physical condition were given much more easily.

	"... And I gave that silly old woman until the middle of last week," said the doctor, in the tone of voice he used when he felt very strongly about a patient but did not want people to think that he was soft-hearted. "When I saw her earlier this evening I told the nurse to stay with her-she won't last the night. In her condition I don't know why she bothers to hang on."

	I do, said Michaelson, but he spoke under his breath.

	"One more call, honest," he said to Nesbitt. He had to go arrange with Greer to bring the suspect to Mrs. Timmins' flat, where he would meet them as soon as possible.

	They met twenty minutes later in her lounge. The nurse had gone into the adjoining bedroom to prepare her patient to receive visitors, leaving the suspect, Greer and Michaelson alone. The suspect looked as frightened as Michaelson had ever seen a man look, and the sergeant's expression reflected controlled puzzlement.

	He could very well be making the worst mistake of his long and fairly successful career, Michaelson thought, but if all the evidence pointed to an impossible conclusion then the impossible wasn't impossible.

	"This man has been rather naughty, Sergeant," he said. "His reticence about giving his name was ill-advised, but understandable in the circumstances. I have evidence that he is in fact the old lady's benefactor—he sent the money which she is supposed to have inherited. He hasn't admitted it yet, but I would say that it was conscience money and that he is the son or grandson of the old lady's husband, who deserted her and probably married again and who wants the payoff to be anonymous so as to avoid a possible bigamy charge and questions of the legitimacy or otherwise of his children."

	Greer nodded, then said, "I'll return to the station, sir." He gave the suspect a pained look, the sort which he reserved for nice but ill-advised people who played games with the overworked constabulary, and left. Professionally the sergeant was completely disinterested in nice people.

	If anything the suspect looked even more frightened.

	"That isn't the true story," Michaelson told him, "but it will do for the sergeant. Let's go in—she's dying and there isn't much time."

	"No!" He looked as if he might run if he did not faint first.

	"You tried hard enough to see her and now is your chance," Michaelson began angrily. Controlling himself, he went on, "I have known this old lady for a very long time. She was and is a ... a very nice person."

	"I know that!"

	Michaelson nodded and went on, "When I was a kid she was so good, so stupidly good and generous, that I wanted to do something for her—we all did. But her problem was not susceptible to solution by ten-year-old boys. Now ... well, I want you to inconvenience yourself just a little by going in to see her. If you don't," he added quietly, "I'll break every bone in your body."

	"You don't understand," said the suspect dully, but he began moving toward the bedroom door.

	"Maybe I do," said Michaelson. "You have two very nice businesses going—buying stamps at face value there and selling them here at a profit of several thousand percent. You even speculated in a few rare items, which became even rarer and more valuable. The music business in the other direction—no wonder so many of today's songs sound as if they'd been plagiarized—did not pay so well and you decided to stay where the money was ...

	The nurse opened the bedroom door, motioned them inside and then moved into the lounge.

	"You know, "said the suspect, looking more relieved than frightened. "But I didn't desert her. There was an accident and I couldn't get back." 

	"Tell me about it," said Michaelson.

	The suspect had been working at nights in the university, augmenting his wages as a shop assistant by sweeping and tidying the labs--he had been saving hard to get married. Professor Morrison, one of the most important people at the university, had offered him a lot of money to take part in an experiment which he had said was perfectly safe but which must be kept secret. Professor Morrison had not explained what he was doing in detail, saying that it was too complicated, but from overheard conversations between the professor and his assistants and from his own recent reading, fictional as well as technical, he had a vague idea of how if not why the system worked.

	The field of stress which he had entered could be considered as a standing wave in time with an amplitude of exactly sixty-three years, and material objects currently in existence could go forward into the future and come back again to the present, but an object that existed in the future could not be brought back. Once the field had been set up it would remain in existence forever, he had heard the professor say, unless some outside agency or carelessness—such as materializing people or lab animals in a non-empty space—caused it to break down.

	Professor Morrison had intended to publish his results, but he had first to develop a shorter-range field—as things were he could not prove that his subject had traveled forward in time if he could not bring something back from the future. He had to send someone forward who would materialize in the professor's own lifetime, and Morrison was pushing eighty. As well, his reputation was such that he could not risk being accused of scientific trickery.

	The professor's budget did not allow him to go on paying his guinea pig, so he had devised the idea of memorizing songs of the future and selling them in the past. Memories, after all, were non-material ...

	"... I thought of the stamp idea myself," the suspect continued. "I was married by then, and my wife knew what I was doing. We thought eventually of coming to the future here, where I was making much more money, and I would commute to the past for stamps or anything else I needed. It was like going to work in the morning on a train, except that I commuted through time.

	"I had told her not to worry if I didn't come home for a few evenings—if I wasn't home for tea then I had sprained my ankle or something and would be along the next evening, or the next. The time I spent in the future exactly equaled the time I was absent from the past, you see, and I didn't want her to be waiting up for me and worrying.

	"I should have realized that the overgrown hollow I always arrived in was an old crater," he concluded, "but it was so big and shallow. All I knew was that the professor was working on a new, short-duration field which would make his time-travel demonstrable to all, and that one evening I went back to the hollow and couldn't get home. And life here is so complicated, so much more documentation that I don't fully understand—"

	"I could help you understand it," said Michaelson quietly. He had been gradually moving the suspect closer to the bed. He added, "But you will have to do something for me."

	"Even before I traced the old newspaper references," the other went on, "I knew that I was marooned here. I had a large enough stock of stamps to be able to make enough money to set up a legitimate philatelic business if I could only sort out the red tape. But I wanted to find my wife if she was still alive. We didn't make much money on the songs I had memorized, and most of it went on buying stamps, anyway. She must have moved to this place before our house was leveled to make room for the new development, but the new owner changed the name and made it difficult to trace ..."

	"But you found her," Michaelson broke in softly, "and she'll be glad to see you after all this time."

	"No," said the other, beginning to back away, "I can't."

	Michaelson gripped him very firmly by the arm and said, "You are going to need help and advice and I'm willing to give it, but if you don't go to that old lady I will make you wish that you'd never been born. With your ridiculous story and lack of documentation I could easily get you in trouble— a charge of espionage, perhaps, or committal to a psychiatric—"

	"She's so old!" he burst out in a tortured whisper. "Letting her see me still young would ... would ... it wouldn't be fair to her!"

	"That's a risk we both must take," said Michaelson more gently. "But I talked to her doctor. She is pretty far gone, far enough gone perhaps and senile enough to be living in the past, and you are exactly as she remembers you ..."

	Michaelson moved toward the bed, taking the other man with him. On the bedside table there was a framed wedding picture showing them together. The faces were identical to those in the cropped photographs in the suspect's wallet, except that this picture was old and yellowed and had not had the old-fashioned suit and dress and bouquet trimmed away to make period identification difficult. The terribly wrinkled and shrunken and caved-in face on the pillow close by bore no resemblance to the picture at all except for the eyes. They were the same as in the photograph and the same as Michaelson remembered them as a boy.

	He stared intently at the suspect's face, looking for the slightest sign of revulsion in the other's expression as he bent over the bed, but could not find it.

	As the nurse closed the bedroom door behind him, she said, "He's holding her in his arms, sir. Is the young man a relative?"

	Michaelson rubbed his eyes and said, "Only by marriage."

-

HOUSE SITTER

	The thunder was like the constant rumbling of a heavy freight train across the arch of the night sky, and the lightning was so bright and continuous that the rain-lashed garden had no chance to get dark before the next flash lit it up again. As Alan hurried along the path towards the front door, he passed under a large tree and felt a sudden anxiety that the branches, or maybe the metal ferrule of his umbrella, would attract a strike. He lowered it quickly, and the tree chose that precise moment to dump the accumulation of rainwater in its leaves onto his unprotected head and shoulders. He swore, folded the umbrella and ran for the shelter of the front door.

	Already he was feeling that coming here had been a ghastly mistake, and he hadn't even seen the inside of the place.

	Whenever he had seen this kind of meteorological melodrama in an old ghost movie, he had always thought that the special effects people had gone way over the top, but not anymore. He blinked rain out of his eyes and struggled with the folds of his sodden raincoat to reach the keys in his trouser pocket. But before he found the right one, he lifted the heavy door knocker three times and let it fall.

	"Now why the hell did I do that?" he wondered aloud. "Force of habit or stupid politeness? Or are the special effects getting to me and I'm expecting it to be opened by a tall, darkly handsome personage with a pale face and long incisors wearing full evening dress?"

	"The man would be dressed that way," Eileen would have corrected him, "not the teeth."

	There had been a time when they would have run with a silly crack like that and had a lot of fun with it, but nowadays there wasn't much to laugh at. He turned the key in the lock and used both hands to push open the heavy front door.

	With the help of the erratic, natural lighting from outside, he found the recessed hall cupboard containing the power switches and flipped them on. The lightning flashes dimmed and the thunder dropped in volume as he turned on the hall lights and closed the front door. He opened doors at random and switched on lights, but only glanced into the rooms, whose furniture was shrouded in dust covers, until he found the kitchen.

	There was a tall, haggard, unshaven young man standing beside the breakfast table and staring at him. He showed no sign of surprise or agitation at being discovered there, and his expression was that of a person who had serious problems.

	"W-what the hell are you doing here?" said Alan, trying to hide his own surprise and fear by going on the offensive. "I don't know how you got in, but get out. Now."

	The other was wearing a thick, hand-knit cardigan with a bold pattern of contrasting stripes over a white sweatshirt, wide-bottomed denim trousers and sponge-soled shoes. It was an outfit that had been out-of-date for decades but which might be coming back again. Alan continued staring, wondering why he was concerning himself with the other's fashion sense when any minute he might be mugged.

	"It's okay," said the young man, raising one hand in reassurance or perhaps in greeting. "I keep an eye on the place. My name's Paul."

	Alan began to relax. With his hand still on the light switch, he said dryly, "So you keep an eye on the place, in complete darkness?"

	Paul hesitated, then said, "I know where everything is."

	"Max didn't mention a caretaker," Alan went on. "He just gave me the keys, a lot of good advice, and told me to stay as long as necessary. He must be growing forgetful in his old age. My name is Alan."

	He moved towards the table and held out his hand. Paul backed away from him without taking it.

	"Is Max all right?" he said, sounding concerned. "Apart from being old?"

	"Very old," Alan corrected. He had heard of apparently ordinary people who had an aversion to making physical contact with others. "He looked all right when he talked me into coming here. But Max never talks about his own problems. Psychiatrists aren't supposed to have any."

	"He sent you here?" said Paul in a disappointed voice. "Why didn't he come as well?"

	"He's very fragile," said Alan, "and doesn't travel well. So you are his caretaker?"

	Paul ignored the question and said quickly, "I'll leave you to get settled in."

	"Wait," said Alan. "Max told me nothing about the house other than it was a nice place where I wouldn't be troubled with company and that I could buy it cheap. You'll have to show me where everything is, tell me about the shops in the village and stuff like that. But first help me unload the microwave and food from the car so I can fix supper. What would you like to eat?"

	"It is a very nice place," said Paul, "and you'll have to find out about it for yourself. I have to go now."

	"A cup of coffee, then?" said Alan. "Or a beer?"

	The other shook his head firmly and turned to go. "I couldn't touch a thing," he said. "I'll see you around."

	He was leaving the kitchen when Alan noticed that he didn't have a coat. He called, "Borrow my umbrella. You'll be drenched out there."

	Without turning his head the other raised his hand and said, "It's all right, I haven't far to go."

	A strange, unhappy young man, Alan thought, but not very bright if he was going to risk pneumonia by walking home through a thunderstorm.

	While he carried the contents of his station wagon into the house, Alan continued thinking about Paul and wondering, among other things, why he had refused to help. He put the food and microwave into the kitchen, but the cartons containing his TV, video recorder and computer he left in the hall until he could decide where to put them.

	Max had insisted that getting away from well-meaning friends would be good for what ailed him, provided he didn't cut himself off from all the amenities of civilization, and that by now the old-world village nearby should have advanced enough to have its own video library.

	The drive through the storm had been long and difficult. After he had eaten, finding a place to sleep was the only clear thought in his weary mind. There were two bedrooms, one the master that had a big, soft double bed, and a smaller guest room with two single beds.

	It had been a long time since he had been able to use a single bed, because he still clung to the hope before going to sleep that somehow he would wake up in the morning with Eileen beside him. That was questionable psychology, according to Max, but he knew the old man would not object to him using the main bedroom.

	Under his crusty exterior, Max was a gentle and sensitive old man who in his day had been at the top of his profession. He had always insisted that his patients knew more about their emotional problems than he ever could and, with a little help from him, they were able to practice the correct therapy on themselves.

	His case would require a miracle, Alan had told the old man. Max had smiled sympathetically and said that miracles his patients had to provide for themselves.

	He unpacked Eileen's nightie, the black, almost transparent one he had always preferred her to wear, and sprayed it lightly with her favorite perfume before folding it under the pillow beside his. A few minutes later he was lying on the sinfully soft bed and sneezing occasionally because of the dust he had stirred up while removing the covers. The drapes were fully opened so that the intermittent lightning made the dusty furniture and wall decorations around him look like a series of black and white still photographs. Then gradually the intensity of the flashes diminished and the thunder was reduced to a soft grumbling as if it, like him, was ready to sleep,

	He awoke slowly into a room flooded with the misty, golden sunlight of an autumn morning, feeling so relaxed and comfortable that he almost felt like a child again on a day when he didn't have to go to school. In spite of the dust everywhere, the room looked bright and cheerful. He didn't know if he liked some of the old lamp-shades or the antiquated dresser and wardrobes, but it was a nice room.

	No, he decided as he swung his feet to the floor and stepped across the dusty carpet to open the windows, it was a beautiful room.

	The sky showed blue and cloudless above the nearby trees, whose leaves, still wet from the night's rain, threw back red, bronze and gold highlights. Many of them had been blown down by the storm so that the front lawn looked as though it was speckled with bright, irregular patches of rust. Shivering suddenly, he realized that admiring the view without clothes on was not a sensible thing to do at this time of year, and turned away to get dressed.

	He sneezed his way downstairs, deciding that he would have to do something about the dust everywhere. In the bright morning light it rose in clouds every time he took a step. He felt hungry, hungrier than he could remember feeling for a long time, and the decision on where to start cleaning could wait until after breakfast.

	Max had insisted that he needed to get away by himself, for a complete change of surroundings, so that he could try to come to terms with the awful, Eileen-sized hole in his life. He had promised Max that he would stay in the old house for a while and, technically, a single overnight stay qualified as a while so that he was free to leave before lunch-time. But if the while was to last for more than a few days, he needed to find the vacuum cleaner and dusters. His tidiness fetish, according to Max, verged on the psychotic.

	The kitchen and bathroom he cleaned first because they were the smallest and easiest, followed by his bedroom. He searched out and eliminated every speck of dust and cobweb as if they were mortal enemies. Not one light fitting, picture frame or ornament escaped. Anything that was worth doing, Eileen had always said, was worth doing well.

	As soon as he finished, Alan returned to each of the three rooms, pressed his lips together and took a long, slow sniff. Not once did he sneeze. It was late afternoon by then and he was starving.

	He refueled on lasagna and chips followed by a chocolate mousse that was supposed to serve two. There was no need to eat healthy anymore, or go to bed before midnight or do anything at all out of consideration for someone else's feelings, because the only person he had to consider now was himself. It was a freedom of choice that he would rather not have had.

	In an effort to change the mental subject, he removed the dust-covers from the lounge furniture. His intention was to relax, hypnotize himself by watching television and drinking beer for the rest of the evening, but that was not to be.

	Max's television was a massive piece of furniture in polished, inlaid wood with sliding doors that opened to reveal a ridiculously tiny screen. The unit also contained an old-fashioned radiogram and a rack filled with long-playing records. When he switched on there was no picture because none of the stations broadcast on 405 lines anymore. Feeling both irritated and amused, he cleared a nearby coffee table of its dusty pile of professional journals, all of which were at least thirty years out of date, and set up his portable. Then he settled into a comfortable chair in front of it, a tray with three cans of beer on the table beside him, and prepared to spend the rest of the evening being a couch potato.

	Again that was not to be.

	Every time he changed position, a cloud of dust rose from the cushions to hang like a fine mist between him and the screen. And when he turned to reach for his beer, the thick fringe of cobwebs hanging from the table lamp stirred with his breath and made him sneeze again, which stirred up even more dust. Swearing, he went for the vacuum cleaner, furniture polish and dusters.

	While cleaning behind the radiogram he stopped to look at its store of records. Most of them were classics and popular operatic pieces, some of which were favorites of his, and a few that had probably been in the charts thirty years ago. He loaded up a selection to automatic play and from then on he had music while he worked.

	The lounge took much longer to clean than the other rooms. There were more pictures, clocks and ornaments, some of which were beautiful and obviously of great value. Most of the wood surfaces had developed a bloom over the years and needed to be polished hard to remove it. In one area, the wall showed traces of where a few pictures had hung and, strangely, the shelf above the big fireplace was empty of the usual photographs. Maybe Max had not liked looking at himself.

	Suddenly it was two-thirty in the morning and he was standing in the middle of a big, brightly-lit lounge that was now in mint condition and smelling only of fresh air and furniture polish. It was a really nice room and he was pleased with what he had done to it. As if in approbation and exactly on cue, the solo violin finale of the last movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade filled the room and died slowly away.

	"Nice," said Paul, speaking suddenly from behind him.

	"Bloody hell!" said Alan, swinging around. "Why don't you wear proper shoes, or stamp your feet or something? I nearly jumped out of my . . .

	He broke off. Paul was dressed in the same outfit he had been wearing the previous evening. He still looked haggard and in need of a shave, and he seemed to be blinking back tears. A strange, sensitive young man, Alan thought, with serious problems. Maybe the problems were the reason for him knowing Max.

	"I like it myself" Alan said, softening his tone. "But that last note is so high I think the neighborhood dogs are the only ones who appreciate it.

	"I wasn't talking about the music," said Paul, looking all around him. "This, this is the way the room used to be. Are you going to do this to all of them?"

	"Possibly," Alan replied, "and certainly the ones I'll be using. The box room has a desk for my computer. Will you help?" Paul shook his head firmly.

	To your other personality defects, Alan thought, add laziness. Angrily he closed the windows, pulled across the drapes and turned off the lights with the exception of the table lamp beside the TV before speaking.

	"I'm sorry if the house lights and cleaner noise in the middle of the night woke you up," he apologized in an unapologetic voice, "although you must have been pretty sure it wasn't burglars. But thanks, anyway, for coming to check. Don't you ever wear an overcoat?"

	"You didn't wake me," Paul replied, with his eyes fixed on the TV, "and no."

	"Right now," said Alan, "I'm going to make supper and then hit the sack. Would you like something before you go?"

	He had dropped the heaviest of hints, but the other only shook his head without taking his eyes off the screen.

	Alan had supper alone in the kitchen because he didn't like to eat with someone who wasn't eating. When he returned to the lounge, Paul was still watching the film and appeared not to have moved an inch.

	"Surely," he said, making no attempt to smother a yawn, "you've seen that one before now?"

	"No," said Paul. "It's very good, isn't it?"

	"If you say so," he replied, feeling too tired either to start an argument or order the other to leave. "Me, I'm going to bed before I go to sleep. Switch off and lock up as you go."

	He slept late and wakened to the sound of rain beating against the windows. The sun didn't have to be shining into the room to make it look nice, he realized, because on an atrocious morning like this one it gave the feeling of being a warm, cozy shelter against the elements. Then as he opened the bedroom door, he heard voices.

	A man and women were talking and there was something very familiar about the sound. Swearing aloud, he went down to the lounge to find that Paul had left the TV and table lamp switched on. He had also forgotten to lock the front door.

	Paul, he thought angrily, was a very careless caretaker.

	His anger had a chance to fade because, during the five days that followed, Paul had the good sense not to put in an appearance. A person who was missing a marble or two could be compensated by a sensitivity in other areas. Maybe the other's short-term memory was defective. Alan decided to go easy on him when he did turn up.

	In the meantime he spent most of every day just wandering around the house and looking at the paintings and the intriguing and tasteful collection of bric-a-brac or, when the children's TV programs began to threaten his sanity, listening to records or reading. He was able to be lazy without the slightest twinge of guilt because he had run out of places to clean.

	It was very easy to relax in Max's old place, but he knew that sooner rather than later he should plant the seat of his trousers on the swivel chair in front of the desk in the freshly cleaned box room, apply his fingers to the keyboard and cudgel his brain into doing some real work.

	And so it was that after breakfast on his eighth day in the house, with the sound of classical music drifting up from the lounge just loudly enough not to interfere with his concentration, he tried to do just that. For a long time he divided his attention between the blank monitor screen, the blank wall facing him and his even blanker mind.

	"Write," he told himself in an angry undertone. "Put one word down and then another. Something will come."

	"What are you doing?" said Paul.

	The swivel chair squeaked as Alan swung round to face him. "You're supposed to knock before coming into a room," he said sharply, then in a gentler, more patient tone he went on, "But I expect you can't help forgetting things, like switching off lights and locking doors."

	"I'm not stupid," said Paul defensively. "I just can't help it. What is this thing? What's it used for?"

	"It's a word processor. Right now I'm using it not to write a story."

	"Why don't you take your own advice," said Paul, "and just write about something. Can I watch?"

	"Can I stop you?" said Alan dryly, then added, "Suppose I write something about you?"

	"You don't know anything about me," said Paul, "and I won't tell you anything."

	"I can learn something from observation," Alan said, "and your silence could mean that you've something to hide. Some deep, dark secret about which I would be forced to speculate. We could have fun with this."

	He paused while his mind raced ahead of his tongue, then said, "There's more than one strange character involved here. There are four of us if you include Max and the house. It feels like a character to me, a strong, pleasant and friendly character, rather than a place. Right, I'll type while I'm talking, even though this is just mental exercise and a complete waste of time."

	"Mental exercise," said Paul, "is never a waste of time."

	Alan smiled. "Are you a philosopher or something?"

	"Something," said Paul.

	Turning back to the keyboard, Alan said, "Read over my shoulder if I stop talking. We'll begin with Max, the character who brought the rest of us together. He is a psychiatrist still eminent in the field in spite of being long-since retired, is in very poor health and with a practice reduced to a few people, usually friends, who he considers in special need. His therapy is unorthodox, as is shown by his treatment of our second character, me.

	"This one is having serious emotional problems following the death of his wife," he continued. "Uncharacteristically for a writer, he has a compulsively tidy mind which, as well as disliking unanswered questions, makes it difficult for him to work in an environment of dirt or disorder, and recently this condition has worsened. As well, he puts one of his dead wife's night dresses, sprayed with her favourite perfume, under the pillow beside him because he thinks it helps him to sleep. Over the past few days he has begun to feel a little better because, he believes, of the third character, this house."

	He paused to look at Paul, whose expression, if anything, looked even more strained.

	"The house," he went on, "is a pleasant character but with some odd quirks. It has the feel of a place where a lot of nice things happened, and I want to know more about it. For example, why are all its wardrobes empty of clothing, even of old odds and ends that always get left behind, but filled with bed linen? Why were a few small pictures removed while valuable paintings were left in place? The house can't answer for itself, so why doesn't the fourth character, its caretaker, tell me about it or, for that matter, do anything at all about cleaning the house left in his charge? I've told you a lot about me. You should reciprocate. Well?"

	"I can't," said Paul.

	"Can't, or won't?"

	"No matter which word you use," Paul replied, "the end-result will be the same. I can't help it."

	"And neither," said Alan, trying to control his irritation, "can you help it if I use my imagination."

	Paul was staring at him intently with an expression, Alan realized suddenly, that must have been a lot like his own. There was the same grief, guilt, hopelessness and anger—in his own case, a helpless anger towards the woman he loved for dying and leaving him all alone. He resumed typing.

	"Right," he said. "What do we know or can we deduce about this Paul character? He is in his early thirties, appears to be in good physical shape and has a psychological problem which causes him to avoid physical contact, including shaking hands, with other people. He is careless or forgetful about locking doors and switching off the TV. But what reason, other than pure contrariness or laziness, makes him refuse to answer questions or help me tidy up?"

	"Maybe," said Paul, "I'm just a brain-worker."

	Alan had been trying to make the other angry in the hope that he-would reveal something about himself, but it hadn't worked. He tried again.

	"Not only does he avoid physical contact," Alan went on, "it seems that he can't even bear to touch the property of others. In spite of the horrendous weather on the night I arrived, he refused the loan of an umbrella by stupidly insisting that he had not far to go. Later I discovered that the nearest house is over half a mile away."

	Paul shook his head but gave no other reaction.

	"Judging by appearances," he went on, returning his attention to the computer, "this character doesn't shave or change his uncombed hairstyle and has only one outfit. In spite of this …"

	He leaned back suddenly in the chair so that his head was only inches away from the other and gave a long, audible sniff. Paul moved back quickly.

	"...  his clothing and body don't smell," Alan continued. "So we have a character who is clean in his habits, careless about his appearance and with a psychological hang-up which, if I knew what it was, might explain his behavior. I can't take this any further without more information. You'll have to help me."

	"I'm sorry," said Paul. He sounded as if he meant it.

	"Dammit," said Alan, swinging round again, "what's wrong with you?"

	The other shook his head and bent forward to stare at the screen. He said, "What can you do now?"

	"Just summarize," said Alan with heavy sarcasm, "and hope something occurs to me. So, we have four characters, the house, the psychiatrist Max, myself who may be responding to the treatment provided by the first two, and a fourth who is probably in greater need of therapy than I am."

	He waited for an angry response. It did not come.

	Without looking round, Alan said and typed, "I'm sorry, our third character, me, can be a nasty bastard at times. However, we have four characters but no plot to tie them together and move them towards a resolution of their problems. All the best plots are supposed to solve their characters' problems, happily or otherwise. Max and the house don't have any problems . . ."

	He broke off again, his mind racing, then went on, "Maybe I'm taking too much for granted. Max set up the original situation by sending me here. Did he have a reason other than the one stated? And could the house have secret problems, too, like dry rot, sinking foundations or, or just a few missing pictures?"

	Alan stared at the screen for a long time, and when he finally looked around Paul had gone as silently as he had come. He saved, switched off and went downstairs. He had the nagging feeling that he should be doing something but had no idea what it was.

	For a few minutes he stood listening to the music while staring at the area of wall where three missing pictures had hung, then turned and walked quickly to the kitchen. There he took the folding ladder from its recess and went up to the first floor landing, where there was a ceiling trapdoor giving access to the roof space. He pushed it open.

	A single, dusty bulb gave enough light to show the heaps of unfolded clothing and footwear that had been scattered around the trapdoor opening. It was as if they had been thrown there just to get them out of sight. Lying on top of the heap were three framed photographs which he picked up. For a moment he stared at the thick curtain of cobwebs hanging all around him, then laughed.

	"I may have a neatness neurosis," he said aloud, "but I'm not bloody mad."

	Later it was easy to replace the photographs in their original positions. They were all enlarged snapshots of two people, pictured singly or together. One showed a dark-haired man in his early twenties, capped and gowned and smiling broadly as he held a diploma in one hand. Plainly it was an amateur shot because the focus was soft and shadows from the heavy, horn-rimmed glasses made it difficult to see the features clearly. The other single photo was of a different man. He was big, broad-shouldered and with thick, blond hair. He was smiling into camera and holding up a glass as he stood in front of the lounge fireplace, which was filled with Christmas cards.

	Oh, Max, he thought sadly, whatever happened to all that hair?

	In the other photograph the two of them were pictured close together, horsing around in front of a new or perhaps a lovingly maintained car. Its licence plate was in focus but the dark-haired man's lower face was obscured by the blur of a sudden hand movement. There was no mistaking the way they were looking at each other.

	Alan had seen that look before, in photographs of Eileen and himself when they hadn't known they were being taken, the body language was unmistakable. Max and the other young man had been an item.

	Stopping only to find an oil-can, he left the house and walked quickly to the garage.

	It was a two-car garage that lay about thirty yards from the north gable of the house, almost hidden by a thick screen of trees whose fallen leaves lay piled against the doors like a bronze snowdrift. He had considered garaging his own vehicle beside the old car already in residence, but had discarded the idea when he discovered that the door padlock was a solid mass of rust. The grime and cobwebs covering the inside of the windows had kept him from seeing anything but the other car's outlines.

	Unlike the happy, relaxed atmosphere that pervaded the house, the garage gave him the creeps, but he wanted a closer look at that car. He hoped that the oil-can and one of Max's keys would open the padlock.

	Before using the oil, he gave the lock a sharp tug. It disintegrated and came away in rusty pieces in his hand. When he pushed the doors open, dry leaves spilled onto the floor behind him.

	The car's license number matched the one in the photograph, he saw, but there the similarity ended. All the air had leaked out of the tires, and the windows, body and interior were covered by a thick, damp scum of dust. The driver's door hung wide and showed the marks of where its lock had been forced open, and its window was closed to within an inch of the top rim. He had come out without his topcoat, but that was not the reason why he shivered. Something very bad, he thought, must have happened in this place.

	He didn't realize that he'd been thinking aloud until Paul said, "What makes you say that?"

	"Bloody hell!" he burst out, swinging around to find the other standing a few paces behind him. "I told you before not to sneak up on me like ... How the blazes did you do that? The leaves didn't even make a sound."

	Paul was staring at him intently, his expression unreadable. He said, "I asked my question first."

	"And you never answer mine," Alan began angrily, then stopped. He was still looking past the other at the thick carpet of leaves outside the garage door, and suddenly his mind was moving too fast for his tongue to keep up with it. Slowly he moved closer to Paul until there was less than a yard separating them.

	"For some reason you always avoid physical contact with me," he said, "and now I'm going to do something stupid. If I'm wrong, and especially if you're into martial arts or muscle-building, it will be very stupid. I—I'm going to punch you in the face."

	He threw a sudden punch at Paul's head. His fist and whole forearm went through the other's face as if he was punching air. Even though he had been half expecting something like this to happen, shock made him stagger backwards until the car bonnet stopped him. He sat down on it to keep from falling down.

	For the first time Alan saw the other smile. Paul said, "You look as if you'd just seen a ghost."

	"But, but you, you are a bloody ghost," said Alan.

	"And you've just seen one," Paul replied. "Let's go back to the house. You need a drink."

	Half an hour later he was sitting on his shoulder blades in the room's deepest armchair, the remains of his third large whiskey in one hand while he pointed with the other at Paul on the sofa opposite. He was feeling relaxed, no longer afraid and, judging by the words he heard himself speaking, not quite in touch with the real world.

	"You are sitting there," he said with the careful articulation of one who is trying to demonstrate his complete sobriety, "but you don't put a dent in the cushions. You were right, you couldn't help me clean the place, or use light switches or lock doors. And your reaction to the old films, it must have been the first time you'd seen color television, should have been a dead giveaway. Sorry, I didn't mean to make a pun. You don't feel the cold, obviously, or get wet in the rain, and you're so quiet when you move, even when you're walking on dry leaves. I should have noticed things like that. I'm stupid."

	"You're not stupid," said Paul.

	"When we met for the first time," Alan went on, "I assumed you were the caretaker. But how can you be a caretaker when you can't even lock a door, or touch anything or anybody?"

	Paul looked at him without speaking.

	"I know, I know," said Alan impatiently, "you expect me to find the answer for myself. Well, I can imagine how you could scare off people by appearing suddenly and yelling that you were sending for the police. That would certainly discourage any would-be burglar. Or maybe you can appear as something really horrible and ... But no, if you could do that you wouldn't have to wear the same outfit, the one you probably died in, all the time. But you didn't even try to scare me off. Why not?

	"I arrived openly," he went on, answering his own question, "and knocked the door before using the key, so you knew I wasn't a burglar. But it was dark and you didn't know who I was. You must have been expecting, no, maybe you were hoping, that I was somebody else. That is a deduction, by the way, not a question."

	Too many emotions were chasing each other across Paul's face for any one of them to be identified. Alan finished his drink and pushed himself to his feet.

	He said, "I need to think, alone if you don't mind. Even though your character has begun to develop, I'm still unsure of your motivation. Shall I turn on the TV for you, and which channel?"

	The other nodded and continued looking at him.

	"Sorry, I forgot," said Alan. "You can read the print but can't turn over the pages."

	He lifted the TV guide from the coffee table, opened it to the spread containing the day's programs and held it for the other to read. Paul moved his face closer, squinting at the type.

	"You need glasses," Alan said. He smiled and added, "But you've no ears or nose to hang them on . . ."

	He broke off, his mind running ahead of his mouth again. Suddenly he pointed at the photograph of the two men beside the old car.

	"You were about ten years younger then," he said slowly, "and you wore glasses and were clean shaven. The other man in the picture is Max, your partner. Am I right?"

	Paul just looked at him for a moment, then said, "Channel Two, please."

	"Right, don't answer," Alan replied, punching the selector button with unnecessary force. "I'll find for myself as usual. But all you're doing is making it take longer."

	When Paul remained silent, he went on, "I've changed my mind about making notes right now. Sometimes physical labor helps my mind work better, so instead I'm going to clean that filthy garage. Anything to say?"

	"It makes more sense," said Paul, "than cleaning the roof space."

	"You overheard me in the roof space?" said Alan, surprised. "I didn't know you were there."

	"Unfortunately," the other said softly, "I can be everywhere."

	"Were you in my bedroom when I sprayed Eileen's nightie with—"

	"Only once," Paul replied. "Watching, and listening, to you sleeping isn't much fun."

	"Do you want to watch me clean the garage?"

	Paul shook his head firmly. "The garage isn't a nice place for me," he said. "I'd rather watch television."

	Alan nodded. "It sounds like you're beginning to relax your no information rule? You've just told me that you could be everywhere and that you don't like the garage. Why not tell me more? I don't have to clean it right away if you'd rather talk."

	When there was no response, Alan sat down again.

	"Let me think out loud for a minute," he said. "This is a haunted house and you are its ghost. Now, my understanding of a haunting is that some past event so evil or terrible occurred in a building that the whole structure becomes saturated with it. The result is that, to anyone who enters, the whole event is played back like a sensory tape recording. But that isn't the way it happens here. This is a really nice place, so pleasant that it began affecting me from the moment I arrived, and so strongly that I seem to be losing my psychological hang-ups. I think old Max would say that I'm on the way to recovery. I'm convinced that he, and this house, are responsible, and I'm grateful."

	Paul gave a small nod but said nothing.

	"My friends told me that someday I must meet someone else," he continued, "and that I should not grieve forever. When Eileen was alive we also told each other not to stop living if one of us died before the other. But instead of another woman I've found a ghost, a male, homosexual ghost. Wherever she is, she must be laughing her head off.

	"But now," he went on gravely, "it's the ghost who has serious emotional problems. For some reason it, sorry, you, is haunting a house where only nice things happened. Why? How are you going to find peace or rest or whatever it is you need? If possible I would like to help you get it. Well?"

	Paul blinked several times but didn't reply.

	"Are you afraid to tell me," Alan persisted, "because I wouldn't be able to help? Or have you done something so bad that I would utterly refuse to have anything more to do with you?"

	"You can't help me," said Paul, turning his face away, "because I don't deserve to be helped. And if you tried to help and failed, that would make me feel much worse." He forced a laugh and went on, "Now you know enough about your characters to go up and plot a real mystery story."

	"Not yet," said Alan seriously. "The house character is looking good and I seem to be resolving my problems. But for a satisfactory ending I should also solve the problems of the absent Max and a stubbornly tight-lipped ghost. And I'm going to the garage, remember, not the computer."

	There was an overhead light and a power point for the vacuum cleaner in the garage. He cleaned and polished the windows first, telling himself that he was working for a purpose other than to satisfy his neatness neurosis, then he brushed the grime and insects from the ceiling, walls and floor. Apart from a few half-filled cans of age-solidified paint, car wax and a length of rotted rubber hose that had been thrown in an untidy heap on the floor rather than being coiled neatly onto the wall hook provided, there was very little junk. The dustbin was able to take it all.

	He was working, and thinking, very hard.

	When his stomach began making unruly noises he decided to call it a night and drove his own car onto the clean area of floor. The old one was sitting on an island of dirt, its tires flat, filthy and dead on the cement. Tomorrow he would do something about that. In the meantime he leaned over the bonnet to print "please clean me" on the grimy windshield, then closed the garage doors and returned to the house.

	Paul did not appear while he was in the kitchen cooking an enormous supper. Presumably the TV was still keeping him amused. Alan had decided to become tight-lipped, too, while remaining within the bounds of conversational politeness, until he knew exactly what had happened in the house's past. He cleared away the dishes and went into the lounge.

	"I'm going to bed now," he said briskly. "The volume needs to be turned down so it won't keep me awake. Shall I change channels?"

	"This one's fine," said Paul, then went on quickly, "But don't go just yet. I want to ... I've never told you how grateful I am for giving me the chance to see color television, and listen to music again, and find out what's going on in the outside world. I really appreciate that. I liked company in the old days, and being thirty-six years all alone in an empty house with nothing to do but watch the dust settle was, was pretty dire. Since you came I've almost been having fun. But I don't deserve to have fun or—"

	"Why not?" Alan broke in. For a change it was Paul who wanted to talk, but the other was still saying nothing of importance, so neither would he.

	"Have fun anyway," said Alan when there was no reply. "Goodnight."

	Before turning in, he spent about twenty minutes moving his stuff into the guest room and making up one of the single beds. Tonight he didn't spray Eileen's perfume on her nightie or fold it under the pillow. He still missed her like crazy, but he was at last accepting the fact that there was no hope of her ever waking up beside him in the mornings. She was gone, and even though he could still talk to her, and she would always be at the back of his mind ready to pop out and say something that would make him laugh or cry, she was now a part of the past that could not be changed. He wondered what she would think of him trying to change the past and future belonging to someone else.

	When he woke next morning there was a damp area on the pillow beside his eyes, but he was surprised how well he felt.

	The low murmuring of the TV sound drifted up from the lounge while he was dressing. He thought about Paul, a tortured spirit who would not talk about himself or allow anyone to help him. Plainly guilt was a part of the reason, and despair caused by the belief that he was beyond help. But there was no law he knew of against a patient trying to psychoanalyze an emotionally distressed ghost or, for that matter, the patient's own psychoanalyst.

	He spent most of that day getting very dirty while he cleaned the old car until it looked as if it had just emerged from the showroom. The battery was defunct, but by using petrol siphoned from his own car, jump leads and reinflating the tires he was able to drive it outside until he cleaned the floor underneath.

	If Paul came to see what had been going on, he didn't make himself visible.

	When he had finished, the garage looked well but it still made him feel uncomfortable, and now he knew why. Without stopping to speak to the ghost, he cleaned himself quickly and drove his own car into the village. He needed a fill-up for the long journey he planned for tomorrow; there were arrangements to make, and he wanted to have a large meal that he hadn't had to cook himself.

	"We're low on heating oil," he told Paul next morning. "The tank's outside so the delivery driver will fill it and mail me the bill. Don't scare him away, or the gardener Max pays to keep the lawn and hedges trimmed. I've arranged for him to dig over and replant the old flower beds. You can choose the kind of flowers and shrubs that used to be here."

	"Th—then you're going to live here," Paul stammered, "permanently?"

	Alan smiled. "Long enough, at least, for you to get tired of watching late night movies."

	"I—I saw what you did to the garage and the old car," he said in a voice that was shaking with emotion. "You've already done it to the house, and soon the garden. Why? What are you trying to do to me?"

	Alan opened his mouth to reply, then checked himself. If his wild idea didn't work out, answering the question would be making an excuse in advance for failure. Instead he smiled and said, "Keep an eye on the place while I'm gone."

	"Have I any choice?" said Paul.

	Late that evening he was on the way back. In the passenger seat Max's large-boned body looked incredibly fragile and his trembling hands were thrust under a thick, tartan blanket that had been tucked tightly around his hips and legs. Lit erratically by the headlights of oncoming traffic, his features were as pale and still as those of a corpse. He had not moved for over an hour and Alan had decided, wrongly, that he was sleeping.

	"You say you're feeling better about Eileen," said Max suddenly, "and you like my old house and want to buy it, but you have an urgent need for psychiatric advice. All this could have been handled by talking on the phone, you didn't have to practically kidnap me. And if you hadn't kept talking about suicide being involved, I'd never have come. What exactly is your new problem? So far you've ducked all around the subject."

	"It isn't my problem," Alan replied. "I'm consulting you on behalf of, of a friend."

	"A friend, I see," said Max in a skeptical voice. "And I suppose his case history is similar to your own?"

	"Not exactly," said Alan, hiding behind the literal truth. "He looks to be about thirty and yes, he lost someone. But that was because of a great wrong he did in the past. He feels hopeless and helpless and guilty and won't even talk about it, at least not to me. But you can help him. I believe you're the only one who can. He, he badly needs . . ."

	"What?"

	"To be forgiven," said Alan.

	Max closed his eyes. There might have been a trace of dampness between the lids as he said, "We all do wrong things and need to be forgiven for them. But you have a problem of your own. Why are you so keen to solve another person's?"

	Alan concentrated on the road ahead as he said awkwardly, "It seems to me that people with problems feel the need, and feel better, when they try to help with another person's problems. There's probably a long, psychiatric word for it."

	"There's a religious word for it, too," said Max. "Go on."

	"You did the same thing for me," Alan continued. "You were just a friend of Eileen's family, and even though you were retired and unwell, and had problems of your own that I didn't know about at the time, when she died you went to a lot of trouble to help me. You did it with straight talking and sympathy and by providing a lovely old house that I could clean and tidy to my heart's content and be alone in until I could begin curing myself. So I really owe you, Max, because your therapy worked. That's why I feel the need to help these other people."

	"How many others?" said Max sharply. "You only mentioned one."

	"Just one other," Alan replied. "The one I mentioned and, well, I want to help you, too. We both know that you haven't much time left. Think of this as my gift to you. It could be your last, and most successful case."

	Max remained silent until the dark green tunnel of trees and hedges they had been driving through was replaced by the lights of houses, a pub and a few shop fronts, then he said, "This is the village. Where does your friend and my patient live?"

	Alan continued to drive in silence. Max became suddenly agitated.

	"You're taking me to the house!" he burst out. "I don't ever want to go back there. Please, turn around."

	"Trust me." said Alan. "Your patient is waiting there for you. It might not be as bad as you think. But if you can't stand it, I've arranged for a room in the village."

	He turned into the driveway and stopped at the garage, then opened the doors and switched on the light before driving inside. Max was staring around the cleaned garage and at the old car, whose bodywork and trim shone like new. He was trembling and his face looked even paler. Alan moved to help him out of his seat.

	"You don't know what you're doing to me," he said, still staring at the other car. "Th—this is the way it used to be before the, the—"

	"I do know what I'm doing," Alan broke in gently, "and you ain't seen nuthin' yet."

	A few minutes later Max was standing in the cleaned and polished hall. He was looking up at the staircase and through the open doors that showed glimpses of the bright rooms beyond. He gave no resistance when Alan removed his overcoat and took his arm to lead him into the lounge. For a moment they paused before the photo of the two men beside the car.

	"I didn't recognize the other one at first," said Alan; "the long hair and glasses fooled me. But now you'd better sit down before you meet your patient. I've some notes to type up so I'll leave you alone together. You know what you have to say to each other."

	He switched off the TV, which had been on since his departure that morning, then looked around the room. "Paul," he said quietly as he left, "come out, wherever you are."

	With the workroom door closed tightly behind him, there was nothing to hear except the soft tapping from his keyboard as he fitted the last two characters into his plot outline.

	From the clues found in the garage, which was the only place here that did not feel good, he knew that Paul had committed suicide there, in his car with the engine running and a hose filling the interior with exhaust fumes. The reasons he'd had for doing that were unknown and must have seemed good at the time, but from what he knew of Paul and the degree of his distress afterwards, it was likely that he'd had second thoughts too late for the process to be stopped. It had happened in the morning because he always appeared unshaven.

	Max must have found him later in the day, pulled away the hose and pried open the car door. He had taken the loss of his partner very badly.

	Sometime later Max had thrown all of Paul's clothing and the photographs into the roof space. He had been trying to remove everything that would remind him of Paul in a vain attempt to reduce his terrible feelings of pain and loss. But it had not been enough. Possibly Max felt a measure of responsibility as well as his grief for what had happened, so he had left the house and its memories, intending never to return.

	But now he had returned, to a house that was identical to the way he had left it, and to a spectral partner who had not aged a day and who wore the same clothes in which he had died. At first Alan had been worried in case the shock would be too much for Max, but had reassured himself with the thought that there was nothing wrong with the old man's mind and, as a psychiatrist of his vast experience, that mind would be adaptable as well as sensitive.

	He wondered if Max would move back to the house again. The old man would be a little more trouble to look after than their ghost, but he would be great company. And if that happened, how long would he, or they, stay? Considering Max's advanced age and poor health, not very long in his case. And how would his old partner's death affect Paul?

	Until they told him everything in detail, which they might never do, he could only theorize. The theory he liked best was that Paul, having taken his own life, was condemned to haunt the place until he reached the end of what should have been his allotted lifetime. Or maybe he would be free only if Max forgave him. That could be the reason why he had never spoken about himself or asked for help because, in his tortured state of mind, he had not believed that anyone could help and wanted to avoid increasing his misery with vain hopes. But if his release depended solely on his old partner's forgiveness, what if Max couldn't forgive him?

	That, he thought sadly, would be the worst possible ending to the story.

	Suddenly anxious, Alan saved, switched off and went down to the kitchen to prepare a supper tray, reminding himself in time that he needed to set two places because tonight there was an extra living person in the house. He didn't hear their voices until he opened the lounge door.

	For a long moment he stood watching them, the frail, bald old man and the outwardly young one who always needed a shave. They were sitting side by side on the sofa, talking quietly together, smiling often and totally oblivious of his presence.

	It was going to be a good ending.

-

SANCTUARY

	The convent of the Sisters for the Missions to Africa was housed in a one-time castle on a low promontory which threw aside the long North Atlantic rollers like the bows of some great, basalt ship and gave to those who dwelt there, in whatever direction they chose to look, a view of scenery of such wild and extravagant beauty that it was almost in questionable taste. This scenic grandeur was the principal reason why the establishment had been designated as a Rest House, a place to which were invited the sisters of many different missionary, nursing and teaching orders for the purposes of rest, spiritual recuperation, the furtherance of their studies with minimum distraction, or simply to live out the remainder of their days amid surroundings of great beauty, solitude and peace.

	But on this occasion the visitor had arrived uninvited and, as a result, the peace and solitude had departed. Now the crumbling outer wall was being besieged on the landward side by a squadron of tanks, with an infantry unit and an observation helicopter in support, and the low, grey shape of a guided missile destroyer lay close offshore. Within the walls a TV outside broadcast van and trailer were drawn up by the main entrance, and the general untidiness had invaded Sister Augustine's study, whose polished wood-block floor was littered with power lines for the portable lights and cameras.

	There were four program participants, the presenter, Mr. Matlock, had told her with one of his large, insincere smiles. Sister Constance and herself would be on the side of the angels, and the other two were Doctor Watterson, a social psychologist, and Captain McCloskey, whom she had already met, representing the military interest.

	Perhaps out of deference to her age and position as sister-in-charge of the convent, she had been seated first and kept so busy with the lighting and adjustments occasioned by her dark habit and soft voice that there had been no time to speak to them, or even to ask the advice of Sister Constance, who was sitting like an enormous, black-garbed Buddha beside her. But if this had been done deliberately in an attempt to unsettle her before the inquisition to come, then it was a minor additional worry compared with the news one of the sisters had whispered to her as she had entered the room, and so she decided to remain silent.

	It wasn't cowardice, Sister Augustine told herself as the fanfare which opened the program sounded quietly from a speaker and the opening titles rolled up the monitor screen; it was just that she knew of no right time to drop a bombshell.

	"This is Ben Matlock," said the presenter into the camera, "welcoming you to another Trial by Television program, a series which investigates, interrogates and fearlessly proclaims the truth regarding those among us who hold themselves above the law. It is a very special trial we are conducting here today, not only because the program is open-ended and will go on for as long as it takes instead of the usual fifty minutes, or because it is considered important enough to go out live by satellite to countries all over the world. It is because the person on trial is one that the vast majority of our viewers, and certainly I myself, would normally consider blameless and with nothing to hide.

	"This person," he went on grimly, "is not one of your legal, in quotes, criminals against whom the law is powerless, or a cynical and self-seeking politician, or even a religious zealot intent on leading her followers back into the Dark Ages, although some of you might give me an argument about the latter. She is, in fact, a nun who has been practicing the religious life for close to half a century. But she most definitely has something to hide.

	"By now we all have a good idea what it is," he continued. "However, it is also my intention to find out the reason for her continuing to hide it in spite of numerous requests, and even direct orders, from the highest civil, military and ecclesiastical authorities, to give it up. Could it be that this is just a selfish and cynical attempt to capitalize on the situation? This is a fine, picturesque setting for the convent she runs, but, I have discovered, the place is badly in need of structural repairs and replacement of outdated amenities, and the fees which will accrue for a world-networked program like this will be considerable.

	"But in this particular program," he went on smoothly as Sister Augustine opened her mouth to protest, "we are not dealing with a person who has raised lying and misdirection to major art forms, but the aging and much-respected sister-in-charge of this religious establishment. It could well be that the situation is no more complicated than that of a person who has grown old in authority and, perhaps too set in her ways to relinquish it—"

	"Sister Augustine is neither senile nor a martinet," Sister Constance said in her deep, baritone growl, "and if you're suggesting anything so silly—"

	"Please, Sister," Matlock broke in, holding up a hand. "You will both have ample opportunity to speak, later. Right now we should begin at the point where things began going wrong for you, with the first visit of Captain McCloskey. Will you tell us what happened, Captain?"

	Without looking at anyone in particular, the officer described his first meeting with Sister Augustine and several other nuns she had introduced as her counselors. The sister-in-charge had refused permission to let his men search the premises, and, without giving any specific information, he had suggested that the object of their search was a hungry and potentially highly dangerous escapee from the nearby wildlife park. He had not expected to find anything, but the convent was the only sizable structure in the area that had not been cleared, and it had to be eliminated as quickly as possible before the search could be extended.

	He went on briskly, "While I was trying to frighten, or at least worry, them into giving the required permission, one of the sisters present, a very elderly nun who had seemed to be asleep until then, told me that I was being silly because the poor thing was in no condition to hurt anyone. Realizing that I now knew the creature was on the premises, Sister Augustine gave me one of the photographs she had taken when it had first arrived. In the hope that she would hand over the creature, I decided to give Sister Augustine all the information, which at that time was NATO-restricted, then in my possession."

	"What did you tell her, exactly," asked Matlock, "and did she appear to understand the implications?"

	"She understood well enough to debate them in detail, later," said Captain McCloskey. "I told her that eight days earlier our missile surveillance radar had picked up the trace of an unidentified object falling or diving towards the surface at a speed in excess of any current aircraft capability. The path of the object was erratic, suggesting that it had onboard guidance and was taking deliberate evasive action, perhaps against an expected military attack, and for the last few moments of flight it had been sea-skimming and invisible to our radar. For that reason we had been unable to say exactly where it had crashed or landed, except that it was within a one hundred and fifty miles diameter circle which enclosed the most southerly of the Western Isles of Scotland and this stretch of the North Irish coast. At no time was it observed directly, although the radar trace suggested the mass of a medium-sized airliner, and we had no idea of the invaders' capabilities."

	"The survivors' capabilities," said Sister Augustine gently.

	"Or the survivors' weapons capability," the captain went on, nodding politely towards her. "And I explained that the vessel had originated outside this solar system and for that reason possessed an interstellar flight capability and a level of technology far beyond our own. I said that its erratic flight-path could be equally attributed to a forced landing by a civilian vessel or a mishap suffered during a military reconnaissance mission, but either way the crash might give us the only advantage we were likely to have against their advanced technology, and enable us to neutralize and possibly capture them. I also asked the sister if the creature she had was carrying anything like a weapon. "

	He hesitated for a moment, looking at Sister Augustine, who said quietly, "I told Captain McCloskey that when we found it, it was wearing neither clothing nor equipment."

	"Please go on, Captain," said Matlock.

	"I told her," the officer resumed, "that its level of intelligence, and more importantly, its intentions towards us were unknown. That it was possible it considered us a lower order of life, of as little consequence as vermin, and that the only way to find out for sure was by interrogation, long-term behavioral observation, physical and psychological testing, and whatever other action was deemed necessary, while it was kept in confinement under close restraint. I told her that the responsibility for initiating this process was mine, and that I would relieve her of the creature as soon as she showed me where it was hiding so that I could bring in some men and a couple of armored personnel carriers to take it away.

	"She said no."

	"Surely she said more than that," said Matlock drily as the monitor showed her face in close-up. "And I want to hear it from you, Captain. Sister Augustine will have her chance to speak later."

	Looking uncomfortable, the officer cleared his throat and went on. "She told me that all of the sisters had already visited the creature, that in her opinion it was not a threat to anyone, and that I, too, would be similarly convinced of that if I were to meet it. But she said that she could not allow that because I was armed and might feel impelled to capture it single-handed or, having discovered its location, lead my men on a raid to capture it. She said that if I was to violate the cloisters in that fashion, or threaten such action, then I and my superiors would be seriously criticized by the members of a great many religious denominations, as well as by the media at home and abroad, and that I should carefully consider the career implications."

	"So she was trying to blackmail you," said Matlock, giving a knowing look into the camera. "What else did she say?"

	"I was trying to advise the young man," said Sister Augustine sharply. "And I see no sense in having Captain McCloskey speak my words when the original speaker is present, nor do I think that you have the moral or ecclesiastical authority to impose a vow of silence on me at will, so I shall say to you exactly what I said to him."

	For a moment she strove for inner calm and outward composure, then said quietly, "My own perhaps oversimplified view of this situation is that the creature is a stranger from a far land, and the proper action towards it is specified in a book of regulations with which you must be familiar. The creature is alone, frightened, injured, possibly grieving the loss of friends, and is being hunted like an animal. The hunters are armed and afraid or at least highly nervous of it, so that it risks more serious injury or death at their hands.

	"Although it cannot ask for help in so many words," she continued, "the request is implicit in the situation and our protection will be extended to it. So the creature will not leave this house until it indicates in some fashion that it wishes to do so. During its stay here it will not be molested in any way, nor will it or our sisters be approached by outsiders without permission or prior invitation. This includes you, young man, your subordinates, superiors and anyone else who tries to contact it.

	"I am invoking the rule of sanctuary."

	For a moment there was absolute silence in the room, broken by a short and rather forced laugh from the presenter.

	Still smiling, Matlock said, "Come, come, Sister. Let's be realistic. You are still living in the Middle Ages with this sanctuary business. Suppose the captain had gone back to the same period and invoked the rule ol trial by combat? What would you have said then? Told him, as I am telling you now, that the rule is outdated and ridiculous?"

	Speaking for the first time, Dr. Watterson said, "A form of sanctuary is sometimes given by foreign embassies to native political or religious leaders who—"

	He broke off because Sister Constance was rising ponderously to her feet.

	"Threats of using conventional military force have already been made without results," she growled, and her large, round face was split briefly by a smile. "If I remember my history correctly, in a challenge to trial by combat it is the challenged individual, or his or her champion, who has choice of weapons. I have never used a weapon of any kind in my life. But if the information is of any use to you, when I went home last Christmas I was still able to beat my big brother, at arm wrestling."

	Captain McCloskey stared up at the vast bulk of the sister for a moment, then turned to Matlock. "If I was to arm wrestle a nun for possession of an extraterrestrial, or for any other reason, I could kiss my hopes of further promotion good-bye.

	"Especially," he added gravely, "if she won."

	It was several seconds before Matlock could make himself heard, then he said irritably, "This is not a laughing matter, Captain ..." 

	"You started it," said the officer.

	"... After the sister invoked her rule of sanctuary," Matlock went on, "what did you do then?"

	"For about fifteen minutes I tried to reason with her," the captain replied. His face reddened slightly as he added, "But there are situations, Mr. Matlock, where one knows instinctively who has the rank. I left."

	Without giving anyone else a chance to respond, the presenter said quickly, "Sister Constance, you seem very anxious to join this discussion, and you were the first person to see the creature. Please tell us as much as you can remember about it. In your own words, in your own time."

	"It is ancient history I have trouble remembering," said Sister Constance. She showed her irritation by exhaling not too silently through her nose, then went on calmly, "I was getting the vegetables for that day's lunch from our cold store, a small cellar without lighting or power which is entered by an external door in the orchard-facing wall of the castle, when I heard a noise coming from the lower cellar. This is a larger and even colder room than the cold store, used principally to store junk, and is rarely visited by the sisters because they believe that it was once the castles dungeon and torture chamber. I took one of the candles I was using and went down the steps to the lower cellar and followed the sound, a sort of low, bubbling noise, until I found out what was making it. The candle wasn't bright enough to show the creature clearly, but I was pretty sure that I hadn't seen anything like it before. I ran, well, no, considering my weight I left quickly to tell Sister Augustine about it."

	"And then?" asked Matlock.

	Sister Augustine said quietly, "I went with sister to the cold store, bringing an electric torch, and quickly established that the creature was injured, fully conscious, intelligent, had a strong aversion to the heat of a candle flame but not the light from my torch, and that it had not originated on Earth. We treated the injuries, which were mostly superficial, and Sister Constance gave it a selection of food to—"

	"Really, Sister, this is utterly ridiculous!" the psychologist opposite her broke in. A camera swung to cover him, and the monitor briefly displayed his angry expression above a caption saying that he was Doctor Kenneth Watterson, a lecturer in psychology at the university, before dissolving into the still picture she had taken of the bandaged alien. He went on, "Are you telling us that you saw, quickly identified and treated the injuries of a hitherto unknown form of life, just like that? Look at it, for pity's sake. It looks like an over-bandaged volunteer casualty of a first aid demonstration! Sister, that was thoughtless, even stupid in the circumstances. You could have been, you may still be, responsible for killing it. You had no right to act in such an irresponsible fashion. You aren't qualified in this area."

	"Are you?" asked Sister Augustine quietly .

	The psychologist shook his head impatiently. "I am also a doctor of medicine, and what worries me is that food was given to a being without any regard to possible toxic effects on its metabolism, or for the possibility of a two-way passage of mutually harmful pathogens for which neither the creature nor those, er, tending it have any immunity. Acting as she did was, was certainly beyond the level of competence of a simple convent cook!"

	"You are assuming, Doctor," said Sister Augustine sharply, "that because Sister Constance is very large that she is also very stupid. That is not so. She is the cook until this weekend, when another sister will takeover the duty. She likes cooking, is good at it, and the others prefer her cooking with the result that she is often prevailed upon to cook more often than the duty roster requires—"

	"With respect, Sister," Matlock broke in, "we aren't terribly interested in your catering arrangements."

	"... But her reason for being here," Sister Augustine went on, ignoring the interruption, "is to complete her thesis for an M.Sc. that will improve her chances of being appointed principal of the Dominican College in the city when the present incumbent retires next year. The degree doesn't qualify her to act in this situation, it is her simple common sense-that has done that."

	Captain McCloskey was rubbing the side of his face, with the hand concealing his lips. The features of Watterson remained slid with anger.

	"Then please tell us, Sister," said Matlock, "what exactly you did to this creature?"

	"On the subject of my own qualifications," Sister Augustine went on firmly, temporarily ignoring the question, "I belong to an order of missionary sisters who are required to take advanced nursing training, and in this capacity I have worked in Africa for nearly twenty years. At the risk of being thought boastful, I have learned enough about the human anatomy to know with certainty when a being isn't human, and have accumulated enough practical experience in the treatment of the sick and injured, often in isolated areas where the indicated medication is limited or non-existent, to at least try to help a case where our human medication was inapplicable and perhaps lethal to the patient's non-human metabolism."

	The monitor was showing her color photograph again as she went on quickly to describe how Sister Constance and herself had communicated with the creature by doing a number of simple sums of addition on their fingers, and their wonderment when the creature demonstrated its possession of intelligence by responding at once, even though the arm injuries must have made it painful to do so. Then she described the first physical contact while she had been examining one of its wounds.

	"The creature seemed very reluctant to let me touch it, at first," she continued, pointing towards the picture on the monitor. "To understand why, I will have to describe its condition as we first saw it ..."

	The creature had been curled up behind a large, dilapidated divan. It was large, measuring about eight feet from its heavy, blunt head to the tip of its armored tail, and slightly resembled a black alligator with iridescent scales. It had three pairs of limbs. The pair mounted below the base of the neck were thinner than the others and terminated in six digits that had far too many joints, and the remaining four, which supported the lower body, were shorter and thicker and ended as flat, round feet with long, webbed toes.

	The creature's eyes, three of them, were very large, recessed and protected by bony ridges and spaced equally around the head. Its other facial features were a wide mouth with very large teeth, which appeared at first to be stained with blood but on closer examination turned out to be painted in different colors, and a number of orifices surrounded by wrinkles and folds of skin which were thought to be ears or nostrils. There were two long, vertical flaps of skin, from which came the bubbling sounds, situated midway along the thick, tapering neck.

	The body was marked in several places, particularly at the limb joints and other areas where the bones came closest to the skin, by lines and patches of red and brown characteristic of the fresh and dried bloodstains usually associated with incised and abraded wounds.

	"... When the torch was brought closer to inspect one of the larger incisions," Sister Augustine continued, "the creature didn't move at first, then suddenly it swung its tail at me."

	The recollection made her pause for a moment, then she went on, "That tail, which you can see is curved backwards and lying along its spine, is long and thick and terminates in a flat, bony plate that has very sharp edges, and must be its principal natural weapon. The creature swung it at me, but checked the movement when the edge of the bony blade was a few inches from my face."

	"Weren't you afraid?" asked Matlock.

	Sister Augustine paused just long enough to indicate that it had been an unnecessary question, then went on. "When I approached it a second time, it remained passive and allowed me to touch the wound. It seemed clear to me that its earlier action had been meant to warn me to be careful, or at least gentle, during treatment. I think it communicated the idea very well."

	She smiled at the presenter and went on, "We couldn't risk using any of the dressings or antibiotics from our medicine chest, for the reasons Doctor Watterson and I have already explained, so that the only safe treatment was irrigation of the wounds with water. In Africa we would have had to boil it first, but the supply here is natural spring water and, in any case from the condition of the cellar floor, it looked as though it had been in the sea for a lengthy period without apparent ill effects. The cleaning was necessary because its wounds had almost certainly been sustained by contact with the rocks below us, and it had subsequently crawled to the cellar. The incised wounds were cleaned, without using any possibly toxic soap, and the edges held together with folded pads made from bed-linen and firm bandages to aid healing. The abrasions were left uncovered because the blood in these areas was already beginning to congeal and form scabs. We made it as comfortable as possible on the old divan, which, as you can see, was first covered with white sheets so that dust from the upholstery would be less likely to find its way onto the uncovered abrasions. Behind the divan we placed a covered receptacle to receive body wastes ..."

	Doctor Watterson opened his mouth to speak and she went on quickly, "Naturally, the disposal of these wastes caused me some concern. The creature, who wore no protective clothing or, indeed, clothing of any kind, did not act as if it was worried about catching anything from us during physical contact, so I took comfort in the thought that the opposite was also true. But on Earth body wastes are a major source of infection, so we decided that the material should be buried, for safety as well as retaining it for possible future analysis, rather than risk spreading any possible infection by flushing it away in the usual fashion. The quantity so far has not been large, but the fact that our food is being metabolized is reassuring."

	Watterson's manner was much less hostile as he said, "I think you acted sensibly in what was a most unusual medical situation, but allowing your cook to give it Earth food ... That was not the time for offering simple, thoughtless hospitality, no matter how well meant. You could have killed it, Sister. You might still do so if there are cumulative toxic effects."

	"It was neither simple nor thoughtless, Doctor," said Sister Constance in an irritated growl. "That picture shows the creature lying on its divan, so you can only see the edge of the coffee table in front of it. Sister Augustine and I put a lot of careful thought into the selection and preparation of that food."

	Watterson looked skeptical but remained silent. Matlock said, "Don't keep us in suspense, Sister."

	Once again Sister Constance exhaled through her nose, then said, "We decided that, even though the creature breathed our air and had red blood, its dietary requirements would certainly be different to ours, but that it would need food and water to aid its recovery. We decided that the only course was to offer it a choice of food and trust that its sense of taste and smell would enable it to select for itself items that were harmless, or least harmful. We already knew that it was unafraid of light but had a very strong aversion to the heat from a candle flame, so anything like a hot meal was out."

	She smiled suddenly and went on, "The menu offered comprised a selection of raw and very thoroughly washed vegetables, cut up into pieces convenient for eating and with a single, whole vegetable on each plate to give the creature a clearer idea of what was being offered. There were also plates containing slices of meat, whole-meal bread, dry, uncooked and unmilked cereals, and small glass jugs of water and milk. Sister Augustine suggested that, the creature being an amphibian, it might like to eat fish. We tried it with some sardines, but washed them thoroughly so as to remove the tomato sauce and additives which might have confused its taste buds. The food was displayed on a long, low coffee table, also covered with a white sheet, within easy reach. We placed spoons or forks beside each dish, but no knives."

	"With what result?" Doctor Watterson asked quickly, curiosity overcoming his earlier hostility.

	"It didn't take any of the raw vegetables," replied Sister Constance, "or the milk or meat, but small amounts of whole-meal bread and the fish were acceptable. It ignored all of the cereals except for the bowl of oatmeal, which it emptied completely. It drank all the water, probably to help it wash down the dry oatmeal, which is why we've started cooking it and serving it cold to make it more palatable. We try it with other items, and any dish that is untouched for a full day is withdrawn, so it is dictating its own diet and eating, although perhaps not enjoying, our food. Most of the bandages have been removed, the wounds are dry and healing nicely, and it is able to move freely about the cellars.

	"But sardines and cold porridge," she ended in an aggrieved tone. "That certainly isn't the kind of fare we normally offer visitors."

	Matlock allowed himself the thinnest of smiles, but before he could speak Sister Augustine said, "Between the times of checking on its wounds and replenishing the preferred food, and during the night, of course, we leave the visitor unattended. Although all of the sisters have seen it by now, most of them are still a little nervous in its company. To give it something to think about, apart from its wounds and its future, and in the hope of improving communications beyond the present level of sign language and felt pen sketches, I moved in my portable TV. It is connected to the convent's power with the extension cable from our electric lawnmower, which enables me to switch off when the channel is running programs that are unsuitable."

	"Censorship, Sister?" said Matlock drily.

	"No, selection," she replied firmly. "It is shown natural history, geography and current affairs programs, but I thought that animated cartoons would only confuse it. And war films, which it could not know were fiction, would be frightening. It is able to see enough violence on the news broadcasts."

	Suddenly, Doctor Watterson was smiling and nodding approval. He said, "You have acted much more intelligently and responsibly than I expected, both of you. I'm sorry, Sisters, I've seriously misjudged you."

	Matlock, who seemed anxious that the protagonists not become too friendly, said quickly, "But the fact still remains that you are not properly equipped to cope with this situation. You know that you should have handed the creature over to those better qualified to do so instead of deliberately keeping its presence a secret. Sister, if it hadn't been for the alertness of Captain McCloskey, we still wouldn't know that it was here. Isn't that so. Captain?"

	"I suppose so," said the officer, looking very uncomfortable. "But I really blame myself for not being able to talk the sister into releasing it to me. I must have made a very bad impression."

	"Not at all, young man," said Sister Augustine. "I'm sorry if I allowed my irritation to show. It was simply that you carried a weapon, something you should not do in a place like this, and were wearing battle dress and hob-nailed boots which were scratching the surface of our centuries-old polished floor. There was also the possibility, already mentioned, that you might take the visitor by force. But your manners were at all times impeccable."

	"Thank you," said the captain, looking even more uncomfortable.

	She went on, "That was one of the reasons why, during your second visit, I let you accompany the cameraman to film the creature. You weren't carrying a machine-gun and had changed into that rather smart day uniform with proper shoes. Another reason was that I wanted you to see the visitor then, in the hope that you would realize, and perhaps convince your superiors, that it was not an enemy."

	Before the officer could reply, Matlock said irritably, "Come, come, Sister. Captain McCloskey is a professional soldier. He would not be misguided regarding the strength of an enemy from meeting an unarmed and injured prisoner. You're being totally unrealistic and stupid over this sanctuary business. Think about it. We have here the completely incredible situation in which you, an aging sister-in-charge of this not very important religious establishment, have forbidden access, except to Captain McCloskey and a cameraman, to the first known extraterrestrial to visit Earth. You have done this in spite of continuing and increasing pressure from the military, civil, and through them your own ecclesiastical authorities. I know for a fact that your Sister-General and Sister-Provincial, your bishop and even the Papal Nuncio's office have all been asked to intervene, and have strongly advised you to release this creature to us.

	"Sister, isn't there also a rule of obedience?"

	"There is," Sister Augustine replied, choosing her words carefully. "But I have the responsibility here, and while one must obey lawful commands, one does not have to take advice, no matter from whom it comes or how strongly it is worded. Unless I were to be declared incompetent or mentally unfit, there is nothing more my superiors can do. This is a matter for my own conscience, which is, to the best of my knowledge, clear.

	"I have a niggling doubt about that, Sister," said Matlock in a tone that sounded politely incredulous. "Normally my program investigates people who have much to hide and whose consciences are murky indeed. I don't think you would lie to me, but I have a strong suspicion that you aren't telling everything you know. Towards a member of a religious order there are, regrettably, constraints of language and behavior which—

	"Mr. Matlock," Sister Augustine broke in gently, "I have watched and enjoyed your program many times, and I have no objection to your usual methods of questioning. The fact that none of your program subjects has ever been proven innocent does worry me a little, but if you have niggling doubts please let me try to resolve them. I'm sure that your language and behavior will not make me blush."

	It was Matlock whose face was red. Ignoring the compliment, he said harshly, "Sister, why did you allow only Captain McCloskey and one cameraman to film the creature, instead of the usual team? Why were you so anxious that we film only the creature on the divan and its food table? And why was it that the footage we did shoot was precisely what was needed to ensure that you, ostensibly a simple, elderly nun, are able to hold us all to ransom? Did you realize that by so doing you would force us to come here, to screen this special program from a convent that is so obviously in need of major structural repair?

	"Could it be," he went on quickly, "that the arrival of the creature was, from your viewpoint, a heaven-sent opportunity to effect those repairs? Is this whole sanctuary business simply a means of gaining maximum publicity? But did you, being simple and unworldly as you are, underestimate the broadcast and repeat fees that would accrue for a program that is being taken by virtually every network on the planet? Well, Sister, I can't estimate it either, because such a thing hasn't happened since the first moon landing. But I can tell you that it would be more than enough to repair the crumbling outer walls, and replace your antiquated central heating, and enough even to move your convent, stone by stone, and rebuild it anywhere on Earth that you chose, and with money to spare. "We're waiting for answers, Sister."

	"Then maybe you'll wait a moment longer," said Sister Augustine, "while I try to remember all the questions, including, those you tried to answer for me."

	"Take your time," said Matlock. "I'll remind you of any you've forgotten."

	"Thank you," said Sister Augustine. Tor a moment she debated with herself whether it was a mortal or venial sin to volunteer incomplete information, then went on quietly, "The reason why only one cameraman, with the captain to help with the mike and lights, was allowed to film was that I thought the creature might have been panicked by a larger number of people into making some defensive act, especially since they would be using equipment which it could have mistaken for weapons. The creature has never met large numbers of human beings. The sisters visited it only two or three at a time, and it is quite possible that it thinks there are only a few of us. Nuns wearing habits tend to look the same even to Earth-people."

	Captain McCloskey laughed, and Matlock frowned at him. She continued, "Another and more venial reason for restricting the filming is that the cellar is full of dusty old furniture and junk and is badly in need of spring-cleaning. I would have been mortified if you'd turned your lights on it. May I, too, express my feelings freely?"

	"Please do," said Matlock.

	"Very well," said Sister Augustine. "I dislike, and totally reject, your inference that I am some kind of religious, publicity-hungry and money-grubbing charlatan. I am very pleased that this program will earn us lots of money, but that money will be at the disposition of the Sister-General of my order, not me. I have no doubt that most of it will go for famine relief and to our schools and medical missions, which are in very deprived areas, so that my central heating will have a very low order of priority. As for the idea that our convent could be moved brick by brick, just look at that ..."

	She raised her arm slowly to point through the study window, where the sun was dying a spectacular death beyond a glittering, amber sea and the dark, dramatic outlines of the cliffs. One of the cameras swiveled to follow the direction of her pointing finger.

	"... I cannot think of anywhere else I'd rather live."

	"Sister," said Matlock drily, "are you trying to direct this program as well as star in it? Don't answer that. We'll run the film now and, believe me, the questions that follow will not be rhetorical."

	All eyes were on the monitor as the shoulder-held camera tracked down the steps leading to the cold store, across the floor and into the lower cellar. There the light and camera had been turned on Sister Augustine while she explained that this was necessary to let the creature know that the equipment was harmless. Then the camera swung to bear on the creature itself and moved slowly closer. They could see every physical detail, hear every low, bubbling, alien sound that it made. The camera moved into a close-up of the head, chest and shoulders. A long-fingered, alien hand came into view.

	It made the sign of the cross.

	"And that," said Matlock in a bitterly disparaging voice, "is the reason for the naval vessel in the bay, the tank regiment presently drawn up before your walls, the continuing low-level aerial surveillance and, ultimately, the reason for this program. Because that piece of film has been seen by everyone on this planet with access to a TV, and they are seriously concerned. Not everyone, of course, just the ordinary, simple, superstition-ridden people who still make up the majority of the world's population. They, many ol whom are not even adherents of your particular faith, have exerted so much political pressure on their respective government representatives that no civil or military authority will risk the simple, direct expedient of just moving in and taking the creature away from you, for fear of the serious religious and political repercussions that would certainly follow.

	"So it has fallen on me, Sister," he went on, "to reason with you. To convince you that you are wrong to keep this alien from us, or, if that fails, to show my audience that your position is untenable, ridiculous, based on superstition rather than reason, so that few objections will be raised when we do move in and take the creature from you.

	"If you agree to give it to us now," he added, "you would save yourself, and your convent, a whole lot of grief.

	Sister Augustine remained silent for a long moment, then she said, I cant.

	"A predictable answer," said Matlock. He went on grimly, "If the only way of gaining access to this creature is by discrediting you, and the narrow minded, outdated and superstitious kind of thinking that is holding it here, then discredit you I will. But I ask you, Sister, try to think more broadly. The first extraterrestrial to visit Earth is in your convent, and the first, or perhaps the second, thing you do is try to convert it to your religion! How narrow-minded can you get?"

	"Just one minute, young man!" said Sister Augustine, in a tone that was neither nun-like nor gentle. "I've already told you about the incident when the creature warned me to be careful with its wounds, although obviously not in sufficient detail. Threatening me with its tail was the first time it made anything like a hostile act. When that tail came within inches of my face, I jumped back and crossed myself instinctively because I thought it might be about to kill me. Since then, it crosses itself whenever anyone visits it, but plainly the action is one of simple mimicry. It probably thinks it's making a gesture of friendship or recognition. The idea that we are trying to convert it to our religion is ludicrous. Even if we wanted to, we can't communicate well enough to exchange philosophical or theological concepts. Next thing you'll say is that I baptized it while irrigating its wounds."

	The deepening color of Matlock's face suggested that he might well have been about to say just that, but instead he said, "Then you can assure me, Sister, that there is no religious significance, no deep universal meaning, no supernatural revelation in the creature's action? And can you also assure our viewers all over the world, the people of many religious beliefs, Christian and otherwise, who are deeply troubled by the thought of an extraterrestrial creature making this sign, that they have nothing whatever to worry about?"

	"Yes," said Sister Augustine promptly. "Yes to both questions." As a look of quiet triumph suffused Matlock's face, she went on, "But having said that, I must confess to feeling seriously troubled myself by this whole affair. I keep asking myself why, of all the places on Earth where it could have come ashore, did it have to be at this convent? No doubt you'll say that it had to come down somewhere, that the location was due to sheer chance, coincidence, or fate. But you will understand that, following the vocation I do, I must also include providence."

	I here was a sarcastic edge to Matlock's tone as he said, "You're wriggling, Sister. First you say that the creature's gesture and presence have no religious significance, then suggest that it has." He turned towards Sister Constance. "Perhaps you can give me a straight answer, Sister. Can you remember, if you are allowed to remember, that is, any occasion when Sister Augustine performed religious acts or prayed over this creature?"

	"My memory," said Sister Constance, anger lowering by an octave her already deep voice, "is very good, and not susceptible to outside influence. The only time that anything like a prayer was said was on the first evening, when we had our arms around the creature lifting it onto the divan. But it seemed to me that Sister wasn't so much praying as thinking aloud."

	"What did she say," asked Matlock, "exactly?"

	"Very quietly she said," Sister Constance replied, "Dear God, your creation is much more complicated, and wonderful, than we thought."

	At that moment the study door opened and one of the sisters, her identity hidden by the broad back of the sound engineer who was blocking her passage, tried to enter. Through the open door there also came, without impediment, the ineffably sweet and glorious sound of the Orbisfactor Kyrie Eleison.

	"Your sacred music," said Matlock sarcastically, "is right on cue. But, Sister, you promised me that there would be no interruptions."

	"I'm sorry, Mr. Matlock," she said. "But you must understand that this is a convent, and our religious exercises, including the singing of Vespers, must continue in spite of this influx of television people." She raised her voice slightly. "Please leave, Sister, and speak with me later."

	The Gregorian plainchant was silenced by the closing door, and Matlock said, "I think Sister Augustine and I are beginning to irritate each other. Has anyone else a question?"

	Dr. Watterson cleared his throat and said, "My interest in this is psychological rather than religious, Sister. You seem to have made friends with this creature, and now feel very protective towards it, even though it began by frightening you rather badly. I am considering the possibility that some kind of non-material influence, a form of telepathy perhaps, is being exerted.

	"Also," he went on, "a little earlier you told us, and I hope I'm quoting you accurately, that threatening you with its tail was the first time it made anything like a hostile act. Were there other hostile acts? If so can you describe the circumstances and your feelings at the time, as fully as possible?"

	"I wasn't aware of any mental influence, Doctor," Sister Augustine replied. "Making due allowance for the circumstances, my feelings were the same as those I would have towards any injured person requiring treatment. And if it was able to communicate telepathically, would we have such a difficult job making it understand us?"

	Dr. Watterson nodded thoughtfully and waited for her to go on. She hesitated, feeling her face grow warm with expectation of the embarrassment so surely to come.

	"Doctor," said Matlock eagerly, "I think you've entered a sensitive area."

	Ignoring the presenter, she took a deep breath and went on, "The second and only other hostile act, when the creature gripped my wrist very tightly, happened when I tried to take away its property. This was a box which—"

	"Sister!" Captain McCloskey broke in accusingly. "You gave me to understand that the creature had neither clothing nor equipment. You didn't tell me about any box. It might contain, or be, a weapon capable of unimaginable—"

	She held up her hand and said, "I didn't know about the box until after your first visit, and decided not to tell anyone about it because of the kind of reaction that Captain McCloskey is displaying now."

	Still concentrating all of her attention on the psychologist, she went on, "We discovered the creature holding it one morning, scratching and pressing at it with its fingers, and obviously trying to get it open. We brought it our tool kit, the one we use for making electrical repairs, but that didn't help. After trying to open it for about half an hour, the creature threw the box into a corner. If you'd been there, Doctor, I think you would have agreed with me that, for an extraterrestrial, it showed a very human reaction towards a stupid gadget that wasn't working. When I picked up the box to see if I could open it, the creature grabbed my wrist tightly. When I let go, it put the box under the divan and raised its tail into the warning position for a moment. Obviously it didn't want to be separated from the thing.

	"The box itself was badly dented," she continued, "probably by contact with the rocks when the creature came ashore. It measured about fifteen inches square and six inches deep. One of the large faces was covered with thin padding and hollowed out to accommodate the curvature of the creature's upper chest and neck. On the opposite face there was a six-inch circle recessed about a quarter of an inch. There were four straps to hold the box in position, but I couldn't understand how the fastenings worked. It weighed very little, no more than two pounds, and I thought that it must be some kind of life-belt or container for emergency rations, certainly not a weapon."

	"And you are, of course, an authority on extraterrestrial weapon systems," said Matlock sourly.

	"Please go on, Sister," said Doctor Watterson, ignoring him.

	"There isn't much more I can tell you about my feelings," said Sister Augustine. "With so many armed men charging about the countryside, not quite knowing what they were looking for, I was afraid of the creature being shot before questions could be asked, and I decided to keep its presence a secret for the time being. I telephoned the Sister-Provincial to tell her what I was doing, and a sister was sent to her with photographs of the creature to prove that I wasn't having a brainstorm.

	"A week later Captain McCloskey arrived," she continued, "and the meeting was as he described it. The news of the creature being here got out, possibly from my phone calls to the Sister-Provincial being overheard.

	Shortly afterwards we were besieged by the media, who were much less polite than the army, and I was asked by Sister-Provincial to provide facilities for this program. It was a request I could not reasonably refuse, even though both Sister-Provincial and myself knew that Mr. Matlock, with someone like Doctor Watterson in support, would be using it to discredit me or show that I was mentally incompetent ..."

	"Mentally incompetent," said the psychologist softly, "you are not."

	"... But now," she went on, "things are so bad that my sisters, who are neither young nor strong, are afraid to go to the town on their daily visitations to the sick. They're being hounded like royal honeymooners, and even the old people they call on aren't safe from harassment.

	"I invoked the rule of sanctuary on the creature's behalf," she added firmly. "The responsibility is mine alone, and it is unfair that others should be made to suffer."

	"Let me repeat, Sister," said Matlock loudly, as if anxious to remind everyone that he was still there. "There is an easy way of letting your friends, and yourself, off the hook."

	"I doubt if your reminder is necessary, Mr. Matlock," said the psychologist. Then to Sister Augustine he went on, "Have you considered, Sister, that your plan for protecting the creature may already have succeeded? Certainly you've attracted more than enough attention to ensure that it is not going to be killed accidentally, in mistake for an escaped zoo animal. The point I'm making is that you have made very sure that no physical harm will come to it."

	When she did not reply, he continued, "This creature belongs to another world whose level of technology is far beyond ours, and whose culture and intentions towards us are unknown. The only way to find out is by long-term observation and interrogation in depth. But for that we must first examine it, study its metabolism in detail so that proper food and accommodation can be provided, and then establish, no doubt with computer assistance, proper two-way communication."

	He nodded towards Captain McCloskey and went on, "I expect the military will be breathing down our necks at every stage. They will want to know if your creature was engaged on a reconnaissance operation that went wrong, whether it was able to report back before it came down, the strength and degree of hostility of its people, or if there is any hostile intent, which I myself am inclined to doubt. But in time we will have this information, because we have the specialists and the facilities to get it. There is no longer any reason for it to stay here, Sister, so why not go easy on yourself and let the professionals take over?"

	Sister Augustine looked down at her hands, wondering why she was continuing to argue when there was no reason to argue anymore.

	She said, "I doubt whether the creature would find the regimen you've outlined more pleasant than its present accommodation. As I've already explained to the captain, my own view is that the creature is a stranger, a traveler who is injured, frightened, alone and who may be grieving for family or friends who did not survive the crash, and its feelings as well as its intentions are unknown to us. I understand your viewpoint, Doctor, and for the past few days I've been tempted to do exactly as you suggest.

	"But how can I be certain," she went on before Matlock could interrupt, "that I've done the right thing here? It just seemed to me that if the creature was directed to this particular place, by whatever agency, then surely it was not simply to be handed over by us to the people who were first hunting it and now intend torturing it for scientific reasons. I wasn't confining the creature, because there is nothing of value in the cellars and they are never locked. I was simply trying to protect it until it learned enough about us to decide for itself what it wanted to do."

	"But it will never learn enough," said the psychologist gently, "from a few hand-signals, pen sketches and TV programs."

	"It had more than that to go on," said Sister Augustine. "Last night Sister Constance and I took it for a walk along the battlements, to show it the forces deployed around us ..."

	"Excuse me, Sister," Captain McCloskey broke in. "There was a report of two nuns behaving in a suspicious fashion last night, apparently using the walls and battlements to hide from the airborne searchlight. But they were seen on an infra-red sensor rather than by visible light, and they were unaccompanied."

	Sister Augustine looked at Sister Constance, who cleared her throat and said, "We took a calculated risk, Captain. I guessed that you were using infrared detection because your searchlight was shining all around the convent but rarely onto it. I also thought it likely that infra-red equipment mounted on a helicopter might not be completely shielded from the engine's heat interference, so there would be a consequent loss of image definition. The creature has a very low body temperature, as low, perhaps, as that of the surrounding terrain. That being so, I thought it likely that the relatively much stronger heat signatures of Sister and myself would obscure that of the creature walking between us. If I'd guessed wrong, I'm sure there would have been an immediate reaction from your people."

	"There would indeed," said the captain, looking as if he wanted to hide.

	"What was the creature's reaction," asked the psychologist, "to all this military might?"

	"I had no way of knowing," Sister Augustine replied. "When we returned to the cellar I tried to explain the situation graphically and with gestures, tried to make it understand that I might not be able to keep it and the people outside separated for much longer. But I didn't know what it was thinking, it just went on making bubbling sounds, and I certainly couldn't read its features."

	"But, Sister," the psychologist said excitedly, "this means that you knew you would eventually have to give up the creature, knew all along! I realize now that invoking the rule of sanctuary was a masterstroke, and you deserve every credit for that, because it made us all stop and think when we could so easily have made the worst mistake in history. Can I assume now that you're ready to give it up?"

	"I can't," she said.

	The psychologist gave a heavy sigh of irritation. Matlock slapped the desktop in exasperation and said coldly, "You mean you won't."

	Sister Augustine took a deep breath and thought Here it comes. "I can't," she said, "because I don't know where it is. Just before this program began I was told that it had left the convent. It isn't here."

	"I have to report this—!" began the captain, jumping to his feet. Then he sat down again more slowly and added, "This program is going out live, so my people already know about it. But how was it able to get away, in full daylight, without being spotted?"

	The monitor was showing her face in close-up, thin, lined, wrinkled, and with her intense embarrassment making the parchment-yellow skin glow with apparent good health. Looking down at her hands again, she said, "Another reason I didn't want too many lights in the cellar was that, behind all the junk, there is a passage leading down to the sea. To a small cave that is submerged at high tide, and a tiny beach the sisters used to bathe from before a rockfall partly blocked the cave mouth and spoiled the beach. I think, judging from its injuries, that was the way our visitor came and left."

	"But why didn't you tell us sooner, dammit?" said the captain, forgetting his impeccable manners for a moment. "Did you want it to have more time to escape, was that the reason?"

	Sister Augustine did not reply.

	"The reasons don't matter now," said Doctor Watterson bitterly. "This added delay was totally unnecessary and inexcusable, Sister. Because of it you have robbed us of the only chance we're likely to have to examine, study and communicate with a member of an intelligent extraterrestrial race."

	"Maybe not, Doctor," said the captain. "It hasn't a hope of hiding on land, and if it stays in the sea we have underwater search and rescue equipment that hasn't been deployed yet because we thought we knew where the creature was." He directed another angry look at Sister Augustine. "I only hope it doesn't panic and get itself killed trying to avoid rescue. But why did it leave? Where can it go?"

	"Nowhere," said the psychologist grimly. "Maybe Sister Augustine is a better communicator than we think, and she made it realize what a rescue by us would entail. Close confinement by completely alien beings, continuing and painful probing into its mind and body, because we can't risk using Earth anesthetics on it, and the process would probably last for the rest of its life. If the positions were reversed, I would think seriously about allowing myself to be rescued."

	For a long moment nobody seemed anxious to speak, until Matlock pointed an accusing finger at her and said, "It seems to me that in your misguided attempt to give this creature sanctuary and keep us from it, you may well have driven it to suicide. Now, Sister, not only does your own religion's teaching regarding suicide place you in an invidious position, but I wonder how you can possibly justify your—Sister, another interruption! Don't any of your nuns do as they're told?"

	The study door had opened again and she could see Sister Agatha, the most senior of her counselors, waving urgently at her from under the outstretched arm of the sound engineer. Sister Augustine rose from her chair quickly and said, "At this moment, Mr. Matlock, an interruption is welcome. Excuse me, I'll be back directly."

	As she was returning to her seat several minutes later they were all staring at her, Matlock with angry disbelief; Sister Constance and, oddly, the captain with sympathy; and Doctor Watterson with that clinical look usually reserved for patients whose behavior is giving cause for concern, because Sister Augustine was smiling broadly and she could not help laughing out loud as she sat down.

	"Please, Sister," said Matlock furiously, "won't you share your little joke?"

	"Glad to," said Sister Augustine happily. "It seems we have all been a bit premature regarding our visitor's departure and emotional balance. Sister Agatha tells me that it returned half an hour ago. It has been watching this program on the cellar TV and now it is waiting in the corridor.

	"With your permission, Mr. Matlock," she added, "it would like to join us."

	Every camera was trained on the creature as it waddled through the door and across to the desk, where it moved without hesitation to the position between the two sisters, who slid their chairs apart to give it room. With its four feet planted firmly on the floor and with fresh scratches showing on its scarred upper torso, it rested its arms on the desk. The blunt, alien head turned, and it regarded Matlock with two of its three eyes. Its mouth opened widely to show its disconcertingly large and brightly colored teeth, and soft, bubbling sounds came from both the mouth and the gills. But from the dented box strapped high on its chest there came a perfectly modulated and accentless voice.

	"These surroundings are uncomfortably hot for me," it said, "and I must return to the cellar as quickly as possible, so please do not delay this explanation of my presence here with needless interruptions. I will not give my name because your vocal apparatus would have difficulty with it. I am a surveyor, a map-maker, by nature a solitary individual who lacks both the specialist training and the inclination to be an other-species contacter. I tell you this to explain and excuse my bluntness of manner.

	"Discovering habitable planets is not a new experience for me," it went on, "but finding one with indigenous intelligent life is a great rarity, that is why I disregarded the regulations and came in for a closer look, at which time my ship developed a fault that could not be corrected while in flight within an atmosphere. I crashed into the sea, and the ship broke up and sank. My protective devices saved me from injury, and I swam towards the lights of this establishment. But before I found my way inside, my body was damaged by contact with the rocks, as was the translation device and distress beacon which is needed to explain my presence to the natives when situations like this arise, and to signal for help.

	"Despite the lack of a translator," it continued, "communication on a very simple level was established. I was given food and my wounds were treated by the entities Augustine and Constance, who also provided local tools to help me repair the damaged translator, but without success. Only last night did I realize that they are being threatened by large numbers of people ignorant of the true situation. It was then that I decided to swim down to the wreckage of my ship, where the tools necessary to repair the device were available, so that the people outside could be reassured and their degree of ignorance lessened. Fortunately, the device was restored with the results that you are hearing.

	"And now I shall return to the cellar," it said, beginning to move back from the desk, "to await retrieval and the investigation into the loss of my ship which will follow it—"

	"Wait, please," Captain McCloskey broke in, making no attempt to hide his eagerness. "That ship of yours. Is it a total wreck? Will your people try to salvage it or—"

	"Yes, please don't go," said Doctor Watterson urgently. "I've a million questions to ask you. How long before you're rescued? Who or what will come for you? Is there anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable? Are you willing to submit to even a simple physiological examination—"

	"Are you in trouble?" asked Sister Augustine quietly. "I mean, will you be disciplined over losing your vessel? Will the punishment be severe?

	"This," said Matlock coldly, "is becoming far too friendly and trusting for words. I, too, have questions. Or rather, my audience all over the world will have questions that I must ask for them, and I feel an urgent desire for reassurance. I'm far from satisfied with the explanation of why you came here unannounced, uninvited and, had it not been for the accident to your ship, undetected. I can't help wondering if your account is not just a story thought up to cover a clandestine reconnaissance mission mounted by beings whose intentions towards us are hostile. I must say that your corroborative detail is good, especially the way you try to gain our sympathy by pretending to be in trouble with your superiors. A nice touch, that. The mark, as we say here, of the true professional. But what is the truth?"

	Without giving it time to reply, Matlock went on, "Is there another ship, or maybe a fleet, in the neighborhood? Hiding on or behind the other side of the moon? Are they waiting on your signal to rescue you and clobber us? Come on, now, what was your real reason for coming here? Have we natural resources you are short of at home? Is there population pressure? Or have you a simple, bloody-minded desire for territorial expansion?"

	The extraterrestrial stared down at the desk-top in silence. Doctor Watterson's face was red with anger and embarrassment, and the captain was looking both embarrassed and worried. Suddenly, it looked up and said, "I was not trained, I do not know how to answer questions like these."

	"So you're just a simple soldier boy," said Matlock sarcastically. "But I intend to get answers. Unless, of course, you think we would be afraid to touch you for fear that your friends would take revenge. Tell me. This might be a hypothetical question, but what would your people do if we were to harm you, or keep you as a hostage against their future good behavior?"

	"For heaven's sake!" the psychologist broke in furiously. "Shut up, Matlock. Think of what you're saying, and of the impression this stranger must be forming of the human race. These are your questions, your paranoid suspicions and distrust that you're voicing on behalf, I'm sure, of a very small minority of your viewers. This is an extraterrestrial you're talking to, a visitor from the stars, dammit, not one of your crooked politicians or even the defenseless nun I came here, to my shame, to help you discredit. It is you, not her, whose mental processes are suspect."

	"Did you say a defenseless nun?" Matlock asked drily. He was smiling and looking as if things were going his way at last, with the victim nicely on the spot and an expert witness tearing into the presenter. Quietly, he added, "We're still waiting for answers."

	Slowly the creature turned its alien face towards Sister Augustine and said, "I shall answer your question first, since you have been and are concerned about my personal well-being. Yes, I will be in trouble and will be disciplined over the loss of my ship, and will be forced to listen to many words of criticism. I shall lose a little seniority but gain much personal prestige because, after all, I have discovered the first intelligent culture to be found in nearly three of my generations. So please, friend, do not be concerned for me."

	Turning towards the captain it went on, "The cost of returning the wreckage to my home world would be prohibitive, so it will be left as and where it is. The ship's design philosophy is modular, so that many of the systems will be intact. They are available for study, with the sole exception of the power unit that our regulations decree must be fused solid so as to avoid the catastrophe which would result if a non-specialist investigated it. I have no doubt that the wise among you will find the rest of the wreck interesting."

	The captain sat back in his chair, smiling broadly, and it turned to Matlock.

	"It is normal for an intelligent being to approach a new situation with caution," it said, "and to seek reassurance. But reassurance against threats self-generated by an otherwise intelligent mind I am unable to provide, although I think that the entity Watterson is qualified to do so. The concept of an other-species military threat is difficult for me to grasp, but I can assure you that there are more than enough habitable worlds without indigenous intelligent life for anyone to trespass on another species' property, so there is neither a mother ship nor a fleet lurking behind the moon. If I was to be deliberately harmed by you, no action would be taken, since it would be assumed that there were others among your population who might not have wished me harm. However, your world would not be visited again.

	"Galactic history has shown," it added, "that a culture with such a pathological distrust of strangers invariably returns to barbarism or perishes by its own hand.

	"As for the time needed for the rescue ship to arrive," it went on, speaking to Doctor Watterson, "I estimate that at not more than twelve of your days. The ship will be a little larger than mine, with a crew of two, one of whom will be a specialist in healing in case I should be damaged. Within fifty of your days it will be followed by a larger ship containing the contact specialist and its equipment, which will comprise the communications devices, air-car, food synthesizers and personal comforts necessary for an extended stay. The second ship will not land unless invited by the people of this establishment to join them.

	"I thank you for the offer," it went on, "but there is little that you can do for me that has not already been done here. Being prudent and even cowardly, you will understand that I shall not submit to any physiological examinations."

	The psychologist laughed. "I suppose it would be like one of us submitting to a witch-doctor."

	"Apart from the two exceptions beside me," said the extraterrestrial, "that is an accurate analogy."

	"But surely, sir," Matlock protested, realizing that he was a minority of one and abruptly changing sides, "you and this contact specialist are the most important people to visit our planet. We would be delighted to provide any facilities you may require, to demonstrate both our goodwill and the level of our technology, which is not, of course, as high as your own. Yet you seem to be suggesting that you prefer to stay in this, this antiquated and uncomfortable place among people whose minds cling to superstitions even more ancient and inflexible than the stones of their building. Let's face it, they are not the best advertisement for Earth's scientific and philosophical achievements."

	Perhaps the heat was making the extraterrestrial short-tempered, because it said very loudly, "It was not a suggestion. It is the rule, a very sensible rule, adopted by all contact specialists. I am not qualified to judge the value of your scientific or philosophical achievements. I can judge only by my direct experience of the superstition which governs the thinking and behavior of the entities who inhabit this structure, and whose behavior and ability to adapt to their unique situation compares very favorably with that expected of full Galactic Citizens with other-species experience.

	"The rule states," it went on quickly, "that the entities who welcome and display the generally accepted levels of civilized behavior towards their first off-planet visitor should be requested, if there are no local edicts to forbid it, to extend the same hospitality to subsequent visitors of other species, who will, naturally, prefer to be sure of their welcome rather than trust themselves to strangers, however well-intentioned.

	"These visitors," it went on, swinging its head towards Sister Augustine again, "would come singly and spend much of their time traveling over your planet. They would use your establishment only as a base, a place of recuperation, and would not trouble you unduly. I could give more detailed reassurances, my other-world friend, but I am most uncomfortable in this room and must leave without delay. Is there anything in your own rules which forbids receiving such visitors?"

	Suddenly everyone in the room was looking at Sister Augustine, and her face was once again filling the monitor screen. She stared at the extraterrestrials painted teeth for a moment, and then into its nearest eye. Sister Constance was hunched forward in her chair, wearing an expression that said all too plainly that being principal of a college was no longer the option she favored.

	"I cannot foresee any insurmountable problems," she said quietly, "with Sister-General or anyone else. After all, this convent has been designated as a Rest House, and is a place for study and physical and spiritual recuperation. We often receive visitors who belong to other religious denominations, and that would certainly include you ..."

	Suddenly they were all laughing, even the technicians and Matlock. By the time it died down, the extraterrestrial had left the room for the comfort of its cellar.

-

CHRISTMAS TREASON

	Richard sat on the woolly rug beside his brother's cot and watched the gang arrive one by one.

	Liam came first wearing a thick sweater over pajamas too tight for him—his parents didn't have central heating. Then Mub, whose folks did not need it, in a nightie. When Greg arrived he fell over a truck belonging to Buster, because he was coming from the daytime and the moonlight coming into the room was too dim for him to see properly. The noise he made did not disturb the sleeping grown-ups, but Buster got excited and started rattling the bars of his cot and had to be shushed. Loo arrived last, with one of her long, funny dresses on, and stood blinking for a while, then sat on the side of Richard's bed with the others.

	Now the meeting could begin.

	For some reason Richard felt worried even though the Investigation was going fine, and he hoped this was just a sign that he was growing up. His Daddy and the other big people worried nearly all the time. Richard was six.

	"Before hearing your reports," he began formally, "we will have the Minutes of the last—"

	"Do we hafta ...?" whispered Liam angrily. Beside him Grcg said a lot of nonsense words, louder than a whisper, which meant the same thing. Mub, Loo and his three-year-old brother merely radiated impatience.

	"Quiet!"Richard whispered, then went on silently, "There has got to be Minutes, that book of my Daddy's says so. Anil talk without making a noise, I can hear you just as well ..."

	That was his only talent, Richard thought enviously. Compared with the things the others could do it wasn't much. He wasn't able to go to Loo's place, with its funny shed that had no sides and just a turned up roof, or play pirates on the boat Liam's Daddy had given him. There was a big hole in the boat and the engine had been taken out, but there was rope and nets and bits of iron in it, and sometimes the waves came so close it seemed to be floating. Some of the gang were frightened when the big waves turned white and rushed at them along the sand, but wouldn't have been scared if he had been able to go there. Nor had he been to Mub's place, which was noisy and crowded and not very nice, or climbed the trees beside Greg's farm.

	Richard couldn't go anywhere unless a grown-up took him in a train or a car or something. While if the others wanted to go somewhere they just went—even Buster could do it now. All he could do was listen and watch through their minds when they were playing and, if one of them wanted to say something complicated to the others, he would take what they were thinking and repeat it so everybody could hear it. And it was only his friends' minds he could get into—if only he could see what Daddy was thinking!

	He was the oldest and the leader of the gang, but by itself that wasn't much fun ...

	"I want my train set!" Greg broke in impatiently. A bright but indistinct picture of the promised model railway filled Richard's mind, to be overlaid rapidly by pictures of Mub's dolly, Loo's blackboard, Liam's cowboy suit and Buster's machine-gun. His head felt like bursting.

	"Stop thinking so loud!" Richard ordered sharply. "You'll get them, you'll all get them. We were promised."

	"I know, but ..." began Greg.

	"... How?" ended the others, in unison.

	"That's what the Investigation is for, to find out," Richard replied crossly. "And we'll never find out if you keep rushing things. Quiet, gang, and listen!"

	The room was already silent and then even the thinking noises died down. Richard began to speak in a whisper—he had found that talking while he was thinking kept his mind from wandering onto something else. And besides, he had learned some new grown-up words and wanted to impress the gang with them.

	He said, "Two weeks ago Daddy asked Buster and me what we wanted for Christmas and told us about Santa. Santa Claus will bring you anything you want. Or any two things, or even three things, within reason, my Daddy says. Buster doesn't remember last Christmas, but the rest of us do and that's the way it happens. You hang up your stocking and in the morning there's sweets and apples and things in it, and the big stuff you asked for is on the bed. But the grown-ups don't seem to know lot sure how they got there ..."

	"S-sleigh and reindeer," Greg whispered excitedly.

	Richard shook his head. "None of the grown-ups can say how exactly it happens, they just tell us that Santa will come all right, that we'll get our toys in time and not to worry about it. But we can't help worrying about it. That's why we're having an Investigation to find out what really happens.

	"We can't see how one man, even when he has a sleigh and magic reindeer that fly through the air, can bring everybody their toys all in one night ..." Richard took a deep breath and got ready to use his new, grownup words. "Delivering all that stuff during the course of a single night is a logistical impossibility."

	Buster, Mub and Greg looked impressed. Loo thought primly, "Richard is showing off," and Liam said, "I think he's got a jet."

	Feeling annoyed at the mixed reception to his big words, Richard was getting ready to whisper. "Yah, Slanty-Eyes!" at Loo when he thought better of it and said instead, "Jets make a noise and we'd remember if we heard one last Christmas. But what we're supposed to do in an Investigation is get the facts and then find the answer—" he glared at Loo—"by a process of deductive reasoning."

	Loo didn't say or think a word.

	"All right then," Richard went on briskly, "this is what we know ..."

	His name was Santa Claus. Description: a man, big even for a grownup, fresh complexion, blue eyes, white hair and beard. He dressed in a red cap, coat and trousers, all trimmed with white fur, also black shiny belt and knee-boots. Careful questioning of grown-ups showed that they were all in agreement about his appearance, although none of them had admitted to actually seeing him. Liam's Daddy had been questioned closely on this point and had said that he knew because Liam's Grandad had told him. It was also generally agreed that he lived somewhere at the North Pole in a secret cavern under the ice. The cavern was said to contain his toy workshops and storage warehouses.

	They knew quite a lot about Santa. The major gap in their knowledge was his methods of distribution. On Christmas Eve, did he have to shoot back and forwards to the North Pole when he needed his sleigh refilled? If so it was a very chancy way of doing things and the gang had good cause to be worried. They didn't want any hitches on Christmas Eve, like toys coming late or getting mixed up. If anything they wanted them to come early.

	Two weeks ago Richard had seen his mother packing some of his old toys in a box. She had told him that they were going to the orphans because Santa never came to orphans.

	The gang had to be sure everything would be all right. Imagine wakening on Christmas morning to find you were an orphan!

	"... We can't get any more information at this end," Richard continued, "so we have to find the secret cavern and then see how he sends the stuff out. That was your last assignment, gang, and I'll take your reports now.

	"You first, Mub."

	Mub shook her head, she had nothing to report. But there was a background picture of her Daddy's face looking angry and shiny and sort of loose, and a smack from her Daddy's large, pink-palmed hand which had hurt her dignity much more than her bottom. Sometimes her Daddy would play with her for hours and she could ask him questions all the time, but other times he would come into the house talking funny and bumping into things the way Buster had done when he was just learning to walk, and then he would smack her if she asked questions all the time. Mub didn't know what to make of her Daddy sometimes.

	Still without a word she floated up from the bed and drifted to the window. She began staring out at the cold, moonlit desert and the distant buildings where Richard's Daddy worked.

	"Loo?" said Richard.

	She had nothing to report either.

	"Liam."

	"I'll wait to last," said Liam smugly. It was plain that he knew something important, but he was thinking about sea-gulls to stop Richard from seeing what it was.

	"All right, Greg then."

	"I found where some of the toys are stored," Greg began. He went on to describe a trip with his mother and father into town to places called shops, and two of them had been full of toys. Then when he was home again his father gave him a beating and sent him to bed without his supper ...

	"O-o-oh," said Loo and Mub sympathetically.

	This was because, Greg explained, he had seen a dinky little tractor with rubber treads on it that could climb over piles of books and things. When he got home he thought about it a lot, and then thought that he would try reaching for it the way they all did when they were somewhere and had left things they wanted to play with somewhere else. His Daddy had found him playing with it and smacked him, four times with his pants down, and told him it was wrong to take things that didn't belong to him and that the tractor was going right back to the shop.

	But the beating had only hurt him for a short time and he was nearly asleep when his mother came and gave him a hug and three big chocolates with cream in the middle. He had just finished eating them when his father brought in some more ... 

	"O-h-h," said Loo and Mub, enviously.

	"Feeties for me?" asked Buster, aloud. When excited he was apt to slip back into baby talk. 

	Greg whispered "Night"—a nonsense word he used when he was thinking "No"—and added silently, "I ate them all."

	"Getting back to the Investigation," Richard said firmly, "Dad took Buster and me to a shop the day before yesterday. I've been to town before but this time I was able to ask questions, and this is the way they work. Everybody doesn't always know exactly what they want for Christmas, so the stores are meant to show what toys Santa has in stock so they'll know what to ask for. But the toys in the shops can't be touched until Christmas, just like the ones at the North Pole. Daddy said so, and when we were talking to Santa he said the same thing ..."

	"Santa!!!"

	A little awkwardly Richard went on, "Yes, Buster and I spoke to Santa. We ... I asked him about his sleigh and reindeer, and then about what seemed to us to be a logistically insoluble problem of supply and distribution. When we were asking him he kept looking at Daddy and Daddy kept looking up in the air, and that was when we saw his beard was held on with elastic.

	"When we told him about this," Richard continued, "he said we were very bright youngsters and he had to admit that he was only one of Santa's deputies in disguise, sent to say Merry Christmas to all the boys and girls because Santa himself was so rushed with toy-making. He said that Santa didn't even tell him how he worked the trick, it was a Top Secret, but he did know that Santa had lots of computers and things and that the old boy believed in keeping right up to date science-wise. So we didn't have to worry about our toys coming, all that would be taken care of, he said.

	"He was a very nice man," Richard concluded, "and didn't mind when we spotted his disguise and asked all the questions. He even gave us a couple of small presents on account."

	As he finished Richard couldn't help wondering if that deputy had told everything he knew—he had looked very uncomfortable during some of the questions. Richard thought that it was a great pity that he couldn't listen to what everybody was thinking instead of just the kids in his gang. If only they knew where that secret cavern was.

	"I know," said Liam suddenly. "I found it."

	Everybody was asking questions at once then, and they were talking instead of just thinking. Where was it and had he seen Santa and was my train-set there and what were the toys like ...? In his mind Richard thundered, "Quiet! You'll wake my Daddy! And I'll ask the questions." To Liam he said, "That's great! How did you find it?"

	One of Liam's abilities—one shared by Greg and Buster, and to a lesser degree by the girls—was of thinking about a place he would like to be and then going there. Or to be more precise, going to one of the places that were most like the place he wanted to go. He did not think of where so muuch as what he wanted—a matter of environment rather than geography. He would decide whether the place should have night, day, rain, sunshine, snow, trees, grass or sand and then think about the fine details. When his mental picture was complete he would go there, or they all— with the exception of Richard—would go there. Liam and Greg had found lots of lovely places in this way, which the gang used when they grew tired of playing in each other's back-yards, because once they went to a place they always knew how to go back to it.

	This time Liam had been trying for ice caverns with toys and reindeer stalls in them and had got nowhere at all. Apparently no such place existed. Then he started asking himself what would a place look like if it had to make and store things, and maybe had to send them out to people fast. The answer was machinery. It mightn't be as noisy or dirty as the factory his Daddy had taken him to in Derry last summer, but there would have to be machinery.

	But there might not be toys—they might not have been made or arrived yet. And if, as Richard had suggested, reindeer and sleighs were no longer in use, then they were out of the picture as well. And the ice cavern, now, that would be a cold place for Santa to work and if he turned on a heater the walls would melt, so the cavern might not be made of ice. What he was left with was a large underground factory or storehouse either at or somewhere near the North Pole.

	It wasn't a very good description of the place he was looking for, but he found it.

	In Liam's mind was the memory of a vast, echoing corridor so big it looked like a street. It was clean and brightly lit and empty. There was a sort of crane running along the roof with grabs hanging down, a bit like the ones he had seen lifting coal at the docks only these were painted red and yellow, and on both sides of the corridor stood a line of tall, splendid, unmistakable shapes. Rockets.

	Rockets, thought Richard excitedly: that was the answer, all right! Rockets were faster than anything, although he didn't quite see how the toys would be delivered. Still, they would find that out easily now that they knew where the secret cavern was.

	"Did you look inside them for toys?" Greg broke in, just ahead of the others asking the same question.

	Liam had. Most of the rockets were filled with machinery and the nose had sort of sparkly stuff in it. All the ones he had looked at were the same and he had grown tired of floating about among the noses of the rockets and gone exploring instead. At the other end of the corridor there was a big notice with funny writing on it. He was standing in front of it when two grown-ups with guns started running at him and yelling nonsense words. He got scared and left.

	When Liam finished the girls began congratulating him and the hole in the chest of his sweater grew bigger. Then Greg tried to cut him down to size again by stating, "They weren't nonsense words. What the guards yelled at you, I mean. If you could remember better how they sounded I could tell you what they said ..."

	Just when things were getting exciting, Richard thought impatiently, another argument was going to start about what were nonsense words and what weren't. Buster, Liam and himself could make themselves understood to each other whether they were speaking or thinking, but when any of the others spoke aloud it was just nonsense. And they said the same thing about words Richard, Liam and Buster spoke aloud. But the funny thing was that Loo, Mub and Greg couldn't understand what each other said, either.

	Richard had an idea that this was because they lived in different places, like in the pictures he had studied in his Daddy's National Geographic magazines. He had tracked down Liam's place from some of those pictures—Liam lived in a fishing village on the North Irish coast. Why they spoke a funny, but recognisable, form of American there Richard didn't know. Loo and Mub were harder to pin down; there were a couple of places where the people had slanty eyes or had dark brown skin and black curly hair. Greg was the hardest because he didn't have any special skin or hair or eyes. His folks wore furry hats in winter, but that wasn't much to go on ... 

	"What do we do now, Richard?" Liam broke in. "Keep thinking about the cavern, huh? Not your Daddy's old books."

	For a moment Richard thought into himself, then he opened his mind and asked, "How much time have you all got?"

	Mub said it was near her dinner time. Greg had just finished breakfast and was supposed to be playing in the shed for the next three or four hours. Loo's time was about the same as Greg's. Liam thought it was nearly breakfast time, but his mother didn't mind if he stayed in bed these cold mornings. And Buster, like Richard, had practically the whole of the night to play around in.

	"Right," he said briskly when all the reports were in. "It looks like the cavern Liam found isn't the right one—the rockets don't have toys in them. Maybe it's a place for sending toys out, but they haven't arrived from Santa's workshop yet. That workshop is the place we're looking for, and it shouldn't be hard to find now that we know the sort of place to look for--an underground place with rockets."

	His thoughts became authoritative as he went on. "You've got to find these underground places and see what goes on in them. We can't be sure of anything we've been told about them, so there might be a lot of secret caverns. When you find one try not to let anybody see you, look around for toys and see if you can get to the office of the man in charge of the place. If it's Santa or he looks like a nice man, ask him questions. And remember to say please and thank you. If he's not a nice man or if there's nobody there, try to find out things whatever way you can. Everyone understand?"

	Everybody thought, "Yes."

	"Okay then. Greg will go to the cavern Liam found, because he can understand what the people say there. Liam and Buster will look for caverns on their own. But remember, once you see that a place doesn't have toys in it, leave and look somewhere else. Don't waste time. Mub and Loo will stay here and be ready to help if you need them, they can't go to new places as easily as you men can."

	Richard's mouth felt suddenly dry. He ended, "All right, take off."

	Buster flicked out of sight in the middle of a "Wheee-e-e" of excitement. Liam held back for a moment thinking, "But why do they have guards in the caverns?" To which Greg replied, "Maybe to protect the toys against juvenile delinquents. I don't know what they are exactly, but my Daddy says they steal and break things, and if I had kept that tractor I took from the shop I would grow up to be one." Then Liam and Greg quietly disappeared. Loo and Mub began gathering up Buster's teddybear and toys. They floated into Buster's cot with them and started to play houses.

	Richard got into bed and lay back on his elbows. Buster was the member of the gang most likely to get into trouble so he listened in for him first. But his brother was in a place where each rocket was held out level by a little crane instead of standing straight up. The sound of voices and footsteps echoed about the place in a spooky fashion, but his brother had not been spotted. Buster reported that he had looked into the noses ol the rockets and they were filled with a lot of junk and some stuff which sparkled and frightened him away.

	The stuff didn't sparkle really, of course, but Buster had a talent for looking through things—like brick walls and engine casings—and when he looked into the rocket nose in that way the stuff sparkled. Like the electric wiring at home, he thought, only worse. There were no toys or any sign of Santa, so he was going to try some other place. Richard switched to Greg.

	Greg was in the cavern originally found by Liam. Two of the guards were still talking about seeing a boy in pajamas. Greg was going to look around some more and then try another place. Liam's report was much the same, right down to the stuff in the rocket noses which made him afraid to go too close. Richard stopped listening to them and began thinking to himself.

	Why had the caverns guards in them? To protect the toys against damage or theft, as Greg had suggested? But where were the toys? The answer to that question was, some of them were in the shops ... 

	A bit of conversation between his mother and father, overheard yesterday when they were in one of the shops, popped suddenly into his mind. Richard hadn't known exactly what was going on because he had been watching to see that Buster didn't knock over anything. Daddy had asked his mother if she would like something—beads or a shiny broach or something—for Christmas. Mummy had said Oh John it's lovely but ... Then a man from behind the counter had come up to Daddy, said a few words and gone away again. Daddy had said Okay. Then Mummy had said, But John, are you sure you can afford it? It's robbery, sheer robbery! These storekeepers are robbers at Christmas time!

	Guards all over the place, Greg's theory, and storekeepers who were robbers at Christmas time. It was beginning to make sense, but Richard was very worried by the picture that was forming.

	Loo and Mub had the cot pillow and the teddybear floating in the air above the cot, with Buster's broken truck doing a figure-of-eight between them. But they were being careful not to make a noise so Richard did not say anything. He began listening in for the others again.

	Buster had found another cavern, so had Liam. Greg had gone through three more—they had all been small places and plainly not what the gang was looking for. All reported rockets with the same puzzling load, no sign of toys and no Santa. And so it went on. Richard's eyes began to feel heavy and he had to sit on the edge of the bed again to keep from falling asleep.

	Mub was lying in Buster's cot being a sick Mommy and Loo was kneeling beside her being the Nurse. At the same time they had taken the truck apart and now a long procession of parts was in orbit around the pillow and teddybear. Richard knew they would put the truck together again before they went home, and probably fix it, too. He wished that he could do something useful like that, and he began to wonder if Loo could move people, too.

	When he mentioned the idea to her she stopped being a Nurse long enough to do some experiments. Richard tried as hard as he could to stay sitting on the edge of his bed, but Loo forced him to lie flat on his back.

	It was as if a big, soft cushion was pushing against his arms and chest. When he tried to prop his elbows behind him, other cushions pushed his arms out straight. After he had been forced to lie flat three times Loo told him she wanted to go back to playing Nurse. She didn't like this other game because it made her head hurt.

	Richard went back to listening to the searchers again.

	Buster was working on his fourth cavern, Liam and Greg on their seventh and ninth respectively. The sudden speeding up of the search was explained by the fact that they no longer walked from place to place inside the caverns, they just went. Tired legs, Richard discovered, had been the reason for them all thinking of this time-saving idea. It seemed to get the guards all excited, though. Everywhere the gang went there were guards who got excited—it was hard to stay hidden with so many guards about— but they had not stayed anywhere long enough to be caught. They had found lots of rockets but no sign of a toy workshop, or Santa.

	Richard was now pretty sure that the guards were soldiers. In some of the caverns they wore dark green uniforms with black belts and red things on their shoulders, and only Greg could understand the nonsense words they said. In another place, the cavern Liam had searched where you could hear planes taking off, they'd had blue-grey uniforms with shiny buttons and rings on their sleeves and Liam had been able to understand them. Then in a lot of other caverns they had been dressed like that picture of Daddy downstairs, taken when he had been working in a place called Korea.

	But where was Santa?

	During the next three hours the search still failed to reveal his whereabouts. Mub went home for her breakfast and Loo for her dinner, both with orders to come back tomorrow night or sooner if Richard called them. Liam had another two hours before his mother expected him out of bed. Greg had to break off for dinner.

	But he was back to searching caverns again within half an hour, and it was then that Richard noticed something funny about the reports that were coming back. It was as if he was seeing the same caverns twice—the same red-painted cranes, the same groupings of rockets, even the same guards' faces. The only explanation he could think of was that caverns were being searched which had been searched before.

	Quickly he told the gang of his suspicions and opened his mind to receive and relay. This meant that Buster, Greg and Liam knew everything that was in each other's minds having to do with the search, including, the total number of caverns found up to that time together with their identifying characteristics. Knowing this they would no longer be in danger of going over ground already searched by another member of the gang. Richard then told them to go looking for new caverns. They tried, and couldn't find one.

	Altogether they had uncovered forty-seven of them, from big underground places with hundreds of rockets in them down to small places with just a few. And now it seemed plain that this was all the caverns there were, and there was still no trace of Santa Claus.

	"We've missed something, gang," Richard told them worriedly. "You've got to go back to the biggest caverns again and look around some more. This time ask questions—"

	"B-but the guards run at you and yell," Greg broke in. "They're not nice men."

	"No," Liam joined in, "they're scary."

	Buster said, "I'm hungry."

	Richard ignored him and said, "Search the big caverns again. Look for important places, places where there are lots of guards, hind the boss and ask him questions. And don't forget to say please and thank you. Grown-ups will give you practically anything if you say please ..."

	For a long time after that nothing happened. Richard kept most of his attention on Buster, because his brother had a tendency to forget what he was looking for if anything interesting turned up. Buster was becoming very hungry and a little bored.

	His next contact with Liam showed the other hiding behind a large metal cabinet and looking out at a big room. Three walls of the room were covered from floor to ceiling with other cabinets, some of which made clicking, whirring noises and had colored lights on them. The room was empty now except for a guard at the door, but it had always been that way. In Liam's mind Richard could see the memory of two men in the room who had talked and then left again before Liam could ask them questions. They had been wearing blue-grey uniforms and one of them had had gold stuff on his cap. Liam had remembered every word they said, even the long ones which he didn't understand.

	The cabinets with the flashing lights on them were called a Director-Computer, and it worked out speeds and Tradge Ectories so that every rocket in this cavern, and in about twenty others just like it, would be sent to the spot it was meant to go and hit it right on the button. It would tell hundreds and hundreds of rockets where to go, and it would send them off as soon as there was a blip. Liam didn't know what a blip was., however. Did Richard?

	"No," said Richard impatiently. "Why didn't you ask one of the guards?"

	Because the man with the gold stuff on his cap had told the guard that the situation was getting worse, that there were reports from all over of bases being Infil Trated, and that some sort of Halloo Sinatory weapon was being used because the guards had insisted that the saboteurs were not adults. He had said trust them to play a dirty trick like this just before Christmas, and he had told the guard to kill any unauthorized personnel trying to enter the computer-room on sight. Liam didn't know what .in unauthorized personnel was, but he thought it might mean him. And anyway, he was hungry and his mother would be expecting him down from bed soon and he wanted to go home.

	"Oh, all right," said Richard.

	Maybe it was a sleigh and reindeer he used in Daddy's young days, he thought excitedly, but now it is rockets. And computers to tell them where to go, just like the deputy Santa told us!

	But why were the guards being told to kill people? Even unauthorized personnel—which sounded like a very nasty sort of people, like juvenile delinquents maybe. Who was pulling what dirty trick just before Christmas? And where were the toys? In short, who was lousing up his and everyone else's Christmas?

	The answer was becoming clearer in Richards mind, and it made him feel mad enough to hit somebody. He thought of contacting Greg, then decided that he should try to find out if he could fix things instead of just finding out more about what had gone wrong. So he called up Loo and Mub, linked them to each other through his mind, and spoke:

	"Loo, do you know the catapult Greg keeps under his mattress? Can you send it here without having to go to Greg's place to look for it?"

	The grubby, well-used weapon was lying on Richard's bed.

	"Good," he said. "Now can you send it b—"

	The catapult was gone.

	Loo wasn't doing anything special just then and wouldn't have minded continuing with the game. But it wasn't a game to Richard, it was a test.

	"Mub, can you do the same?"

	Mub's Daddy was at work and her mother was baking. Mub was waiting to lick the spoon with the icing sugar on it. A little absently she replied, "Yes, Richard."

	"Does it make your heads tired?" he asked anxiously.

	Apparently it didn't. The girls explained that it was hard to make people, or pussycats, or goldfish move because live things had minds which kind of pushed back, but dead things didn't have anything to push back with and could be moved easily. Richard told them thanks, broke away, then made contact with Greg.

	Through Greg's eyes and mind he saw a large desk and two men in dark green uniforms behind it—one standing behind the other, an older and bigger man who was sitting down. Greg was in a chair beside the desk and only a few feet away from the bigger man.

	"Your name is Gregor Ivanovitch Krejinski," said the big man, smiling. He was a nice big man, a little like Greg's Daddy, with dark gray hair and lines at the corners of his eyes. He looked like he was scared of Greg but was trying to be nice anyway. Greg, and through him the watching Richard, wondered why he should be scared.

	"And you say your parents have a farm not far from a town," the big man went on gently. "But there are no farms or towns such as you describe within three hundred miles of here. What do you say to that, Little Gregor?

	"Now suppose you tell me how you got here, eh?"

	That was a difficult question. Greg and the other members of the gang didn't know how they got to places, they just went.

	"I just ... came, sir," said Greg.

	The man who was standing lifted his cap and rubbed his forehead, which was sweating. In a low voice he spoke to the big man about other launching bases which had been similarly penetrated. He said that relations with the other side had been almost friendly this past year or so, but it was now obvious that they had been lulled into a sense of false security. In his opinion they were being attacked by a brand new psychological weapon and all firing officers should be ready with their finger on the big red button ready for the first blip. The big man frowned at him and he stopped talking.

	"Well, now," the big man resumed to Greg, "if you can't say how you came, can you tell me why, Gregor?"

	The big man was sweating now, too.

	"To find Santa Claus," said Greg.

	The other man began to laugh in a funny way until the big man shushed him and told him to phone the Colonel, and told him what to say. In the big man's opinion the boy himself was not a threat but the circumstances of his appearance here were cause for the gravest concern. He therefore suggested that the base be prepared for a full emergency launch and that the Colonel use his influence to urge that all other bases be similarly prepared. He did not yet know what tactic was being used against them, but he would continue with the interrogation.

	"Now, son," he said, returning to Greg. "I can't tell you how to find Santa Claus exactly, but maybe we could do a trade. You tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I know."

	Richard thought the big man was very nice and he told Greg to find out all he could from him, then he broke away. It was time he checked on Buster again.

	His brother was just on the point of revealing himself to a man sitting in a small room with lots of colored lights around the walls. There was a big glass screen on one wall with a white line going round and round on it, and the man was bent forward in his chair holding his knees tightly with his hands. He was chewing.

	"Feeties ...?" asked Buster hopefully.

	The man swung round. One hand went to the gun at his belt and the other shot out to stop with one finger on a big red button on his panel, but he didn't push it. He stared at Buster with his face white and shiny and his mouth open. There was a little piece of chewing gum showing on his teeth.

	Buster was disappointed; he had thought the man might have been eating cakes of toffee. Chewing gum wasn't much good when you were hungry. Still, maybe if he was polite the man might give him some anyway, and even tell him where Santa Claus was.

	"How do 'oo doe," he said carefully.

	"F-fine, thanks," said the man, and shook his head. He took his finger off the big red button and pushed another one. He began talking to somebody:

	"Unauthorized person in the Firing ... No, no, I don't have to push the button ... I know the orders, dammit, but this is a kid! About three, w-wearing pajamas ..."

	A few minutes later two men ran in. One was thin and young and he told the man at the panel to keep his blasted eyes on the screen in case there was a blip instead of gawking at the kid. The other one was big and broad and very like the man who had asked Greg questions—except he had on a tie instead of a high, tight collar. The second man looked at Buster for a long time, then got down on one knee.

	"What are you doing here, sonny?" he said in a funny voice.

	"Looking for Santa," said Buster, looking at the man's pockets. They looked empty, not even a hanky in them. Then, on Richard's prompting, he added, "What's a ... a blip?"

	The man who was standing began to speak rapidly. He said that this was some sort of diversion, that guards at bases all over had been reporting kids, that the other side was working up to some sort of sneak punch. And just when everybody thought relations were improving, too. Maybe this wasn't a kid, maybe this was a child impersonator ... 

	"Impersonating a three-year-old?" asked the big man, straightening up again.

	All the talk had not helped Richard much and he was getting impatient. He thought for a minute, then made Buster say, "What's a blip ... please!"

	The big man went to the one who was sitting in front of the screen. They whispered together, then he walked toward Buster.

	"Maybe we should T-I-E his H-A-N-D-S," said the thin man.

	In a quiet voice the big man said, "Contact the General. Tell him that until further notice I consider it advisable that all launching, bases be placed in Condition Red. Meanwhile I'll see what I can find out. And call Doc, we might as well check on your child impersonation theory."

	He turned away from the now open locker with a candy bar in his hand, stripping off the wrapping as he added, "Don't they teach you psychology these days?" And to Buster he said, "A blip is a teeny white mark on a screen like that man is watching."

	Buster's mind was so full of thinking about the candy bar that it was hard for Richard to make him ask the proper questions. Ask him what makes a blip? he thought furiously at his brother—why were the minds of grown-ups impossible to get into! and eventually he got through.

	"A rocket going up," said the big man; then added crossly, "This is ridiculous!"

	"What makes a rocket go up?" prompted Richard.

	The man who was watching for blips was holding his knees tightly again. Nobody was talking to him but he said, "One way is to push a big red button ..." His voice sounded very hoarse.

	Watching and listening through his brother's mind, Richard decided that he had heard and seen enough. For some time he had been worried about the safety of Greg and Liam and Buster—all the talk of shooting, and the way the guards looked so cross at just a few children who weren't doing any harm. Richard had seen people get shot lots of times on television, and while he hadn't thought much about what being dead meant, getting shot had looked like a very sore thing. He didn't want it happen ing to any of his gang, especially now when he was sure that there was no reason to go on with the search.

	Santa had hid out somewhere, and if what Richard suspected was true, he couldn't blame him. Poor Santa, he thought.

	Quickly Richard called off the search. He thought he knew what was going on now, but he wanted to think about it some more before deciding what to do. Almost before he had finished Buster was back in his cot, still working on the candy bar. Richard made his brother give him halt ot it, then he got into bed himself. But not to sleep.

	Mub and Loo had never seen any of the caverns yet so he had to attend to that chore first. Using the data available in the three boys' minds he was able to direct the girls to all forty-seven places with no trouble at all. The girls were seen a couple of times but nothing happened--they were just looking, not asking questions. When he was sure they understood what they had to do Richard let them go home, but told them to start practicing on rocks and things outside his window. After that he lay on his side and looked out at the moonlit desert.

	Small rocks and big boulders began to move about. They arranged themselves into circles and squares and stars, or built themselves into cairns. But mostly they just changed places with each other too fast for Rit hard to see. Fence posts disappeared leaving the wire sagging but unbroken and bushes rose into the air with the ground undisturbed beneath them and every root intact. After an hour of it Richard told them to stop and asked them if they were sure it didn't make their heads tired.

	They told him no, that moving dead things was easy.

	"But you'll have to work awful fast ..." Richard began.

	Apparently it didn't matter. Just so long as they knew where everything was they could move it just like that, and Mub sent a thought of her Daddy snapping his fingers. Relieved, Richard told them to put everything out on the desert back the way it had been and to start getting to know the other places he had told them about. They went off joyfully to mix the gang's business with their own pleasure.

	Richard became aware of movements downstairs. It was nearly breakfast time.

	Since the early hours of the morning Richard had been sure he knew what had gone wrong with the Christmas business, and the steps the gang must take to put matters right again—or as near right as it was possible to put them. It was a terrific responsibility for a six-year-old, and the trouble was that he hadn't heard the grown-ups' side of it. What he intended doing could get him into bad trouble if his Daddy found out— he might even get beaten. Richard's parents had taught him to respect other people's property.

	But his Daddy was usually a bit dopey at breakfast time. Maybe he would be able to ask some questions without his Daddy asking too many back.

	"Daddy," he said as he was finishing his cereal, "d'you know all those rockets Santa has in his secret caverns at the North Pole? And the stuff in the nose of them that you're not allowed to go near ...?"

	His Daddy choked and got cross and began talking to his mother. He said that he would never have taken this out-of-the-way job if he hadn't been sure that Richard's mother, being an ex-schoolteacher, could look after the children's education. But it was quite obvious that she was forcing, Richard far too much and he was too young to be told about things like rocket bases. To which his mother replied that his Daddy didn't believe her when she told him that Richard could read the National Geographic  and not just pretend to read them—and even an odd whodunit.

	Sure she had taught him more than a normal six-year-old but that was because he could take it—she wasn't doing a doting mother act, Richard really was an exceptionally bright boy. And hadn't told him about rocket bases, he must have got it from a magazine or something ...

	And so it went on. Richard sighed, thinking that every time he asked a complicated question his mother and father started arguing about him between themselves and ignoring his question completely.

	"Daddy," said Richard during a lull, "they're big people's toys, aren't they?"

	"Yes!" his father snapped. "But the big people don't want to play with them. In fact, we'd be better off without them!"Then he turned and went back to arguing with their mother. Richard excused himself and left, thinking at Buster to follow him as soon as he could.

	So the big people didn't want their toys, Richard thought with grim satisfaction. That meant the gang was free to go ahead.

	All that day Richard listened in on Loo and Mub. The girls were last but there was an awful lot to do so he set Greg and Liam to helping them—the boys could move things, too, but not as fast as the girls. But everybody had been awake for so long they began to fall asleep one by one. When it happened to Buster and Richard their mother thought they were taking sick and was worried, but both of them were up as fresh as ever when their father came home so she didn't mention it. And that night there was another meeting of the gang in the bedroom.

	"We'll dispense with the Minutes of the last Meeting," Richard began formally, then opened his mind to all of them. Up until then the gang had been acting on orders, although from the things they had been doing they must have guessed what he intended, but now they knew. He gave them all the pieces of the puzzle and showed them how it fitted together.

	The evasions of their parents, the overflowing toy stores and the computers which could direct a rocket to any spot in the world. A strangely uncomfortable deputy Santa—they must have had some kind of hold over him at the store—and secret caverns guarded by angry soldiers and storekeepers who were robbers. And juvenile delinquents, and a Santa Claus who couldn't be found because he must have run away and hidden himself because he was ashamed to face the children and tell them that all their toys had been stolen.

	Obviously the juvenile delinquents had raided Santa's toy caverns and cleaned them out, leaving only big people's toys which the adults themselves no longer wanted—this explained why Santa's guards were so mad at everybody. Then the stolen toys had been sent to the storekeepers, who were probably in cahoots with the delinquents. It was as simple as that Santa just would not be coming around this Christmas and nobody would get any toys, unless the gang did something about it ... 

	"...  We're going to see that the children get something," Richard went on grimly. "But none of us is going to get what we asked for. There is no way of telling which one of all those hundreds of rockets is meant for any one of us. So we'll just have to take what comes. The only good thing is that we're going to make Christmas come three days early.

	"All right, gang, let's get started."

	Buster returned to the room where he had been given candy the night before, the room with the man who watched a screen with a white line going round on it. But he stayed hidden this time—he was merely acting as the gang's eyes. Then Mub and Loo, linked to the distant room through Buster and Richard's mind, began to move the grown-up who sat before the screen. More precisely they moved his hand and arm in the direction of the big red button.

	But the grown-up didn't want to push the button and make blips. He struggled to pull back his hand so hard that Loo complained that it was hurting her head. Then they all got together—Liam, Greg, Buster and the girls—and concentrated. The man's finger started moving towards the button again and he began to shout to somebody on the radio. Then he drew is gun with the other hand and hit his arm with it, knocking it way from the button. He was being very, very naughty.

	"Why don't we push the button," Greg asked suddenly, "instead of making the grown-up push it?"

	Richard felt his face going red, he should have thought of that. Within a second the big red button drove down into the bottom of its socket.

-

	The Early Warning systems were efficient on both sides. Within three minutes all forty-seven missile bases had launched or were launching their rockets. It was an automatic process, there were no last-minute checks, the missiles being maintained in constant readiness. In those same three minutes orders went out to missile-carrying submarines to take up previously-assigned positions off enemy coasts, and giant bombers screamed away from airfields which expected total annihilation before the last one was off. Like two vast, opposing shoals of fish the missiles slid spacewards, their numbers thinned—but only slightly—by the suicidal frenzy of the anti-missiles. The shoals dispersed and curved groundwards again, dead on course, to strike dead on target. The casualty and damage reports began coming in.

	Seventeen people injured by falling plaster or masonry; impact craters twenty feet across in the middle of city streets; tens of thousands of dollars and pounds and rubles worth of damage. It was not long before urgent messages were going out to recall the subs and bombers. Before anything else was tried the authorities had to know why every missile that had been sent against the enemy, and every missile that the enemy had sent against them, had failed to explode.

	They also wanted to know who or what had been making rocket base personnel on both sides do and see things which they didn't want to. And why an examination of the dud missiles revealed the shattered and fused remains of train sets and toy six-shooters, and if this could have any possible connection with the robberies of large toy stores in such widely separate places as Salt Lake City, Irkutsk, Londonderry and Tokyo. Tentatively at first both sides came together to compare notes, their intense curiosity to know what the blazes had happened being one thing they had in common. Later, of course, they discovered other things ...

	That year Christmas came with the beginnings of a lasting peace on Earth, although six members of a young and very talented gang did not appreciate this. The toys which they had put in the noses of the rockets to replace the sparkly stuff—which they had dumped in the ocean because the grown-ups didn't want it—had failed to reach them. They had been worrying in case they had done something very wrong or been very bad. They couldn't have been very bad, however, because Santa came just as they had been told he would, on a sleigh with reindeer.

	They were asleep at the time, though, and didn't see it.

-

THE SECRET HISTORY
OF SECTOR GENERAL

	For a series that began close on forty years ago and has so far run to over three quarters of a million words, Sector General got off to a very shaky start. In fact, had the late and sadly missed Ted Carnell, who was at that time the editor of the British sf magazine New Worlds, not been desperate to fill a 17,000-word hole which had opened up in his November 1957 issue, the first novelette in the series, "Sector General," would not have been accepted without literary surgery of a drastic nature.

	The birth of the Sector General idea was a natural, if perhaps a premature, occurrence. I had been writing professionally for just over four years and the joins were still showing in my work. But even in those early apprenticeship days I had a strong preference for medics or extraterrestrials as the chief characters in my stories, and gradually both types began appearing in the same stories. For example, in the Ballantine collection The Aliens Among Us there was a story called "To Kill or Cure," which dealt with the fumbling attempts of a navy doctor from a rescue helicopter to give medical assistance to the survivor of a crashed extra-terrestrial spaceship. So it was only natural that a story that dealt with the problems inherent in human beings treating large numbers of extra-terrestrial patients in hospital conditions, and aliens treating humans, would evolve.

	The novelette "Sector General," however, had flaws. Ted Carnell said that it lacked a coherent plot; that the principal character, Doctor Conway, simply drifted into and out of medical situations without solving his main problem—the ethical conflict in his mind between the militaristic Monitor Corps, which maintained the hospital, and its intensely pacifist medical staff; and that the whole thing was so episodic that it resembled an interstellar Emergency Ward 10, a very corny British TV hospital series of the time. Comparing that series to my story was surely the unkindest surgical incision of all! He also said that I had spelled efficient two different ways in the story, and both ways were wrong. There were other flaws that became apparent only with hindsight, but these were corrected in the later stories of the series.

	But Ted did like the basic idea. He said that the background of the huge hospital in space was one that I should keep going, if only occasionally. He also said that Harry Harrison had called him at his office and was somewhat irritated with me for beating him to the punch with the interstellar hospital idea, because he had been planning a series of four or five short stories with just such a background, reckoning that it was a new idea. Harry still intended doing the stories, Ted said, but his enthusiasm had been blunted.

	This last piece of news scared me half to death.

	At that time I had not met Harry Harrison, but I knew quite a lot about him. I knew since reading "Rock Diver" as a very young fan that he had been one of my favorite authors; that he spoke rather loudly to people when he was roused; and that he was probably Deathworld on two feet. And there was I, a fan and a professional writer still wet behind the eats, having the effrontery to actually blunt his enthusiasm! But Harry must be a truly kind and forgiving soul, because nothing catastrophic has happened to me. At least not yet.

	All the same, there must be a probability world somewhere in which he got in first with the idea and blunted my enthusiasm, and the sf shelves in the bookshops carry a series of books by Harry Harrison about an interstellar hospital. If someone would invent a transverse time-travel machine, I should dearly like to borrow it for a few hours to buy those books.

	The second story in the series was "Trouble With Emily," and Ted was much happier with this one. It featured Doctor Conway—carrying a pint-sized alien with psi powers on his shoulder instead of a large chip— and a party of Monitor Corpsmen, who were assisting him with the treatment of a brontosaurus-like patient called Emily, because one of the Corps officers had a fondness for reading the Bronte sisters.

	But the function of the Monitor Corps, the law enforcement and executive arm of the Galactic Federation whose sixty-odd intelligent species were represented on the staff of Sector General, was something that needed clarification, I thought. The result was a very long novelette of some 21,000 words.

	Essentially the Monitor Corps was a police force on an interstellar scale, but I did not want them to be the usual ruthless, routine-indoctrinated, basically stupid organization that is so handy to have around when an idealistic principal character needs a bit of ethical conflict. Conway was one of the good guys, and I wanted them to be good guys too, but with different ideas as to the kind of activity that produces the greater good.

	Their duties included interstellar survey and first contact work as well as maintaining the Federation's peace—a job that could, if they were unable to discourage the warmongers, give rise to a police action that was indistinguishable from an act of war. But the Corps much preferred to wage psychological warfare aimed at discouraging planetary and interplanetary violence, and when, despite their efforts, a war broke out, then they very closely monitored the beings who were waging it.

	These warlike entities belonged to a psychological rather than physiological classification, and regardless of species they were the classification responsible for most of the trouble within the Federation. The story told of the efforts of the Monitor Corps first to attempt to prevent the war and then to damp down the war, and Conway and Sector General came into it only when things went catastrophically wrong and large numbers of human and e-t casualties had to be dealt with. The original title of the story was "Classification: Warrior."

	Ted, however, insisted that it was much too serious a story to be tied into the Sector General series, and he had me delete all references to the Monitor Corps (rechristening them the Stellar Guard), the Federation, Sector General hospital and Conway. The story was retitled "Occupation: Warrior." It appeared in the collection The Aliens Among Us, which also contained a proper Sector General story called "Countercharm."

	With the next story, "Visitor at Large," later published in the collection entitled Hospital Station, the series was firmly back on the rails. Appearing for the first time in the hospital was the insectile, incredibly fragile and emotion-sensitive Doctor Prilicla, who was later to become the most popular character in the series. The patient that Conway and Prilicla were treating was physically incapable of becoming sick, although it was, of course, subject to psychological disturbances. This particular patient was amoebic, highly adaptable and had the ability to extrude any limbs or sensory organs required for any given situation. It reproduced by fission and inherited at the time of its "birth" all of the experience and knowledge of its parent, and of its patent's parent, and on back to the beginning of its evolution. The creature's problem was that it had suffered a trauma that had caused it to withdraw from all outside contact and it was slowly dissolving into water; and water turned out to be the solution in both senses of the word.

	The next story featured a jump backwards in time to the period when the hospital was under construction, and the central character was O'Mara, who was later to become its Chief Psychologist. This was followed by a story that featured a patient with a most distressing collection of symptoms, which Conway steadfastly, and against all the advice and direct orders of his superiors, refused to treat. The stories were called "Medic" and "Out-Patient" respectively, and they also appeared in the Hospital Station collection, which contained all five of the Sector General stories written at that time.

	Around this time the one-hundredth issue of New Worlds was coming up, and Ted Carnell had been writing to his regular authors asking them to produce something special for it. I submitted a 14,000-worder called "The Apprentice"—it later appeared in my Monsters and Medics collection—which he straightaway stuck into issue 99 because, he said, he had only a 7,000 word hole left in number 100. Could I fill it with a Sector General short story, within three weeks?

	I badly wanted to make it into that one-hundredth issue with its lineup of top authors, but I did not have a single alien ailment in my head. In desperation I tried to build a story around an Earth-human condition that might have an extraterrestrial equivalent, an ailment of which I had firsthand experience, diabetes.

	Now there is no great problem in pushing a hypodermic needle through the tegument and subcutaneous tissue of an Earth-human and injecting a measured dose of insulin—except sometimes I go "Ouch." But suppose the diabetic patient was a crab-like life-form, whose limbs and body were covered by a hard shell? Obviously the same procedure would not be suitable, unless one used a sterile power drill and even this, in time, would lead to grave weakening of the body structure by leaving it in the condition of an exoskeletal sieve. Solving this problem, with the help of a magnificently proportioned nurse and later e-t pathologist called Murchison, was the plot line for the story "Countercharm," which dropped nicely into Ted's 7,000-word hole as well as appearing later in The Aliens Among Us collection.

	Probably the next idea for the series came about because of a second or third re-reading of Hal Clement's Needle. The situation was that a Very Important Extraterrestrial Person had had a disagreement with its personal medic and as a result had been admitted to the hospital. Only much later in the story did Conway discover that the medic in question was an intelligent, organized virus life-form who lived and worked inside its patient. The story was called, inevitably, "Resident Physician," and was an introductory novelette to the first Sector General novel-length work, "Field Hospital." "Resident Physician" and "Field Hospital" were later published together as Star Surgeon.

	Normally I do not like stories of violence or the senseless killing that is war. But if a story is to hold the interest of the reader there must be conflict, which means violence or struggle of some kind. However, in a medical sf story of the Sector General type the violence is usually the direct or indirect result of a natural catastrophe, a disaster in space or an epidemic of some kind. And if there is a war situation of the kind that occurred in Star Surgeon, then the medics are fighting only to save lives, and the Monitor Corps, like the good little policemen they are, are fighting to stop the war rather than win it—which is the essential difference between maintaining the peace and waging a war.

	There is not enough space to go into the plot details of Star Surgeon, but one should be mentioned. In "Occupation: Warrior," which should have been the fourth Sector General story, "Classification: Warrior," the leading character was a tactician called Dermod; and the same character turned up again as the Monitor Corps Fleet Commander who defended the hospital in Star Surgeon as well as having an important part to play in Major Operation. I don't know why I went to the trouble of establishing this tenuous connection between the series proper and the Sector General story that had been deliberately de-Sector Generalized, but it seemed important to me at the time.

	There was a four-year gap before the next stories in the series were written. These were five novelettes that were planned, like the Ambulance Ship trio, to build progressively into a novel. They were "Invader," "Vertigo," "Blood Brother," "Meatball" and "Major Operation," and with linking material added they were published as the book-length Major Operation.

	"Invader" set the stage by introducing to the hospital a thought-controlled tool that caused havoc until Conway realized how valuable such a device could be in the hands of a surgeon who fully understood its uses. During further investigation of the planet on which the tool originated, the Monitor Corps rescued a doughnut-shaped alien that had to roll all the time to live because it did not have a heart but depended on a gravity feed system for blood circulation. This story was called "Vertigo," and the alien was a present of my friend Bob Shaw, who called it a Drambon.

	Bob thought it might be fun if I used his e-t and called it a Drambon because he had used the Drambon species in one of his stories; then we could wait and see how long it would take one of the science-fiction buffs to spot the fact that a certain extraterrestrial had cropped up, or rather rolled up, in the work of two different authors. But up until now the widely traveled Drambon life-form seems to have gone unspotted.

	The next story in the series derived from an original idea by a well-known English fan of the time, Ken Cheslin. We were at a convention party when he said, as nearly as I can remember, "James, you know how doctors used to be called leeches? Why don't you write a story where the doctor really is a leech?" The e-t that resulted was a life-form whose method of treatment was to withdraw practically all of its patient's blood—a very disconcerting process for the being concerned—and remove the offending toxic material or micro-organisms before returning the blood to the patient good as new. The story was called "Blood Brother". Thanks, Ken.

	Regarding "Meatball" and the climactic "Major Operation," there is very little to say except that the poisoned and polluted living planet that was the patient in those stories required treatment on such a vast scale that the operation was a military as well as a medical one.

	The next story in the series, so far published only in Britain in New Writings in SF 22, was called "Spacebird." The idea for an organic, completely non-metallic spaceship had been in my notebook for a long time, but it could not be used until I could discover a means of boosting such a bird to escape velocity. Then at one of the conventions I mentioned my problem to Jack Cohen. Jack, who is a very helpful person and a stickler for xenobiological verisimilitude, is senior lecturer in animal reproduction at the University of Birmingham in England. He knows so much about strange and alien life-forms that, when asked if a certain hypothetical extraterrestrial is physiologically possible, he invariably cites examples of a couple of terrestrial life-forms that are even weirder. The answer to my problem, Jack said, was the bombardier beetle—a small, mid-European insect that, when threatened with danger, expels and ignites gas from its rear so violently that it lands many inches away.

	When the story was written, the launching of the spacecraft was from a Mesklin-type planet with high centrifugal force and low gravity at its equator to aid the process; and it was with millions of outsize bombardier beetles forming the multistaging sequences, all blasting away and hoisting the bird into space. Surely this was an idea to arouse the sense of wonder, I thought. Think of the technological achievement it represented for a race completely without metals, and think of the timing and delicacy of control involved. Try not to think of the smell ... 

	The next two books were Ambulance Ship and Sector General, which contained the closely-linked novelettes "Accident," "Contagion," "Quarentine," and "Recovery"; and "Survivor," "Investigation," and "Combined Operation." They dealt with a new aspect of the work at Sector General—the hospital's special ambulance service—and concerned the extraterrestrial medical, physiological, psychological and engineering problems that must be solved, quickly and on the site of the accident, by the ambulance ship's crew if the casualties are to survive until they reach the hospital. When these problems arise, the ambulance ships are inevitably far removed from the virtually limitless facilities of Sector General, so the alien technologists and medical specialists of the crews concerned must fall back on their own ingenuity and strictly limited resources. If they make a wrong decision, the consequences can be far-reaching indeed.

	"Accident" was a prequel which linked the two central characters in an earlier novelette, "Tableau," to the Sector General series by describing the major and war-threatening interstellar political problem and how the basic idea for its solution, the building of a vast, multi-species space hospital, came about. "Contagion" introduced the ambulance ship team to a frightening medical problem on what should have been an easy shakedown cruise, and "Quarantine" confronted them and the rest of the hospital with a medical problem they had never expected to face, a pathogen that was apparently capable of crossing the species divide and infecting every being within Sector General. In "Recovery" the team had a first contact and rescue situation which extended their mental and medical resources to the limit as they tried to make biological sense out of two of the most alien, as well as the most blindly hostile, entities to appear in the series. In "Survivor" they had another alien to deal with who, once again, seemed to be the exception which proved the rule that the pathogens native to one planet could not affect or infect life-forms who evolved on another. The novelette "Investigation" was their first experience of practicing forensic medicine, where the Monitor Corps officers and the medics were in conflict because their patient was apparently a mass murderer.

	I have long had a fondness for large extra-terrestrials—I think they like me, too—and, unlike my unfortunate wife and first-draft reader, Peggy, I have no horror of snakes. The idea came while I was gardening and accidentally chopped up a large worm which I expanded mentally into the size of the Midgard Serpent which, legend has it, encircles the world with its tail in its mouth. This extra-terrestrial equivalent wasn't quite that big, just five or six miles long, but treating it required the nonmedical operational assistance of a Monitor Corps fleet of capital ships. The story was called "Combined Operation."

	While writing, Sector General I had the feeling that maybe the series was going on for too long and decided to end it with the sixth book, the novel-length Diagnostician, which the late and greatly-missed Judy-Lynn del Rey rechristened Star Healer. In this one Conway was given increasing responsibility for large numbers of patients rather than working on one at a time, and the story opened with him being withdrawn from the ambulance ship and sent to Goglesk, the home of an intelligent species of life-form classification FOKT who, when threatened with ultimate danger, join together to form a completely stupid and violent gestalt after which they trash everything in sight, including the infrastructure of their own civilization. They linked up by extending their long, many-colored body-hair and weaving it together into an enormous plaid carpet. Any resemblance between them and the Gogleskan, sorry, Glaswegian, fan group called the Friends of Kilgour Trout, to whom the book was dedicated, is purely deliberate. Apparently the Glasgow FOKTs like being insulted, especially when somebody takes 70-odd thousand words to do it, because when I was in Glasgow attending Intersection last year, nothing terrible happened to me.

	In Star Healer the futures of all the main characters in the previous books were comfortably mapped out: Conway, after long and meritorious service in and outside the hospital, was appointed Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery; the disturbingly beautiful Pathologist Murchison— as well as being in line for inheriting her chief's, Thornnastor's, job—and Conway had long been an item, although, at the insistence of the other-species members of the medical staff, she had not changed her name because it was thought to be demeaning to relinquish one's most precious possession, one's identity, simply because she had become someone's life-mate (another blow struck for extra-terrestrials' women's lib); Prilicla's, Naydrad's and all the other characters' medical futures were secure, so I thought that book number six would be a good place to end the series.

	Judy-Lynn thought otherwise.

	With the seventh book, Code Blue—Emergency, the rules were changed. Instead of Conway, Murchison, Prilicla, et al—All right, so I'm showing off my classical education here, the phrase is, of course, Latin for "all the e-ts"—doing their medical thing center stage, they were kept in the background while I concentrated on a brand new character. In this case it was a newly-arrived extra-terrestrial trainee called Cha Thrat, who was given all the usual grotty jobs consistent with her lowly station, during which she discovered, among other things, that in the member species of the Galactic Federation, there was not one whose body wastes smell anything but terrible. Because her home planet's medical ethics were incredibly strict—she held, for example, that if an operating surgeon is unable to save a patient's limb, then the doctor concerned must also forfeit a limb—the hospital wasn't comfortable with her on the medical staff and she was demoted to maintenance. This gave me the chance to explore Sector General's "underground," the murky maze of maintenance tunnels that the medical staff never see, and the things that go on there, before she eventually finds her true niche in the hospital's Department of Other-Species Psychology with O'Mara.

	The idea for story number eight, The Genocidal Healer, came from Peggy. She was a member of a non-denominational prayer group meeting in the nearby convent—the nuns didn't charge them room rent—as well as, during the height of The Trouble, working for a few years in a respiratory intensive care unit. I am not and never will be a prayer group person, but she told me about some of the debates they had after the meetings, which she called the Tea and Heresy sessions, that could throw up some really weird and wonderful, if not actually extra-terrestrial, ideas about theology. While she was in RICU they got most of the city's worst road traffic accidents, gunshot wounds and bomb blast victims. When she came off night duty on Sunday morning, Peggy used to unwind by telling me all about them over breakfast, including the fact that there were many times when a visit from one of the hospital padres, his religion was unimportant, seemed to do more for the patients than all the medication they had been piping into them.

	The story featured Lioren, a top Sector General graduate and Monitor Corps Surgeon-Commander who was court-martialed, and exonerated, for large-scale medical negligence while on a planetary disaster relief mission. He disagreed with the verdict, was unable to forgive himself and, even though he was an intensely proud, highly intelligent and medically able entity, he swore never to practice medicine again for the test of his life, which he did not intend to be long. As a therapeutic measure aimed at taking his mind off suicide, O'Mara gave him a number of non-medical jobs comforting emotionally disturbed and near-terminal cases or those in need of religious consolation. Being a proud entity and dedicated to the healing arts he had forsworn, Lioren tries to do this work to the best of his ability by studying all the information that is available on the religious beliefs and practices of the member species of the Galactic Federation, although at no time will he admit to which, if any, of the beliefs he holds himself. The work involves him in all sorts of accidents and medical emergencies, culminating in a very dangerous and dramatic procedure where he is the non-medical support during an operation without anaesthetic inside a macro life-form which is capable of wrecking the hospital if it so much as twitches. Eventually he is able to do the impossible, that is, forgive himself, and becomes one of the most well-loved and respected people in the hospital.

	In The Galactic Gourmet another new character invades the hospital. Gutronsevas is the Federation's leading multi-species chef du cuisine who considers that the ultimate professional challenge would be to take the post of Chief Dietitian and make Sector General's hospital food palatable. This book is lighter than the previous one but has its share of medical drama, first contact problems and a big and very unusual finish, or maybe that should be dessert. This one, the ninth book in the series, is due to be published for L.A.con III, so it would be wrong to say anything more about it and risk spoiling your fun.

	The same applies to the yet to be published tenth book, Final Diagnosis, which is written from the viewpoint of an Earth-human male patient who is sent to Sector General with a truly baffling disease. His initial xenophobia—since late childhood he has only lived on Earth—gradually disappears as he gets used to the hulking great extra-terrestrials doing medical things to him, and he begins to play cards and exchange gossip with the other-species patients and nurses, before leaving the hospital with the ambulance ship team to visit the colony world were he was born. There they uncover the incredible truth about what happened to him as a child, and its ultimate effect on Sector General.

	In my own opinion number ten is the best book in the series, but then, I'm just the author so what do I know? And a ten-book series, especially one ending with that title, has a nice, rounded, complete sound to it.

	To date the Sector General series has run to one short story, nineteen novelettes and six novels, about 800,000 words in all. I would like to go on writing about extra-terrestrials, their exotic physiologies, their alien thought processes and the problems of communication and under-standing that they represent. But I have a problem, too.

	Every time I dream up a really alien alien, it promptly falls sick or gets damaged in a space accident and it ends up becoming a problem for Sector Twelve General Hospital.

-

ACCIDENT

	Retlin complex was Nidia's largest air terminal, its only spaceport, and, MacEwan thought cynically, its most popular zoo. The main concourse was thronged with furry native airline passengers, sightseers, and ground personnel, but the thickest crowd was outside the transparent walls of the off-planet departure lounge where Nidians of all ages jostled each other in their eagerness to see the waiting space travelers.

	But the crowd parted quickly before the Corpsmen escorting MacEwan and his companion—no native would risk giving offense to an offworlder by making even accidental bodily contact. From the departure lounge entrance, the two were directed to a small office whose transparent walls darkened into opacity at their approach.

	The man facing them was a full colonel and the ranking Monitor Corps officer on Nidia, but until they had seated themselves he remained standing, respectfully, as befitted one who was meeting for the first time the great Earth-human MacEwan and the equally legendary Orligian Grawlya-Ki. He remained on his feet for a moment longer while he looked with polite disapproval at their uniforms, torn and stained relics of an almost forgotten war, then he glanced toward the solidograph that occupied one corner of his desk and sat down.

	Quietly he began, "The planetary assembly has decided that you are no longer welcome on Nidia, and you are requested to leave at once. My organization, which is the closest thing we have to a neutral extra-planetary police force, has been asked to implement this request. I would prefer that you leave without the use of physical coercion. I am sorry. This is not pleasant for me, either, but I have to say that I agree with the Nidians. Your peacemongering activities of late have become much too ... warlike."

	Grawlya-Ki's chest swelled suddenly, making its stiff, spikey fur rasp dryly against the old battle harness, but the Orligian did not speak. MacEwan said tiredly, "We were just trying to make them understand that—"

	"I know what you were trying to do," the colonel broke in, "but half wrecking a video studio during a rehearsal was not the way to do it. Besides, you know as well as I do that your supporters were much more interested in taking part in a riot than in promulgating your ideas. You simply gave them an excuse to—"

	"The play glamorized war," MacEwan said.

	The Monitor's eyes flickered toward the solidograph, then back to Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan again. His tone softened. "I'm sorry, believe me, but you will have to leave. I cannot force it, but ideally you should return to your home planets, where you could relax and live out your remaining years in peace. Your wounds must have left mental scars and you may require psychiatric assistance; and, well, I think both of you deserve some of the peace that you want so desperately for everyone else."

	When there was no response, the colonel sighed and said, "Where do you want to go this time?"

	"Traltha," MacEwan said.

	The Monitor looked surprised. "That is a hot, high-gravity, heavily industrialized world, peopled by lumbering six-legged elephants who are hard-working, peace-loving, and culturally stable. There hasn't been a war on Traltha for a thousand years. You would be wasting your time there, and feeling very uncomfortable while doing so, but it's your choice."

	"On Traltha," MacEwan said, "commercial warfare never stops. One kind of war can lead to another."

	The colonel made no attempt to disguise his impatience. "You are frightening yourselves without reason, and, in any case, maintaining the peace is our concern. We do it quietly, discreetly, by keeping potentially troublesome entities and situations under observation, and by making the minimum response early, before things can get out of control. We do a good job, if I do say so myself. But Traltha is not a danger, now or in the foreseeable future." He smiled. "Another war between Orligia and Earth would be more likely."

	"That will not happen, Colonel," Grawlya-Ki said, its modulated growling forming a vaguely threatening accompaniment to the accent-less speech coming from its translator pack. "Former enemies who have beaten hell out of each other make the best friends. But there has to be an easier way of making friends."

	Before the officer could reply, MacEwan went on quickly, "I understand what the Monitor Corps is doing, Colonel, and I approve. Everybody does. It is rapidly becoming accepted as the Federation's executive and law-enforcement arm. But it can never become a truly multispecies service. Its officers, of necessity, will be almost entirely Earth-human. With so much power entrusted to one species—"

	"We are aware of the danger," the colonel broke in. Defensively he went on, "Our psychologists are working on the problems, and our people are highly trained in e-t cultural contact procedures. And we have the authority to ensure that the members of every ship's crew making other-species contacts are similarly trained. Everyone is aware of the danger of uttering or committing an unthinking word or action which could be construed as hostile, and of what might ensue. We lean over backward in our efforts not to give offense. You know that."

	The colonel was first and foremost a policeman, MacEwan thought, and like a good policeman he resented any criticism of his service. What was more, his irritation with the two aging war veterans was rapidly reaching the point where the interview would be terminated. Take it easy, he warned himself, this man is not an enemy.

	Aloud he said, "The point I'm trying to make is that leaning over backward is an inherently unstable position, and this hyperpoliteness where extraterrestrials are concerned is artificial, even dishonest. The tensions generated must ultimately lead to trouble, even between the hand-picked and highly intelligent entities who are the only people allowed to make off-planet contacts. This type of contact is too narrow, too limited. The member species of the Federation are not really getting to know and trust each other, and they never will until contact becomes more relaxed and natural. As things are it would be unthinkable to have even a friendly argument with an extraterrestrial.

	"We must get to really know them, Colonel," MacEwan went on quickly. "Well enough not to have to be so damnably polite all the time. If a Tralthan jostles a Nidian or an Earth-human, we must know the being well enough to tell it to watch where it's going and to call it any names which seem appropriate to the occasion. We should expect the same treatment if the fault is ours. Ordinary people, not a carefully selected and trained star-traveling elite, must get to know offworlders well enough to be able to argue or even to quarrel nonviolently with them, without—"

	"And that," the Monitor said coldly, rising to his feet, "is the reason you are leaving Nidia. For disturbing the peace."

	Hopelessly, MacEwan tried again. "Colonel, we must find some common ground on which the ordinary citizens of the Federation can meet. Not just because of scientific and cultural exchanges or interstellar trade treaties. It must be something basic, something we all feel strongly about, an idea or a project that we can really get together on. In spite of our much-vaunted Federation and the vigilance of your Monitor Corps, perhaps because of that vigilance, we are not getting to know each other properly. Unless we do, another war is inevitable. But nobody worries. You've all forgotten how terrible war is."

	He broke off as the colonel pointed slowly to the solidograph on his desk, then brought the hand back to his side again. "We have a constant reminder," he said.

	After that the colonel would say no more, but remained standing stiffly at attention until Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan left the office.

	The departure lounge was more than half filled with tight, exclusive little groups of Tralthans, Melfans, Kelgians, and Illensans. There was also a pair of squat, tentacular, heavy-gravity beings who were apparently engaged in spraying each other with paint, and which were a new life-form to MacEwan. A teddybearlike Nidian wearing the blue sash of the nontechnical ground staff moved from behind them to escape the spray, but otherwise ignored the creatures.

	There was some excuse for the chlorine-breathing Illensans to keep to themselves: the loose, transparent material of their protective envelopes looked fragile. He did not know anything about the paint-spraying duo, but the others were all warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms with similar pressure and gravity requirements, and they should, at least, have been acknowledging each others presence even if they did not openly display the curiosity they must be feeling toward each other. Angrily, MacEwan turned away to examine the traffic movements display.

	There was an Illensan factory ship in orbit, a great, ungainly non-lander whose shuttle had touched down a few minutes earlier, and a Nidian ground transporter fitted with the chlorine breathers' life-support was on the way in to pick up passengers. Their Tralthan-built and -crewed passenger ship was nearly ready to board and stood on its apron on the other side of the main aircraft runway. It was one of the new ships which boasted of providing comfortable accommodation for six different oxygen-breathing species, but degrees of comfort were relative, and MacEwan, Grawlya-Ki and the other non-Tralthans in the lounge would shortly be judging it for themselves.

	Apart from the Illensan shuttle and the Tralthan vessel, the only traffic was the Nidian atmosphere craft which took off and landed every few minutes. They were not large aircraft, but they did not need to be to hold a thousand Nidians. As the aircraft differed only in their registration markings, it seemed that the same machine was endlessly taking off and landing.

	Angry because there was nothing else in the room to engage his attention fully, and because it occupied such a prominent position in the center of the lounge that all eyes were naturally drawn to it, MacEwan turned finally to look once again at that frightful and familiar tableau.

	Grawlya-Ki had already done so and was whining softly to itself.

	It was a life-sized replica of the old Orligian war memorial, one of the countless thousands of copies which occupied public places of honor or appeared in miniature on the desks or in the homes of responsible and concerned beings on every world of the Federation. The original had stood within its protective shield in the central plaza of Orligia's capital city for more than two centuries, during which a great many native and visiting entities of sensitivity and intelligence had tried vainly to describe its effect upon them.

	For that war memorial was no aesthetic marble poem in which godlike figures gestured defiance or lay dying nobly with limbs arranged to the best advantage. Instead it consisted of an Orligian and an Earthman, surrounded by the shattered remnants of a control room belonging to a type of ship now long obsolete.

	The Orligian was standing crouched forward, the fur of its chest and face matted with blood. A few yards away lay the Earth-human, very obviously dying. The front of his uniform was in shreds, revealing the ghastly injuries he had sustained. Abdominal organs normally concealed by skin, layers of subcutaneous tissue and muscle were clearly visible. Yet this man, who had no business being alive, much less being capable of movement, was struggling toward the Orligian.

	Two combatants amid the wreckage of a warship trying to continue their battle hand-to-hand?

	The dozens of plaques spaced around the base of the tableau described the incident in all the written languages of the Federation.

	They told of the epic, single-ship duel between the Orligian and the Earth-human commanders. So evenly matched had they been that, their respective crew members dead, their ships shot to pieces, armaments depleted and power gone, they had crash-landed close together on a world unknown to both of them. The Orligian, anxious to learn all it could regarding enemy ship systems, and driven by a more personal curiosity about its opponent, had boarded the wrecked Earth ship. They met.

	For them the war was over, because the terribly wounded Earth-human did not know when he was going to die and the Orligian did not know when, if ever, its distress signal would bring rescuers. The distant, impersonal hatred they had felt toward each other was gone, dissipated by the six-hour period of maximum effort that had been their duel, and was replaced by feelings of mutual respect for the degree of professional competence displayed. So they tried to communicate, and succeeded.

	It had been a slow, difficult, and extraordinarily painful process for both of them, but when they did talk they held nothing back. The Orligian knew that any verbal insubordination it might utter would die with this Earth-human, who in turn sensed the other's sympathy and was in too much pain to care about the things he said about his own superiors. And while they talked the Earth-human learned something of vital importance, an enemy's-eye view of the simple, stupid, and jointly misunderstood incident which had been responsible for starting the war in the first place.

	It had been during the closing stages of this conversation that an Orligian ship which chanced to be in the area had landed and, after assessing the situation, used its Stopper on the Earth wreck.

	Even now the operating principles of the Orligian primary space weapon were unclear to MacEwan. The weapon was capable of enclosing a small ship, or vital sections of a large one, within a field of stasis in which all motion stopped. Neither the ships nor their crew were harmed physically, but if someone so much as scratched the surface of one of those Stopped hulls or tried to slip a needle into the skin of one of the Stopped personnel, the result was an explosion of near-nuclear proportions.

	But the Orligian stasis field projector had peaceful as well as military applications.

	With great difficulty the section of control room and the two Stopped bodies it contained had been moved to Orligia, to occupy the central square of the planetary capital as the most gruesomely effective war memorial ever known, for 236 years. During that time the shaky peace which the two frozen beings had brought about between Orligia and Earth ripened into friendship, and medical science progressed to the point where the terribly injured Earth-human could be saved. Although its injuries had not been fatal, Grawlya-Ki had insisted on being Stopped with its friend so that it could see MacEwan cured for itself.

	And then the two greatest heroes of the war, heroes because they had ended it, were removed from stasis, rushed to a hospital, and cured. For the first time, it was said, the truly great of history would receive the reward they deserved from posterity—and that was the way it had happened, just over thirty years ago.

	Since then the two heroes, the only two entities in the whole Federation with direct experience of war, had grown increasingly monomaniacal on the subject until the honor and respect accorded them had gradually changed to reactions of impatience and embarrassment.

	"Sometimes, Ki," MacEwan said, turning away from the frozen figures of their former selves, "I wonder if we should give up and try to find peace of mind like the colonel said. Nobody listens to us anymore, yet all we are trying to tell them is to relax, to take off their heavy, bureaucratic gauntlets when extending the hand of friendship, and to speak and react honestly so that—"

	"I am aware of the arguments," Grawlya-Ki broke in, "and the completely unnecessary restatement of them, especially to one who shares your feelings in this matter, is suggestive of approaching senility."

	"Listen, you mangy, overgrown baboon!" MacEwan began furiously, but the Orligian ignored him.

	"And senility is a condition which cannot be successfully treated by the colonel's psychiatrists," it went on. "Neither, I submit, can they give psychiatric assistance to minds which are otherwise sane. As for my localized loss of fur, you are so lacking in male hormones that you can only grow it on your head and—"

	"And your females grow more fur than you do," MacEwan snapped back, then stopped.

	He had been conned again.

	Since that first historic meeting in MacEwan's wrecked control room they had grown to know each other very well. Grawlya-Ki had assessed the present situation, decided that MacEwan was feeling far too depressed for his own good, and instituted curative treatment in the form of a therapeutic argument combined with subtle reassurance regarding their sanity. MacEwan smiled.

	"This frank and honest exchange of views," he said quietly, "is distressing the other travelers. They probably think the Earth-Orligian war is about to restart, because they would never dream of saying such things to each other."

	"But they do dream," Grawlya-Ki said, its mind going off at one of its peculiarly Orligian tangents. "All intelligent life-forms require periods of unconsciousness during which they dream. Or have nightmares."

	"The trouble is," MacEwan said, "they don't share our particular nightmare."

	Grawlya-Ki was silent. Through the transparent outer wall of the lounge it was watching the rapid approach of the ground transporter from the Illensan shuttle. The vehicle was a great, multi-wheeled silver bullet distinctively marked to show that it was filled with chlorine, and tipped with a transparent control module whose atmosphere was suited to its Nidian driver. MacEwan wondered why all of the smaller intelligent life-forms, regardless of species, had a compulsion to drive fast. Had he stumbled upon one of the great cosmic truths?

	"Maybe we should try a different approach," the Orligian said, still watching the transporter. "Instead of trying to frighten them with nightmares, we should find them a pleasant and inspiring dream to—What is that idiot doing?"

	The vehicle was still approaching at speed, making no attempt to slow or turn so as to present its transfer lock to the lounge's exit port for breathers of toxic atmospheres. All of the waiting travelers were watching it now, many of them making noises which did not translate.

	The driver is showing off, MacEwan thought. Reflected sunlight from the canopy obscured the occupant. It was not until the transporter ran into the shadow of the terminal building that MacEwan saw the figure of the driver slumped face downward over its control console, but by then it was too late for anyone to do anything.

	Built as it was from tough, laminated plastic nearly a foot thick, the transparent wall bulged inward but did not immediately shatter as the nose of the vehicle struck. The control module and its occupant were instantly flattened into a thin pancake of riven metal, tangled wiring, and bloody Nidian fur. Then the transporter broke through.

	When the driver had collapsed and lost control, the automatic power cutoff and emergency braking systems must have been triggered. But in spite of its locked wheels the transporter skidded ponderously on, enlarging the original break in the transparent wall and losing sections of its own external plating in the process. It plowed through the neat rows of Tralthan, Melfan, Kelgian, and Illensan furniture. The heavy, complex structures were ripped from their floor mountings and hurled aside along with the beings unfortunate enough to still be occupying them. Finally the transporter ground to a halt against one of the building's roof support pillars, which bent alarmingly but did not break. The shock brought down most of the lounge's ceiling panels and with them a choking, blinding cloud of dust.

	All around MacEwan extraterrestrials were coughing and floundering about and making untranslatable noises indicative of pain and distress, Grawlya-Ki included. He blinked dust out of his eyes and saw that the Orligian was crouched, apparently uninjured, beside the transporter. Both of its enormous, furry hands were covering its face, and it looked as if it would shake itself apart with the violence of its coughing. MacEwan kicked loose debris out of the way and moved toward it. Then his eyes began to sting and, just in time, he covered his mouth and nose to keep from inhaling the contaminated air.

	Chlorine!

	With his free hand he grasped the Orligian's battle harness and began dragging it away from the damaged vehicle, wondering angrily why he was wasting his time. If the internal pressure hull had been ruptured, the whole lounge would be rendered uninhabitable to oxygen breathers within a few minutes—the Illensans' higher-pressure chlorine atmosphere would see to that. Then he stumbled against a low, sprawling, membraneous body which was hissing and twitching amid the debris, and realized that it was not only the damaged vehicle which was responsible for the contamination.

	The Illensan must have been hit by the transporter and flung against a Kelgian relaxer frame, which had collapsed. One of the support struts had snagged the chlorine breather's pressure envelope, ripping it open along the entire length of the body. The oxygen-rich atmosphere was attacking the unprotected body, coating the skin with a powdery, sickly blue organic corrosion which was thickest around the two breathing orifices. All body movement ceased as MacEwan watched, but he could still hear a loud hissing sound.

	Still keeping his mouth and nostrils sealed with one hand, he used the other to feel along the Illensans body and pressure envelope. His eyes were stinging even though they were now tightly shut.

	The creature's skin felt hot, slippery, and fibrous, with patterns of raised lines which made it seem that the whole body was covered by the leaves of some coarse-textured plant, and there were times when MacEwan did not know whether he was touching the skin or the ruptured pressure suit. The sound of the pulse in his head was incredible, like a constant, thudding explosion, and the constriction in his chest was fast reaching the stage where he was ready to inhale even chlorine to stop that fiery, choking pain in his lungs. But he fought desperately not to breathe, pressing his hand so tightly against his face that his nose began to bleed.

	After what seemed like a couple of hours, he felt the shape of a large cylinder with a hose connection and strange-feeling bumps and projections at one end—the Illensans air tank. He pulled and twisted desperately at controls designed for the spatulate digits of an Illensan, and suddenly the hiss of escaping chlorine ceased.

	He turned and staggered away, trying to get clear of the localized cloud of toxic gas so he could breathe again. But he had gone only a few yards when he tripped and fell into a piece of broken e-t furniture covered by a tangle of plastic drapery which had been used to decorate the lounge. His free arm kept him from injuring himself, but it was not enough to enable him to escape from the tangle of tubing and plastic which had somehow wrapped itself around his feet. He opened his eyes and shut them again hastily as the chlorine stung them. With such a high concentration of gas he could not risk opening his mouth to shout for help. The noise inside his head was unbelievable. He felt himself slipping into a roaring, pounding blackness, and there was a tight band gripping and squeezing his chest.

	There was something gripping his chest. He felt it lifting him, shaking him free of the debris entangling his arm and legs, and holding him aloft while it carried him for an unknown distance across the lounge. Suddenly he felt his feet touch the floor, and he opened his eyes and mouth.

	The smell of chlorine was still strong but he could breathe and see. Grawlya-Ki was standing a few feet away, looking concerned and pointing at the blood bubbling from his nose, and one of the two paint-spraying extraterrestrials was detaching one of its thick, iron-hard tentacles from around his chest. He was too busy just breathing again to be able to say anything.

	"I apologize most abjectly and sincerely," his rescuer boomed over the sounds being made by the injured all around them, "if I have in any fashion hurt you, or subjected you to mental trauma or embarrassment by making such a gross and perhaps intimate physical contact with your body. I would not have dared touch you at all had not your Orligian friend insisted that you were in grave danger and requested that I lift you clear. But if I have given offense—"

	"You have not given offense," MacEwan broke in. "On the contrary, you have saved my life at great risk to your own. That chlorine is deadly stuff to all us oxygen breathers. Thank you."

	It was becoming difficult to speak without coughing because the cloud of gas from the dead Illensan's suit was spreading, and Grawlya-Ki was already moving away. MacEwan was about to follow when the creature spoke again.

	"I am in no immediate danger." Its eyes glittered at him from behind their hard, organic shields as it went on. "I am a Hudlar, Earthperson. My species does not breathe, but absorbs sustenance directly from our atmosphere, which, near the planetary surface, is analogous to a thick, high-pressure, semigaseous soup, Apart from requiring our body surface to be sprayed at frequent intervals with a nutrient paint, we are not inconvenienced by any but the most corrosive of atmospheres, and we can even work for lengthy periods in vacuum conditions on orbital construction projects.

	"I am glad to have been of assistance, Earthperson," the Hudlar ended, "but I am not a hero."

	"Nevertheless I am grateful," MacEwan shouted, then stopped moving away. He waved his hand, indicating the lounge, which resembled a battlefield rather than a luxurious departure point for the stars, and started coughing. Finally he was able to say, "Pardon me, please, if I am being presumptuous, but is it possible for you to similarly assist the other beings who have been immobilized by their injuries and are in danger of asphyxiation?"

	The second Hudlar had joined them, but neither spoke. Grawlya-Ki was waving at him and pointing toward the transparent wall of the colonel's office, where the Monitor Corps officer was also gesticulating urgently.

	"Ki, will you find out what he wants?" MacEwan called to the Orligian. To the first Hudlar he went on, "You are understandably cautious in the matter of physically handling members of another species, lest you inadvertently give offense, and in normal circumstances this would be wholly admirable and the behavior of a being of sensitivity and intelligence. But this is not a normal situation, and it is my belief that any accidental physical intimacy committed on the injured would be forgiven when the intention is purely to give assistance. In these circumstances a great many beings could die who would otherwise—"

	"Some of them will die of boredom or old age," the second Hudlar said suddenly, "if we continue to waste time with unnecessary politeness. Plainly we Hudlars have a physical advantage here. What is it you wish us to do?"

	"I apologize most abjectly for my lifemate's ill-considered and hasty remarks, Earth-human," the first Hudlar said quickly. "And for any offense they may have given."

	"No need. None taken," MacEwan said, laughing in sheer relief until the chlorine turned it into a cough. He considered prefacing his instructions with advance apologies for any offense he might inadvertently give to the Hudlars, then decided that that would be wasting more time. He took a deep, careful breath and spoke.

	"The chlorine level is still rising around that transporter. Would one of you remove heavy debris from casualties in the area affected and move them to the entrance to the boarding tunnel, where they can be moved into the tunnel itself if the level continues to rise. The other should concentrate on rescuing Illensans by lifting them into their transporter. There is a lock antechamber just inside the entry port, and hopefully some of the less seriously injured chlorine breathers will be able to get them through the lock and give them first aid inside. The Orligian and myself will try to move the casualties not immediately in danger from the chlorine, and open the boarding tunnel entrance. Ki, what have you got there?"

	The Orligian had returned with more than a dozen small cylinders, with breathing masks and straps attached, cradled in both arms. It said, "Fire-fighting equipment. The colonel directed me to the emergency locker. But it's Nidian equipment. The masks won't fit very well, and with some of these beings they won't fit at all. Maybe we can hold them in position and—"

	"This aspect of the problem does not concern us," the first Hudlar broke in. "Earthperson, what do we do with casualties whose injuries might be compounded by the assistance of well-meaning rescuers ignorant of the physiology of the being concerned?"

	MacEwan was already tying a cylinder to his chest, passing the attachment over one shoulder and under the opposite armpit because the Nidian straps were too short to do otherwise. He said grimly, "We will have that problem, too."

	"Then we will use our best judgment," the second Hudlar said, moving ponderously toward the transporter, followed closely by its life-mate.

	"That isn't the only problem," Grawlya-Ki said as it, too, attached a cylinder to its harness. "The collision cut our communications, and the colonel can't tell the terminal authorities about the situation in here, nor does he know what the emergency services are doing about it. He also says that the boarding tunnel entrance won't open while there is atmospheric contamination in the lounge—it is part of the safety system designed to contain such contamination so that it won't spread along the boarding tunnel to the waiting ship or into the main concourse. The system can be overridden at this end, but only by a special key carried by the Nidian senior ground staff member on duty in the lounge. Have you seen this being?"

	"Yes," MacEwan said grimly. "It was standing at the exit port just before the crash. I think it is somewhere underneath the transporter."

	Grawlya-Ki whined quietly, then went on, "The colonel is using his personal radio to contact a docked Monitor Corps vessel to try to patch into the port network that way, but so far without effect. The Nidian rescue teams are doing all the talking and are not listening to outsiders. But if he gets through he wants to know what to tell them. The number and condition of the casualties, the degree of contamination, and optimum entry points for the rescue teams. He wants to talk to you."

	"I don't want to talk to him," MacEwan said. He did not know enough to be able to make a useful situation report, and until he did their time could be used to much better effect than worrying out loud to the colonel. He pointed to an object which looked like a gray, blood-stained sack which twitched and made untranslatable sounds, and said, "That one first."

	The injured Kelgian was difficult to move, MacEwan found, especially when there was just one Orligian arm and two human ones to take the weight. Grawlya-Ki's mask was such a bad fit that it had to hold it in position. The casualty was a caterpillar-like being with more than twenty legs and an overall covering of silvery fur now badly blood-stained. But the body, although no more massive than that of a human, was completely flaccid. There seemed to be no skeleton, no bony parts at all except possibly in the head section, but it felt as though there were wide, concentric bands of muscle running the length of the body just underneath the fur.

	It rolled and flopped about so much that by the time he had raised it from the floor, supporting its head and midsection between his outstretched arms and chest—Grawlya-Ki had the tail gripped between its side and free arm—one of the wounds began bleeding. Because MacEwan was concentrating on holding the Kelgian's body immobile as they moved it toward the boarding tunnel entrance, his mind was not on his feet; they became tangled in a piece of decorative curtain, and he fell to his knees. Immediately the Kelgian's blood began to well out at an alarming rate.

	"We should do something about that," the Orligian said, its voice muffled by the too-small mask. "Any ideas?"

	The Service had taught MacEwan only the rudiments of first aid, because casualties in a space war tended to be explosive decompressions and rarely if ever treatable, and what little he had learned applied to beings of his own species. Serious bleeding was controlled by cutting off the supply of blood to the wound with a tourniquet or local pressure. The Kelgian's circulatory system seemed to be very close to its skin, possibly because those great, circular bands of muscle required lots of blood. But the position of the veins was hidden by the being's thick fur. He thought that a pad and tight bandages were the only treatment possible. He did not have a pad and there was no time to go looking for one, but there was a bandage of sorts still wrapped loosely around his ankle.

	He kicked the length of plastic curtain off his foot, then pulled about two meters free of the pile of debris which had fallen with it. The stuff was tough and he needed all his strength to make a transverse tear in it, but it was wide enough to cover the wound with several inches to spare. With the Orligian's help he held the plastic in position over the wound and passed the two ends around the cylindrical body, knotting them very tightly together.

	Probably the makeshift bandage was too tight, and where it passed around the Kelgian's underside it was pressing two sets of the being's legs against the underbelly in a direction they were not, perhaps, designed to bend, and he hated to think of what the dust and dirt adhering to the plastic might be doing to that open wound.

	The same thought must have been going through the Orligian's head, because it said, "Maybe we'll find another Kelgian who isn't too badly hurt and knows what to do."

	But it was a long time before they found another Kelgian—at least, it felt like an hour even though the big and, strangely, still-functioning lounge clock, whose face was divided into concentric rings marked off in the time units of the major Federation worlds, insisted that it was only ten minutes.

	One of the Hudlars had lifted wreckage from two of the crablike Melfans, one of whom was coherent, seemingly uninjured but unable to see because of the chlorine or dust. Grawlya-Ki spoke reassuringly to it and led it away by grasping a thick, fleshy projection, purpose unknown, growing from its head. The other Melfan made loud, untranslatable noises. Its carapace was cracked in several places, and of the three legs which should have supported it on one side, two were limp and useless and one was missing altogether.

	MacEwan bent down quickly and slipped his hands and lower arms under the edge of the carapace between the two useless legs and lifted until the body was at its normal walking height. Immediately the legs on the other side began moving slowly. MacEwan sidled along at the same pace, supporting the injured side and guiding the Melfan around intervening wreckage until he was able to leave it beside its blinded colleague.

	He could think of nothing more to do for it, so he rejoined the Hudlar excavating among the heavier falls of debris.

	They uncovered three more Melfans, injured but ambulatory, who were directed to the boarding tunnel entrance, and a pair of the elephantine, six-legged Tralthans who appeared to be uninjured but were badly affected by the gas which was still leaking steadily from the transporter. MacEwan and Grawlya-Ki each held a Nidian breathing mask to one breathing orifice and yelled at them to close the other. Then they tried desperately not to be trampled underfoot as they guided the Tralthans to the casualty assembly point. Then they uncovered two more of the Kelgian caterpillars, one of whom had obviously bled to death from a deep tear in its flank. The other had five of its rearmost sets of legs damaged, rendering it immobile, but it was conscious and able to cooperate by holding its body rigid while they carried it back to the others.

	When MacEwan asked the being if it could help the earlier Kelgian casualty he had tried to bandage, it said that it had no medical training and could think of nothing further to do.

	There were more walking, wriggling, and crawling wounded released from the wreckage to join the growing crowd of casualties at the tunnel entrance. Some of them were talking but most were making loud, untranslatable noises which had to be of pain. The sounds made by the casualties still trapped by fallen wreckage were slight by comparison.

	The Hudlars were working tirelessly and often invisibly in a cloud of self-created dust, but now they seemed to be uncovering only organic wreckage of which there was no hope of salvage. There was another Kelgian who had bled spectacularly to death; two, or it may have been three,

	Melfans with crushed and shattered carapaces and broken limbs; and a Tralthan who had been smashed flat by a collapsing roof beam and was still trying to move.

	MacEwan was afraid to touch any of them in case they fell apart in his hands, but he could not be absolutely sure that they were beyond help. He had no idea of their ability to survive major injury, or whether specialized medical intervention could save them if taken in time. He felt angry and useless, and the chlorine was beginning to penetrate his face mask.

	"This being appears to be uninjured," the Hudlar beside them said. It had lifted a heavy table from a Tralthan which was lying on its side, its six massive legs twitching feebly and its domelike brain casing, multiple eye-trunk, and thick, leathery hide free of any visible signs of damage. "Could it be that it is troubled only by the toxic gas?"

	"You're probably right," MacEwan said. He and Grawlya-Ki pressed Nidian masks over the Tralthans breathing orifices. Several minutes passed with no sign of improvement in its condition. MacEwan's eyes were stinging even though he, like the Orligian, was using one hand to press the mask tightly against his face. Angrily, he said, "Have you any other ideas?"

	The anger was directed at his own helplessness, and he felt like kicking himself for taking it out on the Hudlar. He could not tell the two beings apart, only that one tended to sound worried, long-winded, and overly polite, while its lifemate was more forthright. This one, luckily, was the former.

	"It is possible that its injuries are to the flank lying against the floor and are presently invisible to us," the Hudlar said ponderously. "Or that the being, which is a squat, heavy-gravity creature with certain physical similarities to myself, is seriously inconvenienced by being laid on its side. While we Hudlars can work comfortably in weightless conditions, gravity if present must act downward, or within a very short time serious and disabling organ displacement occurs. There is also the fact that all Tralthan ships use an artificial gravity system with multiple failsafe backup, which is just one of the reasons for the dependability and popularity of Tralthan-built ships. This suggests that a lateral gravity pull must be avoided by them at all costs, and that this particular being is—"

	"Stop talking about it," the second Hudlar said, joining them, "and lift the thing."

	The Hudlar extended its forward pair of tentacles and, bracing itself with the other four in front of the Tralthans weakly moving feet, slid them over the creature's back and insinuated them between the floor and its other flank. MacEwan watched as the tentacles tightened, took the strain, and began to quiver. But the body did not move, and the other Hudlar positioned itself to assist.

	MacEwan was surprised, and worried. He had seen those tentacles, which served as both ambulatory and manipulatory appendages, lifting beams, major structural members, and large masses of wreckage seemingly without effort. They were beautifully evolved limbs, immensely strong and with thick, hardened pads forming a knuckle on which the being walked while the remainder of the tentacle—the thinner, more flexible half tipped with a cluster of specialized digits—was carried curled inward against its underside. The Tralthan they were trying to move was roughly the mass of an Earthly baby elephant, and the combined efforts of both Hudlars were shifting it only slightly.

	"Wait," MacEwan said urgently. "Both of you have lifted much heavier weights. I think the Tralthan is caught, perhaps impaled on a structural projection, and you cannot move it because—"

	"We cannot move it," the polite Hudlar said, "because we have been expending large amounts of energy after insufficient sustenance. Absorption of our last meal, which was overdue in any case, was halted by the accident after the process was scarcely begun. We are as weak as infants, as are you and your Orligian friend. But if you would both go to the other side of the being and push, your strength, puny as it is, might make a difference."

	Perhaps it wasn't the polite one, MacEwan thought as he and Grawlya-Ki did as suggested. He wanted to apologize to the Hudlars for assuming that they were simply organic pieces of heavy rescue machinery whose capabilities he had taken for granted. But he and Grawlya-Ki had their shoulders under the side of the Tralthan's cranial dome, their puny efforts were making a difference, and, unlike Hudlars, MacEwan needed breath with which to speak.

	The Tralthan came upright, rocked unsteadily on its six widely spaced feet, then was guided toward the other casualties by the Orligian. Sweat as well as chlorine was in MacEwan's eyes, so he did not know which Hudlar spoke, but presumably it had been the one engaged in lifting injured Illensans into the damaged transporter.

	"I am having difficulty with a chlorine breather, Earthperson," it said. "The being is abusive and will not allow me to touch it. The circumstances call for a very close decision, one I am unwilling to make. Will you speak to it?"

	The area around the transporter had been cleared of casualties with the sole exception of this Illensan, who refused to be moved. The reason it gave MacEwan was that while its injuries were not serious, its pressure envelope had suffered two small ruptures. One of these it had sealed, after a fashion, by grasping the fabric of its envelope around the tear in both manipulators and holding it tightly closed, while the other one it had sealed by lying on it. These arrangements had forced it to increase the internal pressure of the envelope temporarily, so that it no longer had any clear idea of the duration of its chlorine tank and asphyxiation might be imminent. But it did not want to be moved to the relative safety of the transporter, which was also leaking, because that would allow the lethal atmosphere of the lounge to enter its envelope.

	"I would prefer to die of chlorine starvation," it ended forcefully, "than have my breathing passages and lungs instantly corroded by your oxygen. Stay away from me."

	MacEwan swore under his breath but did not approach the Illensan. Where were the emergency rescue teams? Surely they should have been there by now. The clock showed that it had been just over twenty-five Earth minutes since the accident. He could see that the sightseers had been cleared from the lounge's inner wall, to be replaced by a Nidian television crew and some uniformed ground staff who did not appear to be doing anything at all. Outside there were heavy vehicles drawn up and Nidians with backpacks and helmets scurrying around, but his constantly watering eyes and the ever-present plastic hangings kept him from seeing details.

	MacEwan pointed suddenly at the hangings and said to the Hudlars, "Will you tear down a large piece of that plastic material, please, and drape it over the Illensan. Pat it down flat around the being's suit and smooth the folds out toward the edges so as to exclude our air as much as possible. I'll be back in a minute."

	He hurried around the transporter to the first Illensan casualty, whose body had turned a livid, powdery blue and was beginning to disintegrate, and tried to look only at the fastenings of the chlorine tank. It took him several minutes to get the tank free of the body harness, and several times his bare hands touched the dead Illensan's flesh, which crumbled like rotting wood. He knew that oxygen was vicious stuff where chlorine breathers were concerned, but now he could really sympathize with the other Illensan's panic at the thought of being moved in a leaking suit.

	When he returned it was Grawlya-Ki who was smoothing out the plastic around the Illensan, while the two Hudlars were standing clear. One of them said apologetically, "Our movements have become somewhat uncoordinated and the chlorine breather was worried lest we accidentally fall on it. If there is something else we can do—" 

	"Nothing," MacEwan said firmly.

	He turned on the tap of the chlorine tank and slipped it quickly under the plastic sheet and pushed it close to the Illensan. The extra seepage of the gas would make little difference, he thought, because the whole area around the transporter was fast becoming uninhabitable for oxygen breathers. He pressed the tiny mask hard against his face and took a long, careful breath through his nose, and used it to speak to the Hudlars.

	"I have been thoughtless and seemingly ungrateful for the fine work you have been doing here," he said. "There is nothing more that you can do. Please go at once and spray yourselves with the necessary nutrient. You have acted most unselfishly, and I am, as ate we all, most grateful to you."

	The two Hudlars did not move. MacEwan began placing pieces of debris around the edges of the plastic, and the Orligian, who was quick on the uptake, began doing the same. Soon the edges were held tightly against the floor, the gas escaping from the tank was beginning to inflate the plastic, and they had the Illensan in a crude chlorine tent. Still the Hudlars had not moved.

	"The colonel is waving at you again," Grawlya-Ki said. "I would say with impatience."

	"We cannot use our sprayers here, Earthperson," one of the Hudlars said before MacEwan could reply. "The absorption mechanism in our tegument would ingest the toxic gas with our food, and in our species trace amounts of chlorine are lethal. The food sprayers can only be used in a beneficent atmosphere or in airless conditions."

	"Bloody hell!" MacEwan said. When he thought of the way the Hudlars had worked to free the casualties, knowing that their time and available energy was severely limited and letting him assume that they had no problems, he should have had more to say—but that was all that came out. He looked helplessly at Ki, but the Orligian's face was covered by its furry hand holding the ridiculously small mask.

	"With us," the other Hudlar added, "starvation is a rapid process, somewhat akin to asphyxiation in a gas breather. I estimate that we should lose consciousness and die in just under eight of our small time divisions."

	MacEwan's eyes went to the concentric circles of the lounge clock. The Hudlar was talking about the equivalent of about twenty Earth minutes. Somehow they had to get that boarding tunnel open.

	"Go to the tunnel entrance," he said, "and try to conserve your strength. Wait beside the others until—" He broke off awkwardly, then said to the Orligian, "Ki, you'd better get over there as well. There's enough chlorine in the air here to bleach your fur. Keep passing the masks around and—"

	"The colonel," Grawlya-Ki reminded him as it turned to follow the Hudlars. MacEwan waved acknowledgment, but before he could leave the Illensan began speaking, its voice muffled by the fabric of the makeshift chlorine tent.

	"That was an ingenious idea, Earthperson," it said slowly. "There is now a beneficent atmosphere surrounding my pressure envelope, which will enable me to repair the torn fabric and survive until Illensan assistance arrives. Thank you."

	"You're welcome," MacEwan said, and began picking his way over the debris toward the gesticulating figure of the colonel. He was still several meters from the wall when the officer pointed to his ear, then rapped with a knuckle on the interior surface. MacEwan obediently unfastened his mask on one side and pressed an ear against the transparent wall. The other's voice was low and indistinct, even though the color of the colonel's face showed that he was shouting.

	"Listen, MacEwan, and don't try to answer yet," the colonel shouted.

	"We'll have you out of there in fifteen, twenty minutes at most, and you'll have fresh air in ten. Medical help for all of the casualty species is on the way. Everybody on the planet knows about the accident because the TV channels were covering your deportation as a news item, and now this is big news indeed. Their contact mikes and translators are bringing us every word said in there, and the authorities are insisting that every effort be made to speed up the rescue ..."

	Across the lounge Grawlya-Ki was waving a mask and air tank above his head. When the Orligian was sure that MacEwan had seen it, he threw it away. None of the other casualties were wearing masks, so obviously they were useless, their air tanks empty. He wondered how long his own tank would last.

	The equipment had been designed for the diminutive Nidians, whose lungs were less than half the capacity of an Earthperson's. A lot of air had been wasted during the continual passing of masks between the casualties, and the furry face of the Orligian would have allowed air to leak past the edges of its mask, especially if Grawlya-Ki had increased the pressure to exclude the chlorine.

	The colonel had seen the Orligian's action and must have arrived at the same conclusion.

	"Tell them to hang on for just a few more minutes," he went on. "We can't cut a way in from the main concourse because there are too many unprotected people out there. That plastic wall is tough and needs special, high-temperature equipment to cut it, and it won't be available soon enough. Anyway, it reacts with the plastic to produce large quantities of highly toxic fumes, bad enough to make your chlorine problem seem like a bad smell.

	"So they're going in through the hole made by the transporter. There is only a few inches clearance around the vehicle's hull now, but they're going to pull the transporter out backward and you will be brought out through the hole it made and into the fresh air, where the medics will be standing by—"

	MacEwan began banging with his fist and a foot against the plastic to attract the colonel's attention, and breathing as deeply as he could through the mask. He had some shouting to do himself.

	"No!" MacEwan said loudly, putting his mouth as close to the wall as the mask would allow. "All but one of the injured Illensans are inside the transporter. The structure was damaged in the collision and is leaking chlorine from every seam. If you drag it out like that, it is likely to fall apart and the air will get to the casualties. I've seen what exposure to oxygen did to one of them."

	"But if we don't go in there fast the oxygen breathers will die," the colonel replied. His face was no longer red now, but a sickly white.

	MacEwan could almost see the way the officer's mind was working. If the transporter with the chlorine-breathing casualties on board was hauled out and it broke up, the Illensan authorities would not be amused. But neither would the governments of Traltha, Kelgia, Melf, Orligia, and Earth if they did not act quickly to save those people.

	This was how an interstellar war could start.

	With the media covering every incident as it occurred, with their contact mikes picking up every translated word as it was spoken, and with fellow beings of the casualties' species on Nidia watching, judging, feeling, and reacting, there was no possibility of this incident being hushed up or diplomatically smoothed over. The decision to be taken was a simple one: Certain death for seven or eight chlorine-breathing Illensans to possibly save triple that number of Tralthans, Hudlars, Kelgians, and Melfans, many of whom were dying anyway. Or death by chlorine poisoning for the oxygen breathers.

	MacEwan could not make the decision and neither, he saw, could the pale, sweating, and silent colonel trapped inside his office. He banged for attention again and shouted, "Open the boarding tunnel! Blast it open from the other side if you have to. Rig fans or pump in fresh air from the ship to raise the tunnel pressure and keep back this chlorine. Then send the emergency team to this end of the tunnel and open it from the inside. Surely the wiring of the safety system can be short-circuited and—"

	While he was talking, MacEwan was thinking about the distance between the tunnel entrance and the take-off apron. It would take a long time to traverse the tunnel if the fast walkway was not operating. And explosives might not be quickly available in an air and space terminal. Maybe the Monitor Corps vessel in dock could provide some, given time, but the time they had was to be measured in minutes.

	"The safety system is triggered from your end," the colonel broke in. "The other end of the tunnel is too close to the ship for explosives to be used. The vessel would have to take off first and that would waste more time. The system can only be overridden at your end by a special key, carried by the Nidian on lounge duty, which unlocks the cover of the tunnel controls. The cover is transparent and unbreakable. You see, contamination can be a killer in a big complex like this one, especially when you consider that chlorine is mild compared with the stuff some of the offworlders breathe—"

	MacEwan thumped the wall again and said, "The Nidian with the key is buried under the transporter, which can't be moved. And who says the cover is unbreakable? There is bar metal, furniture supports, among the wreckage. If I can't unlock the cover then I'll try levering or bashing it off. Find out what I'm supposed to do when it is off."

	But the colonel was ahead of him. He had already asked the Nidians that same question. In order to make accidental operation impossible for non-Nidian digits, the tunnel controls were in the form of six recessed buttons, which had to be depressed in a certain sequence. MacEwan would have to use a stylus or something similar to operate them because his Earthly fingers were too thick. He listened carefully, signaled that he understood, then returned to the casualties.

	Grawlya-Ki had heard MacEwan's half of the shouted conversation and had found two lengths of metal. It was using one of them to attack the console when he arrived. The metal was a strong-enough alloy, but lacked the necessary weight and inertia. The metal bounced or skidded off the cover every time they swung at it, without leaving a mark.

	Damn the Nidians and their superhard plastics! MacEwan raged. He tried to lever off the cover, but the join was almost invisible and the fastenings were flush with the console pedestal. He swore and tried again.

	The Orligian did not speak because it was coughing all the time now, and the chlorine was affecting its eyes so badly that more often than not its blows missed the console altogether. MacEwan was beginning to feel an impairment in his own air supply, as if the tank was nearly empty and he was sucking at air which was not there, instead drawing in the contaminated air of the lounge through the edges of his mask.

	Around them the casualties were still moving, but jerkily, as if they were struggling in the final stages of asphyxiation. The movements were not helping their injuries. Only the two Hudlars were motionless; their six tentacular limbs supported them just a few inches above the floor. MacEwan raised the metal bar high, stood on his toes, and brought it down as hard as he could.

	He grunted in pain as the shock jarred his arms from wrist to shoulders and the bar slipped out of his hands. He swore again and looked around helplessly.

	The colonel was watching him through his glass-walled office. Through the inner wall of the lounge MacEwan could see the cameras of the Nidian TV networks watching him, listening and recording every word and cough and groan of those inside. Beyond the outer wall, now that the dust had settled and most of the intervening draperies had been pulled down, he could see the crews of the heavy Nidian towing vehicles watching him. He had only to signal to the colonel and the emergency team would drag out the damaged transporter and medics would be attending the casualties within a few minutes.

	But how would the Illensans as a species react to that? They were highly advanced technologically, occupying scores of colony worlds which they had had to adapt to their environmental needs, and, despite being the most widely traveled race in the Federation, they were a virtually unknown quantity because their worlds were so dangerous and unpleasant that few, indeed, were the visitors they received. Would they hold Nidia responsible for the accident and the deaths of their people? Or the worlds of the other warm-blooded oxygen breathers whose people had survived at the expense of the Illensans?

	And if everybody dithered and remained undecided until all but the Illensans had died, how would the world governments of Kelgia, Traltha, Melf, Orligia, and Earth react?

	They would probably not gang up on Illensa, nor would the war start over this incident—not officially. But the seeds would have been planted no matter which races were saved or sacrificed, or even if all of them died. It would start, not because anyone wanted it, but because of a highly improbable accident with a number of contributing factors most of which could have been avoided.

	Even the sudden collapse of the Nidian driver at the controls of the transporter could have been avoided by keeping closer medical checks on the ground staff. It had been sheer bad luck that the incident had happened when it did, and then the too rigidly designed safety system had done the rest. But most of the deaths would occur, MacEwan thought angrily, because of ignorance and fear—everyone was too frightened and over-polite to have asked the offworlders for a few basic lessons in first aid.

	Beside him Grawlya-Ki was on its knees, coughing but still gripping its metal bar. At any moment the colonel would make his decision because MacEwan, the Earth-being on the spot, was too much of a moral coward to make it. But whether the colonel decided to save the Illensans or the others he would be wrong. MacEwan moved closer to one of the motionless Hudlars and waved a hand in front of one of its large, widely spaced eyes.

	For several interminable seconds there was no response. He was beginning to wonder if the being was already dead when it said, "What is it, Earthperson?"

	MacEwan took a deep breath through his nose and found that his air had run out. For a moment he panicked and almost inhaled through his mouth, but stopped himself in time. Using the air remaining in his nearly empty lungs, he pointed to the console cover and said, "Are you able to break open the cover? Just the cover. I can ... operate ... controls ..."

	Desperately he fought the urge to suck the chlorine-laden air into his deflated lungs as the Hudlar slowly extended a tentacle and curled it around the cover. It slipped off the smooth, hemispheric surface. The Hudlar tried again without success, then it withdrew the tentacle slightly and jabbed at it with its sharp, steel-hard digits. A small scratch appeared on the cover but the material showed no sign of cracking. The tentacle withdrew, farther this time.

	There was a roaring in MacEwan's head which was the loudest sound he had ever heard, and big, throbbing patches of darkness obscured the Hudlar as it made another attempt to break through the cover. MacEwan shrugged off his tunic, bunched it tightly in his fist, and pressed it against his mouth as a makeshift filter. With his other hand he pressed the Nidian mask against his face to protect his eyes, at least, from the chlorine. He inhaled carefully and tried not to cough as the Hudlar swung its tentacle back for another try.

	This time it struck like a battering ram and the cover, console, and even the floor supports exploded into their component parts.

	"I am sorry for my clumsiness," the Hudlar said slowly. "Food deprivation impairs my judgment—"

	It broke off as a loud, double chime sounded and the boarding tunnel doors slid open, bathing them suddenly in a wash of cool, pure air. A recorded voice was saying, "Will passengers please mount the moving way of the boarding tunnel and have their travel documents ready for inspection.

	The two Hudlars found enough strength between them to lift the heavier casualties onto the moving way before they got on themselves, after which they began spraying each other with nutrient and making untranslatable noises. By then members of the Nidian emergency services, followed by a couple of Illensan and other offworlder medics, were hurrying in the opposite direction along the static borders of the moving way.

-

	The incident had placed a six-hour hold on the Tralthan ship's departure, time for the less severe casualties to be treated and taken on board while the others were moved to the various offworlder accommodations in the city, where they could be under the close supervision of medics of their own species. The transporter, empty of its Illensan casualties, had been withdrawn and a cold wind from the field blew through the gap in the transparent wall.

	Grawlya-Ki, MacEwan, and the colonel were standing beside the entrance to the boarding tunnel. The multichronometer above them indicated that take-off was less than half an Earth hour away.

	The colonel touched a piece of the demolished console with his boot and did not look at them when he spoke. "You were lucky. We were all lucky. I hate to think of the repercussions if you had failed to get all the casualties away. But you, both of you and the Hudlars, were instrumental in saving all but five of them, and they would have died in any case."

	He gave an embarrassed laugh and looked up. "The offworld medics say some of your ideas on first aid are horrendous in their simplicity, but you didn't kill anybody and actually saved lives. You did it in full view of the media, with all of Nidia and its offworld visitors looking on, and you made your point about closer and more honest contact between species in a way that we are not going to forget. You are heroes again and I think—no, damn it, I'm sure—that you have only to ask and the Nidians will rescind their deportation order."

	"We're going home," MacEwan said firmly. "To Orligia and Earth."

	The colonel looked even more embarrassed. He said, "I can understand your feelings about this sudden change in attitude. But now the authorities are grateful. Everybody, Nidians and offworlders alike, wants to interview you, and you can be sure that your ideas will be listened to. But if you require some form of public apology, I could arrange something."

	MacEwan shook his head. "We are leaving because we have the answer to the problem. We have found the area of common interest to which all offworlders will subscribe, a project in which they will gladly cooperate. The answer was obvious all along but until today we were too stupid to see it."

	"Implementing the solution," he went on, smiling, "is not a job for two tired old veterans who are beginning to bore people. It will take an organization like your Monitor Corps to coordinate the project, the technical resources of half a dozen planets, more money than I can conceive of, and a very, very long time ..."

	As he continued, MacEwan was aware of excited movement among the members of the video team who had stayed behind hoping for an interview with Grawlya-Ki and himself. They would not get an interview but they were recording his final words to the colonel. And when the Orligian and the Earthperson turned to leave, they also got a not very interesting picture of the ranking Monitor Corps officer on Nidia standing very still, with one arm bent double so that the hand was held stiffly against the head. There was an odd brightness in the Earthperson's eyes and an expression on the pink, furless face which they were, naturally, unable to read.

	It took a very long time, much longer than the most generous estimates. The original and relatively modest plans had to be continually extended, because scarcely a decade passed without several newly discovered intelligent species joining the Federation, and these, too, had to be accommodated. So gigantic and complex was the structure required that in the end hundreds of worlds had each fabricated sections of it and transported them like pieces of a vast, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle to the assembly area.

	The tremendous structure which had finally taken shape in Galactic Sector Twelve was a hospital, a hospital to end all hospitals. In its 384 levels were reproduced the environments of all the different life-forms who comprised the Galactic Federation—a biological spectrum ranging from the frigid methane life-forms through the more normal oxygen- and chlorine-breathing types, up to the exotic beings who existed by the direct conversion of hard radiation.

	Sector Twelve General Hospital represented a twofold miracle of engineering and psychology. Its supply, maintenance, and administration were handled by the Monitor Corps, but the traditional friction between the military and civilian members of the staff did not occur. Neither were there any serious disagreements among its ten thousand-odd medical personnel, who were composed of over sixty differing life-forms with the same number of mannerisms, body odors, and life views.

	Perhaps their only common denominator, regardless of size, shape, and number of legs, was [heir need to cure the sick.

	And in the vast dining hall used by the hospital's warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms there was a small dedication plaque just inside the main entrance. The Kelgian, Ian, Melfan, Nidian, Etlan, Orligian, Dwerlan, Tralthan, and Earth-human medical and maintenance staff rarely had time to look at the names inscribed on it, because they were all too busy talking shop, exchanging other-species gossip, and eating at tables with utensils all too often designed for the needs of an entirely different life-form—it was a very busy place, after all, and one grabbed a seat where one could. But then that was the way Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan had wanted it.

MEDIC

Chapter One
	
	The alien occupying O'Mara's sleeping compartment weighed roughly half a ton, possessed six short, thick appendages which served both as arms and legs and had a hide like flexible armor plate. Coming as it did from Hudlar, a four-G world with an atmospheric pressure nearly seven times Earth normal, such ruggedness of physique was to be expected. But despite its enormous strength the being was helpless, O'Mara knew, because it was barely six months old, it had just seen its parents die in a construction accident, and its brain was sufficiently well developed for the sight to have frightened it badly.

	"I've b-b-brought the kid," said Waring, one of the section's tractor-beam operators. He hated O'Mara, and with good reason, but he was trying not to gloat. "C-C-Caxton sent me. He says your leg makes you unfit for normal duty, so you can look after the young one until somebody arrives from its home planet. He's on his way over n-now ..."

	Waring trailed off. He began checking the seals of his spacesuit, obviously in a hurry to get out before O'Mara could mention the accident. "I brought some of its food with me," he ended quickly. "It's in the airlock."

	O'Mara nodded without speaking. He was a young man cursed with the kind of physique which insured him winning every fight he had ever been in, and there had been a great many of them recently, and a face which was as square, heavy and roughly formed as was his over-muscled body. He knew that if he allowed himself to show how much that accident had affected him, Waring would think that he was simply putting on an act. Men who were put together as he was, O'Mara had long ago discovered, were not supposed to have any of the softer emotions.

-

	Immediately Waring departed he went to the airlock for the glorified paint-sprayer with which Hudlarians away from their home planet were fed. While checking the gadget and its spare food tanks he tried to go over the story he would have to tell Caxton when the section chief arrived. Staring moodily through the airlock port at the bits and pieces of the gigantic jigsaw puzzle spread across fifty cubic miles of space outside, he tried to think. But his mind kept ducking away from the accident and slipping instead into generalities and events which were in the far past or future.

	The vast structure which was slowly taking shape in Galactic Sector Twelve, midway between the rim of the parent galaxy and the densely populated systems of the Greater Magellanic Cloud, was to be a hospital—a hospital to end all hospitals. Hundreds of different environments would be accurately reproduced here, any extreme of heat, cold, pressure, gravity, radiation or atmosphere necessary for the patients and staff it would contain. Such a tremendous and complex structure was far beyond the resources of any one planet, so that hundreds of worlds had each fabricated sections of it and transported them to the assembly point.

	But fitting the jigsaw together was no easy job.

	Each of the worlds concerned had their copies of the master plan. But errors occurred despite this—probably through the plan having to be translated into so many different languages and systems of measurement. Sections which should have fitted snugly together very often had to be modified to make them join properly, and this necessitated moving the sections together and apart several times with massed tractor and pressor beams. This was very tricky work for the beam operators, because while the weight of the sections out in space was nil, their mass and inertia was tremendous.

	And anyone unlucky enough to be caught between the joining faces of two sections in the process of being fitted became, no matter how tough a life-form they happened to be, an almost perfect representation of a two-dimensional body.

-

	The beings who had died belonged to a tough species, physiological classification FROB to be exact. Adult Hudlarians weighed in the region of two Earth tons, possessed an incredibly hard but flexible tegument which, as well as protecting them from their own native and external pressures, allowed them to live and work comfortably in any atmosphere of lesser pressure down to and including the vacuum of space. In addition they had the highest radiation tolerance level known, which made them particularly invaluable during power pile assembly.

	The loss of two such valuable beings from his section would, in any case, have made Caxton mad, quite apart from other considerations. O'Mara sighed heavily, decided that his nervous system demanded a more positive release than that, and swore. Then he picked up the feeder and returned to the bedroom.

	Normally the Hudlarians absorbed food directly through their skin from the thick, soupy atmosphere of their planet, but on any other world or in space a concentrated food compound had to be sprayed onto the absorbent hides at certain intervals. The young e-t was showing large bare patches, and in other places the previous food coating had worn very thin. Definitely, thought O'Mara, the infant was due for another feed. He moved as close as seemed safe and began to spray carefully.

	The process of being painted with food seemed to be a pleasant one for the young FROB. It ceased to cower in the corner and began blundering excitedly about the small bedroom. For O'Mara it became a matter of trying to hit a rapidly moving object while practicing violent evasive maneuvers himself, which set his injured leg throbbing more painfully than ever. His furniture suffered, too.

	Practically the whole interior surface of his sleeping compartment was covered with the sticky, sharp-smelling food compound, and also the exterior of the now-quiescent young alien, when Caxton arrived.

	"What's going on?" said the Section Chief.

	Space construction men as a class were simple, uncomplicated personalities whose reactions were easily predictable. Caxton was the type who always asked what was going on even when, as now, he knew—and especially when such unnecessary questions were meant simply to needle somebody. In the proper circumstances the Section Chief was probably a quire likable individual, O'Mara thought, but between Caxton and himself those circumstances had yet to come about.

	O'Mara answered the question without showing the anger he felt, and ended, "... After this I think I'll keep the kid in space, and feed it there ..."

	You will not!" Caxton snapped. "You'll keep it here with you, all the time. But more about that later. At the moment I want to know about the accident. Your side of it, that is."

	His expression said that he was prepared to listen, but that he already doubted every word that O'Mara would say in advance.

-

	"Before you go any further," Caxton broke in after O'Mara had completed two sentences, "you know that this project is under Monitor Corps jurisdiction. Usually the Monitors let us settle any trouble that crops up in our own way, but this case involves extraterrestrials and they'll have to be brought in on it. There'll be an investigation." He tapped the small, flat box hanging from his chest. "It's only fair to warn you that I'm taping everything you say."

	O'Mara nodded and began giving his account of the accident in a low monotone. It was a very weak story, he knew, and stressing any particular incident so as to point it up in his favor would make it sound even more artificial. Several times Caxton opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. Finally he said:

	"But did anyone see you doing these things? Or even see the two e-ts moving about in the danger area while the warning lights were burning? You have a neat little story to explain this madness on their part—which, incidentally, makes you quite a hero—but it could be that you switched on the lights after the accident, that it was your negligence regarding the lights which caused it, and that all this about the straying youngster is a pack of lies designed to get you out of a very serious charge—"

	"Waring saw me," O'Mara cut in.

	Caxton stared at him intently, his expression changing from suppressed anger to one of utter disgust and scorn. Despite himself O'Mara felt his face heating up.

	"Waring, eh?" said the section chief tonelessly. "A nice touch, that. You know, and we all know, that you have been riding Waring constantly, needling him and playing on his disability to such an extent that he must hate you like poison. Even if he did see you, the court would expect him to keep quiet about it. And if he did not see you, they would think that he had and was keeping quiet about it anyway. O'Mara, you make me sick."

	Caxton wheeled and stamped towards the airlock. With one foot through the inner seal he turned again.

	"You're nothing but a trouble-maker, O'Mara," he said angrily, "a surly, quarrelsome lump of bone and muscle with just enough skill to make you worth keeping. You may think that it was technical ability which got you these quarters on your own. It wasn't, you're good but not that good! The truth is that nobody else in my section would share accommodation with you ..."

	The section chief's hand moved to the cut-off switch on his recorder. His voice, as he ended, became a quiet, deadly thing.

	"... And, O'Mara, if you let any harm come to that youngster, if anything happens to it at all, the Monitors won't even get the chance to try you.

	The implications behind those final words were clear, O'Mara thought angrily as the section chief left; he was sentenced to live with this organic half-ton tank for a period that would feel like eternity no matter how short it was. Everybody knew that exposing Hudlarians to space was like putting a dog out for the night—there were no harmful effects at all. But what some people knew and what they felt were two vastly different things, and O'Mara was dealing here with the personalities of simple, uncomplicated, over-sentimental and very angry construction men.

-

	When he had joined the project six months before, O'Mara found that he was doomed again to the performance of a job which, while important in itself, gave him no satisfaction and was far below his capabilities. Since school his life had been a series of such frustrations. Personnel officers could not believe that a young man with such square, ugly features and shoulders so huge that his head looked moronically small by comparison could be interested in subtle subjects like psychology or electronics. He had gone into space in the hope of finding things different, but no. Despite constant efforts during interviews to impress people with his quite considerable knowledge, they were too dazzled by his muscle-power to listen, and his applications were invariably stamped "Approved Suitable for Heavy, Sustained Labor."

	On joining this project he had decided to make the best of what promised to be another boring, frustrating job—he decided to become an unpopular character. As a result his life had been anything but boring. But now he was wishing that he had not been so successful at making himself disliked.

	What he needed most at this moment was friends, and he hadn't a single one.

	O'Mara's mind was dragged back from the dismal past to the even less pleasant present by the sharp, all-pervading, odor of the Hudlarians food compound. Something would have to be done about that, and quickly. He hurriedly got into his lightweight suit and went through the lock.

Chapter Two

	His living quarters were in a tiny sub-assembly which would one day form the theater, surgical ward and adjoining storage compartments of the hospital's low-gravity MSVK section. Two small rooms with a connecting section of corridor had been pressurized and fitted with artificial gravity grids for O'Mara's benefit, the rest of the structure remaining both airless and weightless. He drifted along short, unfinished corridors whose ends were open to space, staring into the bare, angular compartments which slid past. They were all full of trailing plumbing and half-built machinery the purpose of which it was impossible to guess without actually taking an MSVK educator tape. But all the compartments he examined were either too small to hold the alien or they were open in one direction to space. O'Mara swore with restraint but great feeling, pushed himself out to one of the ragged edges of his tiny domain and glared around him.

	Above, below and all around him out to a distance of ten miles floated pieces of hospital, invisible except for the bright blue lights scattered over them as a warning to ship traffic in the area. It was a little like being at the center of a dense globular star cluster, O'Mara thought, and rather beautiful if you were in a mood to appreciate it. He wasn't, because on most of those floating sub-assemblies there were pressor-beam men on watch, placed there to fend off sections which threatened to collide. These men would see and report it to Caxton if O'Mara took his baby alien outside even for feeding.

	The only answer apparently, he told himself disgustedly as he retraced his way, was nose-plugs.

	Inside the lock he was greeted by a noise like a tinny foghorn. It blared out in long, discordant blasts with just enough interval in between to make him dread the arrival of the next one. Investigation revealed bare patches of hide showing through the last coat of food, so presumably his little darling was hungry again. O'Mara went for the sprayer.

	When he had about three square yards covered, there was an interruption. Dr. Pelling arrived.

	The project doctor took off his helmet and gauntlets only, flexed the stiffness out of his fingers and growled, "I believe you hurt your leg. Let's have a look."

	Pelling could not have been more gentle as he explored O'Mara's injured leg, but what he was doing was plainly a duty rather than an act of friendship. His voice was reserved as he said, "Severe bruising and a couple of pulled tendons is all—you were lucky. Rest. I'll give you some, stuff to rub on it. Have you been redecorating?"

	"What ...?" began O'Mara, then saw where the doctor was looking. "That's food compound. The little so-and-so kept moving while I was spraying it. But speaking of the youngster, can you tell me—"

	"No, I can't," said Pelling. "My brain is overloaded enough with the ills and remedies of my own species without my trying to stuff it with FROB physiology tapes. Besides, they're tough—nothing can happen to them!" He sniffed loudly and made a face. "Why don't you keep it outside?"

	"Certain people are too soft-hearted," O'Mara replied bitterly. "They are horrified by such apparent cruelties as lifting kittens by the scruff of the neck ..."

	"Humph," said the doctor, looking almost sympathetic. "Well, that's your problem. See you in a couple of weeks."

	"Wait!" O'Mara called urgently, hobbling after the doctor with one empty trouser leg flapping. "What if something does happen? And there have to be rules about the care and feeding of these things, simple rules. You can't just leave me to ... to ..."

	"I see what you mean," said Pelling. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then went on, "There's a book kicking around my place somewhere, a sort of Hudlarian first aid handbook. But it's printed in Universal ..."

	"I read Universal," said O'Mara.

	Pelling looked surprised. "Bright boy. All right, I'll send it over." He nodded curtly and left.

-

	O'Mara closed the bedroom door in the hope that this might cut down the intensity of the food smell, then lowered himself carefully into the living room couch for what he told himself was a well-deserved rest. He settled his leg so that it ached almost comfortably, and began trying to talk himself into an acceptance of the situation. The best he could achieve was a seething, philosophical calm.

	But he was so weary that even the effort of feeling angry became too much for him. His eyelids dropped and a warm deadness began creeping up from his hands and feet. O'Mara sighed, wriggled, and prepared to sleep ...

	The sound which blasted him out of his couch had the strident, authoritative urgency of all the alarm sirens that ever were and a volume which threatened to blow the bedroom door off its runners. O'Mara grabbed instinctively for his spacesuit, dropped it with a curse as he realized what was happening, then went for the sprayer.

	Junior was hungry again ...!

	During the eighteen hours which followed, it was brought home to O'Mara how much he did not know about infant Hudlarians. He had spoken many times to its parents via translator, and the baby had been mentioned often, but somehow they had not spoken of the important things. Sleep, for instance.

	Judging from recent observation and experience, infant FROBs did not sleep. In the all too short intervals between feeds they blundered around the bedroom smashing all items of furniture which were not metal and bolted down—and these they bent beyond recognition or usefulness— or they huddled in a corner knotting and unknotting their tentacles. Probably this sight of a baby doing the equivalent of playing with its fingers would have brought coos of delight from an adult Hudlarian, but it merely made O'Mara sick and cross-eyed.

	And every two hours, plus or minus a few minutes, he had to feed the brute. If he was lucky it lay quiet, but more often he had to chase it around with the sprayer. Normally FROBs of this age were too weak to move about—but that was under Hudlar's crushing gravity-pull and pressure. Here in conditions which were to it less than one quarter-G, the infant Hudlarian could move. And it was having fun.

	O'Mara wasn't: his body felt like a thick, clumsy sponge saturated with fatigue. After each feed he dropped onto the couch and let his bone-weary body dive blindly into unconsciousness. He was so utterly and completely spent, he told himself after every spraying, that he could not possibly hear the brute the next time it complained—he would be too deeply out. But always that blaring, discordant foghorn jerked him at least half awake and sent him staggering like a drunken puppet through the motions which would end that horrible, mind-wrecking din.

-

	After nearly thirty hours of it O'Mara knew he couldn't take much more. Whether the infant was collected in two days or two months, the result as far as he was concerned would be the same: he would be a raving lunatic. Unless in a weak moment he took a walk outside without his suit. Pelling would never have allowed him to be subjected to this sort of punishment, he knew, but the doctor was an ignoramus where the FROB life-form was concerned. And Caxton, only a little less ignorant, was the simple, direct type who delighted in this sort of violent practical joke, especially when he considered that the victim deserved everything he got.

	But just suppose the section chief was a more devious character than O'Mara had suspected? Suppose he knew exactly what he was sentencing him to by leaving the infant Hudlarian in his charge? O'Mara cursed tiredly, but he had been at it so constantly for the last ten or twelve hours that bad language had ceased to be an emotional safety valve. He shook his head angrily in a vain attempt to dispel the weariness which clogged his brain.

	Caxton wasn't going to get away with it.

	He was the strongest man on the whole project, O'Mara knew, and his reserves of strength must be considerable. All this fatigue and nervous twitching was simply in his mind, he told himself insistently, and a couple of days with practically no sleep meant nothing to his tremendous physique—even after the shaking up he'd received in the accident. And anyway, the present situation with the infant couldn't get any worse, so it must soon begin to improve. He would beat them yet, he swore. Caxton would not drive him mad, or even to the point of calling for help.

	This was a challenge, he insisted with weary determination. Up to now he had bemoaned the fact that no job had fully exploited his capabilities. Well, this was a problem which would tax both his physical stamina, and his deductive processes to the limit. An infant had been placed in his charge, and he intended taking care of it whether it was here for two weeks or two months. What was more, he was going to see that the kid was a credit to him when its foster parents arrived ...

-

	After the forty-eighth hour of the infant FROB's company and the fifty-seventh since he had had a good sleep, such illogical and somewhat maudlin thinking did not seem strange to O'Mara at all.

	Then abruptly there came a change in what O'Mara had accepted as the order of things. The FROB, after complaining, was fed, and refused to shut up!

	O'Mara's first reaction was a feeling of hurt surprise; this was against the rules. They cried, you fed them, they stopped crying—at least for a while. This was so unfair that it left him too shocked and helpless to react.

	The noise was bedlam, with variations. Long, discordant blasts of sound beat over him. Sometimes the pitch and volume varied in an insanely arbitrary manner, and at others it had a grinding, staccato quality as if broken glass had got into its vocal gears. There were intervals of quiet, varying between two seconds and half a minute, during which O'Mara cringed waiting for the next blast. He stuck it out for as long as he could— a matter of ten minutes or so—then he dragged his leaden body off the couch again "What the blazes is wrong with you?" O'Mara roared against the din. The FROB was thoroughly covered by food compound, so it couldn't be hungry.

	Now that the infant had seen him, the volume and urgency of its cries increased. The external, bellows-like flap of muscle on the infant's back—used for sound production only, the FROBs being non-breathers—continued swelling and deflating rapidly. O'Mara jammed the palms of his hands against his ears, an action which did no good at all, and yelled, "Shut up!"

	He knew that the recently orphaned Hudlarian must still be feeling confused and frightened, that the mere process of feeding it could not possibly fulfill all of its emotional needs—he knew all this and felt a deep pity for the being. But these feelings were in some quiet, sane and civilized portion of his mind and divorced from all the pain and weariness and frightful onslaughts of sound currently torturing his body. He was really two people, and while one of him knew the reason for the noise and accepted it, the other—the purely physical O'Mara—reacted instinctively and viciously to stop it.

	"Shut up!SHUT UP!" screamed O'Mara, and started swinging with his fists and feet.

	Miraculously, after about ten minutes of it, the Hudlarian stopped crying.

	O'Mara returned to the couch shaking. For those ten minutes he had been in the grip of a murderous, uncontrollable rage. He had punched and kicked savagely until the pain from his hands and injured leg forced him to stop using those members, but he had gone on kicking and screeching invective with the only other weapons left to him, his good leg and tongue. The sheer viciousness of what he had done shocked and sickened him.

	It was no good telling himself that the Hudlarian was tough and might not have felt the beating; the infant had stopped crying, so he must have got through to it somehow. Admittedly Hudlarians were hard and tough, but this was a baby and babies had weak spots. Human babies, for instance, had a very soft spot on the top of their heads ...

	When O'Mara's utterly exhausted body plunged into sleep, his last coherent thought was that he was the dirtiest, lowest louse that had ever been born.

-

	Sixteen hours later he awoke. It was a slow, natural process which brought him barely above the level of unconsciousness. He had a brief feeling of wonder at the fact that the infant was not responsible for waking him before he drifted back to sleep again. The next time he wakened was five hours later and to the sound of Waring coming through the airlock.

	"Dr. P-Pelling asked me to bring this," he said, tossing O'Mara a small book. "And I'm not doing you a favor, understand—it's just that he said it was for the good of the youngster. How is it doing?"

	"Sleeping," said O'Mara.

	Waring moistened his lips. "I'm-I'm supposed to check. C-C-Caxton says so."

	"Ca-Ca-Caxton would," mimicked O'Mara.

	He watched the other silently as Waring's face grew a deeper red. Waring was a thin young man, sensitive, not very strong, and the stuff of which heroes were made. On his arrival O'Mara had been overwhelmed with stories about this tractor-beam operator. There had been an accident during the fitting of a power pile, and Waring had been trapped in a section which was inadequately shielded. But he had kept his head and, following instructions radioed to him from an engineer outside, had managed to avert a slow atomic explosion which nevertheless would have taken the lives of everyone in his section. He had done this while all the time fully convinced that the level of radiation in which he worked would, in a few hours' time, certainly cause his death.

	But the shielding had been more effective than had been thought, and Waring did not die. The accident had left its mark on him, however, they told O'Mara. He had black-outs, he stuttered, his nervous system had been subtly affected, they said, and there were other things which O'Mara himself would see and was urged to ignore. Because Waring had saved all their lives and for that he deserved special treatment. That was why they made way for him wherever he went, let him win all fights, arguments and games of skill or chance, and generally kept him wrapped in a swathe of sentimental cottonwool.

	And that was why Waring was a spoiled, insufferable, simpering brat.

	Watching his white-lipped face and clenched fists, O'Mara smiled. He had never let Waring win at anything if he could possibly help it, and the first time the tractor-beam man had started a fight with him had also been the last. Not that he had hurt him, he had been just tough enough to demonstrate that fighting O'Mara was not a good idea.

	"Go in and have a look," O'Mara said eventually. "Do what Ca-Ca-Caxton says."

	They went in, observed the gently twitching infant briefly and came out. Stammering, Waring said that he had to go and headed for the airlock. He didn't often stutter these days, O'Mara knew; probably he was scared the subject of the accident would be brought up.

	"Just a minute," said O'Mara. "I'm running out of food compound, will you bring—"

	"G-get it yourself!"

	O'Mara stared at him until Waring looked away, then he said quietly, "Caxton can't have it both ways. If this infant has to be cared for so thoroughly that I'm not allowed to either feed it or keep it in airless conditions, it would be negligence on my part to go away and leave it for a couple of hours to get food. Surely you see that. The Lord alone knows what harm the kid might come to if it was left alone. I've been made responsible for this infant's welfare, so I insist ..."

	"B-b-but it won't—"

	"It only means an hour or so of your rest period every second or third day," said O'Mara sharply. "Cut the bellyaching. And stop sputtering at me, you're old enough to talk properly."

	Waring's teeth came together with a click. He took a deep, shuddering breath, then with his jaws still clenched furiously together he exhaled. The sound was like an airlock valve being cracked. He said:

	"It ... will ... take ... all of..my next two rest periods. The FROB quarters ... where the food is kept ... are being fitted to the main assembly the day after tomorrow. The food compound will have to be transferred before then."

	"See how easy it is when you try," said O'Mara, grinning. "You were a bit jerky at first there, but I understood every word. You're doing fine. And by the way, when you're stacking the food tanks outside the airlock will you try not to make too much noise in case you wake the baby?"

	For the next two minutes Waring called O'Mara dirty names without repeating himself or stuttering once.

	"I said you were doing fine," said O'Mara reprovingly. "You don't have to show off."

Chapter Three

	After Waring left, O'Mara thought about the dismantling of the Hudlarians quarters. With gravity grids set to four Gs and what few other amenities they required, the FROBs had been living in one of the key sections. If it was about to be fitted to the main assembly, then the completion of the hospital structure itself could only be five or six weeks off. The final stages, he knew, would be exciting. Tractor men at their safe positions—depressions actually on the joining faces—tossing thousand-ton loads about the sky, bringing them together gently while fitters checked alignment or adjusted or prepared the slowly closing faces for joining. Many of them would disregard the warning lights until the last possible moment, and take the most hair-raising risks imaginable, just to save the time and trouble of having their sections pulled apart and rejoined again for a possible re-fitting.

	O'Mara would have liked to be in on the finish, instead of babysitting!

	Thought of the infant brought back the worry he had been concealing from Waring. It had never slept this long before—it must be twenty hours since it had gone to sleep, or he had kicked it to sleep. FROBs were tough, of course, but wasn't it possible that the infant was not simply asleep but unconscious through concussion ...?

	O'Mara reached for the book which Pelling had sent and began to read.

	It was slow, heavy going but at the end of two hours O'Mara knew a little about the handling of Hudlarian babies, and the knowledge brought both relief and despair. Apparently his fit of temper and subsequent kicking had been a good thing—FROB babies needed constant petting, and a quick calculation of the amount of force used by an adult of the species administering a gentle pat to its offspring showed that O'Mara's furious attack had been a very weak pat indeed. But the book warned against the dangers of over-feeding, and O'Mara was definitely guilty on this count. Seemingly the proper thing to do was to feed it every five or six hours during its waking period and use physical methods of soothing—patting, that was—if it appeared restless or still hungry. Also it appeared that FROB infants required, at fairly frequent intervals, a bath.

	On the home planet this involved something like a major sand-blasting operation, but O'Mara thought that this was probably due to the pressure and stickiness of the atmosphere. Another problem which he would have to solve was how to administer a hard enough consoling pat. He doubted very much if he could fly into a temper every time the baby needed its equivalent of a nursing.

	But at least he would have plenty of time to work out something, because one of the things he had found out about them was that they were wakeful for two full days at a stretch, and slept for five.

	During the first five-day period of sleep O'Mara was able to devise methods of petting and bathing his charge, and even had a couple of days free to relax and gather his strength for the two days of hard labor ahead when the infant woke up. It would have been a killing routine for a man of ordinary strength, but O'Mara discovered that after the first two weeks of it he seemed to make the necessary physical and mental adjustment to it. And at the end of four weeks the pain and stiffness had gone out of his leg and he had no worries regarding the baby at all.

	Outside, the project neared completion. The vast, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle was finished except for a few unimportant pieces around the edges. A Monitor Corps investigator had arrived and was asking questions—of everybody, apparently, except O'Mara.

	He couldn't help wondering if Waring had been questioned yet, and if he had what the tractor man had said. The investigator was a psychologist, unlike the mere Engineer officers already on the project, and very likely no fool. O'Mara thought that he, himself, was no fool either; he had worked things out, and by rights he should feel no anxiety over the outcome of the Monitor's investigations. O'Mara had sized up the situation here and the people in it, and the reactions of everyone were predictable. But it all depended on what Waring told that Monitor.

-

	You're turning yellow! O'Mara thought in angry self-disgust. Now that your pet theories are being put to the test, you're scared silly they won't work. You want to crawl to Waring and lick his boots!

	And that course, O'Mara knew, would be introducing a wild variable into what should be a predictable situation, and it would almost certainly wreck everything. Yet the temptation was strong nevertheless.

-

	It was at the beginning of the sixth week of his enforced guardianship of the infant, while he was reading up on some of the weird and wonderful diseases to which baby FROBs were prone, that his airlock telltale indicated a visitor. He got off the couch quickly and faced the opening seal, trying hard to look as if he hadn't a worry in the world.

	But it was only Caxton.

	"I was expecting the Monitor," said O'Mara.

	Caxton grunted. "Hasn't seen you yet, eh? Maybe he figures it would be a waste of time. After what we've told him he probably thinks the case is open and shut. He'll have cuffs with him when he comes."

	O'Mara just looked at him. He was tempted to ask Caxton if the Corpsman had questioned Waring yet, but it was only a small temptation.

	"My reason for coming," said Caxton harshly, "is to find out about the water. Stores department tells me you've been requisitioning triple the amount of water that you could conceivably use. You starting an aquarium or something?"

	Deliberately O'Mara avoided giving a direct answer. He said, "It's time for the baby's bath; would you like to watch?"

	He bent down, deftly removed a section of floor plating and reached inside.

	"What are you doing?" Caxton burst out. "Those are the gravity grids, you're not allowed to touch—"

	Suddenly the floor took on a thirty-degree list. Caxton staggered against a wall, swearing. O'Mara straightened up, opened the inner seal of the airlock, then started up what was now a stiff gradient towards the bedroom. Still insisting loudly that O'Mara was neither allowed nor qualified to alter the artificial gravity settings, Caxton followed.

	Inside, O'Mara said, "This is the spare food sprayer with the nozzle modified to project a high-pressure jet of water." He pointed the instrument and began to demonstrate, playing the jet against a small area of the infant's hide. The subject of the demonstration was engaged in pushing what was left of one of O'Mara's chairs into even more unrecognizable shapes, and ignored them.

	"You can see," O'Mara went on, "the area of skin where the food compound has hardened. This has to be washed at intervals because it clogs the being's absorption mechanism in those areas, causing the food intake to drop. This makes a young Hudlarian very unhappy and, ah, noisy ..."

	O'Mara trailed off into silence. He saw that Caxton wasn't looking at the infant but was watching the water which rebounded from its hide streaming along the now steeply slanted bedroom door, across the living room and into the open airlock. Which was just as well, because O'Mara's sprayer had uncovered a patch of the youngster's hide which had a texture and color he had never seen before. Probably there was nothing to worry about, but it was better not to have Caxton see it and ask questions.

	"What's that up there?" said Caxton, pointing towards the bedroom ceiling.

	In order to give the infant the petting it deserved, O'Mara had had to knock together a system of levers, pulleys and counterweights and suspend the whole ungainly mass from the ceiling. He was rather proud of the gadget; it enabled him to administer a good, solid pat—a blow which would have instantly killed a human being—anywhere on that half-ton carcass. But he doubted if Caxton would appreciate the gadget. Probably the section chief would swear that he was torturing the baby and forbid its use.

	O'Mara started out of the bedroom. Over his shoulder he said, "Just lifting tackle."

-

	He dried up the wet patches of floor with a cloth which he threw into the now partly water-filled airlock. His sandals and coveralls were wet, so he threw them in also, then he closed the inner seal and opened the outer. While the water was boiling off into the vacuum outside, he readjusted the gravity grids so that the floor was flat and the walls vertical again, then he retrieved his sandals, coveralls and cloth, which were now bone dry.

	"You seem to have everything well organized," said Caxton grudgingly as he fastened his helmet. "At least you're looking after the youngster better than you did its parents. See it stays that way.

	"The Monitor will be along to see you at hour nine tomorrow," he added, and left.

	O'Mara returned quickly to the bedroom for a closer look at the colored patch. It was a pale bluish gray, and in that area the smooth, almost steel-hard surface of the skin had taken on a sort of crackle finish. O'Mara rubbed the patch gently, and the FROB wriggled and gave a blast of sound that was vaguely interrogatory.

	"You and me both," said O'Mara absently. He couldn't remember reading about anything like this, but then he had not read all the book yet. The sooner he did so the better.

	The chief method of communicating between beings of different species was by means of a translator, which electronically sorted and classified all sense-bearing sounds and reproduced them in the native language of its user. Another method, used when large amounts of accurate data of a more subjective nature had to be passed on, was the Educator tape system. This transferred bodily all the sensory impressions, knowledge and personality of one being into the mind of another. Coming a long way third in both popularity and accuracy was the written language which was somewhat extravagantly called Universal.

	Universal was of use only to beings who possessed brains linked to optical receptors capable of abstracting knowledge from patterns of markings on a flat surface in short, the printed page. While there were many species with this ability, the response to color in each species was very rarely matched. What appeared to be a bluish-gray patch to O'Mara might look like anything from yellow-gray to dirty purple to another being, and the trouble was that the other being might have been the author of the book.

	One of the appendices gave a rough color-equivalent chart, but it was a tedious, time-consuming job checking back on it, and his knowledge of Universal was not perfect anyway.

-

	Five hours later he was still no nearer diagnosing the FROB's ailment, and the single blue-gray patch on its hide had grown to twice its original size and been joined by three more. He fed the infant, wondering anxiously whether that was the right thing to do in a case like this, then returned quickly to his studies.

	According to the handbook there were literally hundreds of mild, short-lived diseases to which young Hudlarians were subject. This youngster had escaped them solely because it had been fed on tanked food compound and had avoided the air-borne bacteria so prevalent on its home planet. Probably this disease was nothing worse than the Hudlarian equivalent of a dose of measles, O'Mara told himself reassuringly, but it looked serious. At the next feeding the number of patches had grown to seven and they were a deeper, angrier blue; also the baby was continually slapping at itself with its appendages. Obviously the colored patches itched badly. Armed with this new datum, O'Mara returned to the book.

	And suddenly he found it. The symptoms were given as rough, discolored patches on the tegument with severe itching due to unabsorbed food particles. Treatment was to cleanse the irritated patches after each feed so as to kill the itching, and let nature take care of the rest. The disease was a very rare one on Hudlar these days, the symptoms appeared with dramatic suddenness and it ran its course and disappeared equally quickly. Provided ordinary care was taken of the patient, the book stated, the disease was not dangerous.

	O'Mara began converting the figures into his own time and size scale. As accurately as he could come to it, the colored patches should grow to about eighteen inches across, and he could expect anything up to twelve of them before they began to fade. This would occur, calculating from the time he had noticed the first spot, in approximately six hours.

	He hadn't a thing to worry about.

Chapter Four

	At the conclusion of the next feeding O'Mara carefully sprayed the blue patches clean, but still the young FROB kept slapping furiously at itself and quivering ponderously. Like a kneeling elephant with six waving trunks, he thought. O'Mara had another look at the book, but it still maintained that under ordinary conditions the disease was mild and short-lived, and that the only palliative treatment possible was rest and seeing that the affected areas were kept clean.

	Kids, thought O'Mara distractedly, were a blasted worrisome thing ...?

	All that quivering and slapping looked wrong, common sense told him, and should be stopped. Maybe the infant was scratching through sheer force of habit, though the violence of the process made this seem doubtful, and a distraction of some kind would make it stop. Quickly O'Mara chose a fifty-pound weight and used his lifting tackle to swing it to the ceiling. He began raising and dropping it rhythmically over the spot which he had discovered gave the infant the most pleasure—an area two feet back of the hard, transparent membrane which protected its eyes. Fifty pounds dropping from a height of eight feet was a nice gentle pat to a Hudlarian.

	Under the patting the FROB grew less violent in its movements. But as soon as O'Mara stopped, it began lashing at itself worse than ever, and even running full tilt into walls and what was left of the furniture. During one frenzied charge it nearly escaped into the living room, and the only thing which stopped it was the fact that it was too big to go through the door. Up to that moment O'Mara did not realize how much weight the FROB had put on in five weeks.

	Finally sheer fatigue made him give up. He left the FROB threshing and blundering about in the bedroom, and threw himself onto the couch outside to try to think.

	According to the book it was now time for the blue patches to begin to fade. But they weren't fading—they had reached the maximum number of twelve, and instead of being eighteen or less inches across they were nearly double that size. They were so large that at the next feeding the absorption area of the infant would have shrunk by a half, which meant that it would be further weakened by not getting enough food. And everyone knew that itchy spots should not be scratched if the condition was not to spread and become more serious ...

	A raucous foghorn note interrupted his thoughts. O'Mara had experience enough to know by the sound that the infant was badly frightened, and by the relative decrease in volume that it was growing, weak as well.

-

	He needed help badly, but O'Mara doubted very much if there was anyone available who could furnish it. Telling Caxton about it would be useless—the section chief would only call in Pelling, and Pelling was much less informed on the subject of Hudlarian children than was O'Mara, who had been specializing in the subject for the past five weeks. That course would only waste time and not help the kid at all, and there was a strong possibility that—despite the presence of a Monitor investigator—Caxton would see to it that something pretty violent happened to O'Mara for allowing the infant to take sick, for that was the way the section chief would look at it.

	Caxton didn't like O'Mara. Nobody liked O'Mara.

	If he had been well-liked on the project, nobody would have thought of blaming him for the infant's sickness, or immediately and unanimously assuming that he was the one responsible for the death of its parents. But he had made the decision to appear a pretty lousy character, and he had been too damned successful.

	Maybe he really was a despicable person and that was why the role had come so easy to him. Perhaps the constant frustration of never having the chance to really use the brain which was buried in his ugly, muscle-bound body had gradually soured him, and the part he thought he was playing was the real O'Mara.

	If only he had stayed clear of the Waring business. That was what had them really mad at him.

	But this sort of thinking was getting him nowhere: The solution of his own problems lay—in part, at least—in showing that he was responsible, patient, kind and possessed the various other attributes which his fellow men looked on with respect. To do that he must first show that he could be trusted with the care of a baby.

	He wondered suddenly if the Monitor could help. Not personally—a Corps psychologist officer could hardly be expected to know about obscure diseases of Hudlar children—but through his organization. As the Galaxy's police, maid-of-all-work and supreme authority generally, the Monitor Corps would be able to find at short notice a being who would know the necessary answers. But again, that being would almost certainly be found on Hudlar itself, and the authorities there already knew of the orphaned infant's position, and help had probably been on the way for weeks. It would certainly arrive sooner than the Monitor could bring it. Help might arrive in time to save the infant. But again maybe it might not.

	The problem was still O'Mara's.

	About as serious as a dose of measles.

	But measles, in a human baby, could be very serious if the patient was kept in a cold room or in some other environment which, although not deadly in itself, could become lethal to an organism whose resistance was lowered by disease or lack of food. The handbook had prescribed rest, cleansing and nothing else. Or had it? There might be a large and well hidden assumption there. The kicker was that the patient under discussion was residing on its home world at the time of the illness. Under ordinary conditions like that, the disease probably was mild and short-lived.

	But O'Mara's bedroom was not, for a Hudlarian baby with the disease, anything like normal conditions.

	With that thought came the answer, if only he wasn't too late to apply it. Abruptly O'Mara pushed himself out of the couch and hurried to the spacesuit locker. He was climbing into the heavy-duty model when the communicator beeped at him.

	"O'Mara," Caxton's voice brayed at him when he had acknowledged, "the Monitor wants to talk to you. It wasn't supposed to be until tomorrow but—"

	"Thank you, Mr. Caxton," broke in a quiet, firmer voice. There was a pause, then: "My name is Craythorne, Mr. O'Mara. I had planned to see you tomorrow as you know, bur I managed to clear up some other work which left me time for a preliminary chat ..."

-

	What, thought O'Mara fulminatingly, a damned awkward time you had to pick! He finished putting on the suit but left the gauntlets and helmet off. He began tearing into the panel which covered the air-supply controls.

	"... To tell you the truth," the quiet voice of the Monitor went on, "your case is incidental to my main work here. My job is to arrange accommodation and so on for the various life-forms who will shortly be arriving to staff this hospital, and to do everything possible to avoid friction developing between them when they do come. There are a lot of finicky details to attend to, but at the moment I'm free. And I'm curious about you, O'Mara. I'd like to ask some questions."

	This is one smooth operator! thought one half of O'Mara's mind. The other half noted that the air-supply controls were set to suit the conditions he had in mind. He left the panel hanging loose, and began pulling up a floor section to get at the artificial gravity grid underneath. A little absently he said, "You'll have to excuse me if I work while we talk. Caxton will explain—"

	"I've told him about the kid," Caxton broke in, "and if you think you're fooling him by pretending to be the harassed mother type ...!"

	"I understand," said the Monitor. "I'd also like to say that forcing you to live with an FROB infant when such a course was unnecessary comes under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment, and that about ten years should be knocked off your sentence for what you've taken this past five weeks—that is, of course, if you're found guilty. And now, I always think it's better to see who one is talking to. Can we have vision, please?"

	The suddenness with which the artificial gravity grids switched from one to two Gs caught O'Mara by surprise. His arms folded under him and his chest thumped the floor. A frightened bawl from his patient in the next room must have disguised the noise he made from his listeners, because they didn't mention it. He did the great grand-daddy of all press-ups and heaved himself to his knees.

	He fought to keep from gasping. "Sorry, my vision transmitter is on the blink."

	The Monitor was silent just long enough to let O'Mara know that he knew he was lying, and that he would disregard the lie for the moment. He said finally, "Well, at least you can see me," and O'Mara's vision plate lit up.

	It showed a youngish man with close-cropped hair whose eyes seemed twenty years older than the rest of his features. The shoulder tabs of a major were visible on the trim, dark-green tunic, and the collar bone bore a caduceus. O'Mara thought that in different circumstances he would have liked this man.

	"I've something to do in the next room," O'Mara lied again. "Be with you in a minute."

	He began the job of setting the anti-gravity belt on his suit to two Gs repulsion, which would exactly counteract the floor's present attraction and allow him to increase the pull to four Gs without too much discomfort to himself. He would then re-set the belt for three Gs, and that would give him back a normal gravity apparent of one G.

	At least that was what should have happened.

	Instead the G-belt or the floor grids or both started producing half-G fluctuations, and the room went mad. It was like being in an express elevator which was constantly being started and stopped. The frequency of the surges built up rapidly until O'Mara was being shaken up and down so hard his teeth rattled. Before he could react to this, a new and more devastating complication occurred. As well as variations in strength, the floor grids were no longer acting at right angles to their surface, but yawed erratically from ten to thirty degrees from the vertical. No storm-tossed ship had ever pitched and tolled as viciously as this. O'Mara staggered, grabbed frantically for the couch, missed and was flung heavily against the wall. The next surge sent him skidding against the opposite wall before he was able to switch off the G-belt.

	The room settled down to a steady gravity-pull of two Gs again.

	"Will this take long?" asked the Monitor suddenly.

	O'Mara had almost forgotten the major during the past hectic seconds. He did his best to make his voice sound both natural and as if it was coming from the next room as he replied, "It might. Could you call back later?"

	"I'll wait," said the Monitor.

	For the next few minutes O'Mara tried to forget the bruising he had received despite the protection given him by the heavy spacesuit, and concentrate on thinking his way out of this latest mess. He was beginning to see what must have happened.

	When two antigravity generators of the same power and frequency were used closed together, a pattern of interference was set up which affected the stability of both. The grids in O'Mara's quarters were merely a temporary job and powered by a generator similar to the one used in his suit, though normally a difference in frequency was built in against the chance of such instability occurring. But O'Mara had been fiddling with the grid settings constantly for the past five weeks—every time the infant had a bath, to be exact—so that he must have unknowingly altered the frequency.

	He didn't know what he had done wrong, and there wasn't enough time to try fixing it if he had known. Gingerly, O'Mara switched on his G-belt again and slowly began increasing power. It registered over three-quarters of a G before the first signs of instability appeared.

	Four Gs less three-quarters made a little over three Gs. It looked, O'Mara thought grimly, like he was going to have to do this the hard way ...

Chapter Five

	O'Mara closed his helmet quickly, then strung a cable from his suit mike to the communicator so that he would be able to talk without Caxton or the Monitor realizing that he was sealed inside his suit. If he was to have time to complete the treatment, they must not suspect that there was anything out of the ordinary going on here. Next came the final adjustments to the air-pressure regulator and gravity grids.

	Inside two minutes the atmosphere pressure in the two rooms had multiplied six times and the gravity apparent was four Gs—the nearest, in fact, that O'Mara could get to "ordinary conditions" for a Hudlarian. With shoulder muscles straining and cracking with the effort—for his under-powered G-belt took only three-quarters of a gravity off the four G pull in the room—he withdrew the incredibly awkward and ponderous thing which his arm had become from the grid servicing space, and rolled heavily onto his back.

	He felt as if his baby was sitting on his chest, and large, black blotches hung throbbing before his eyes. Through them he could see a section of ceiling and, at a crazy angle, the vision panel. The face in it was becoming impatient.

	"I'm back, Major," gasped O'Mara. He fought to control his breathing so that the words would not be squeezed out too fast. "I suppose you want to hear my side of the accident?"

	"No," said the Monitor. "I've heard the tape Caxton made. What I'm curious about is your background prior to coming here. I've checked up and there is something which doesn't quite fit ..."

	A thunderous eruption of noise blasted into the conversation. Despite the deeper note caused by the increased air pressure, O'Mara recognized the signal for what it was: the FROB was angry and hungry.

	With a mighty effort O'Mara rolled onto his side, then propped himself up on his elbows. He stayed that way for a while, gathering strength to roll over onto his hands and knees. But when he finally accomplished this, he found that his arms and legs were swelling and felt as if they would burst from the pressure of blood piling up in them. Gasping, he eased himself down flat onto his chest. Immediately the blood rushed to the front of his body and his vision began to red out.

	He couldn't crawl on hands and knees nor wriggle on his stomach. Most certainly, under three Gs, he could not stand up and walk. What else was there?

	O'Mara struggled onto his side again and rolled back, but this time with his elbows propping him up. The neck-rest of his suit supported his head, but the insides of the sleeves were very lightly padded and his elbows hurt. And the strain of holding up even part of his three times heavier than normal body made his heart pound. Worst of all, he was beginning to black out again.

	Surely there must be some way to equalize, or at least distribute, the pressures in his body so that he could stay conscious and move. O'Mara tried to visualize the layout of the acceleration chairs which had been used in ships before artificial gravity came along. It had been a not-quite-prone position, he remembered suddenly, with the knees drawn up ...

	Inching along on his elbows, bottom and feet, O'Mara progressed snail-like towards the bedroom. His embarrassment of riches where muscles were concerned was certainly of use now—in these conditions any ordinary man would have been plastered helplessly against the floor. Even so it took him fifteen minutes to reach the food sprayer in the bedroom, and during practically every second of the way the baby kept up its ear-splitting racket. With the increased pressure the noise was so tremendously loud and deep that every bone in O'Mara's body seemed to vibrate to it.

	"I'm trying to talk to you!" the Monitor yelled during a lull. "Can't you keep that blasted kid shut up!"

	"It's hungry," said O'Mara. "It'll quiet down when it's fed ..."

	The food sprayer was mounted on a trolley, and O'Mara had fitted a pedal control so as to leave both hands free for aiming. Now that his patient was immobilized by four gravities, he didn't have to use his hands.

	Instead he was able to nudge the trolley into position with his shoulders and depress the pedal with his elbow. The high-pressure jet tended to bend floorwards owing to the extra gravity, but he did finally manage to cover the infant with food. But cleaning the affected areas of food compound was another matter. The water jet, which handled very awkwardly from floor level, had no accuracy at all. The best he could manage was to wash down the wide, vivid blue patch—formed from three separate patches which had grown together—which covered nearly one quarter of its total skin area.

-

	After that O'Mara straightened out his legs and lowered his back gently to the floor. Despite the three Gs acting on him, the strain of maintaining that half-sitting position for the last half hour made him feel almost comfortable.

	The baby had stopped crying.

	"What I was about to say," said the Monitor heavily when the silence looked like lasting for a few minutes, "was that your record on previous jobs does not fit what I find here. Previously you were, as you are now, a restless, discontented type, but you were invariably popular with your colleagues and only a little less so with your superiors—this last being because your superiors were sometimes wrong and you never were ..."

	"I was every bit as smart as they were," said O'Mara tiredly, "and proved it often. But I didn't look intelligent, I had mucker written all over me!

	It was strange, O'Mara thought, but he felt almost disinterested in his own personal trouble now. He couldn't take his eyes off the angry blue patch on the infant's side. The color had deepened, and also the center of the patch seemed to have swelled. It was as if the super-hard tegument had softened and the FROB's enormous internal pressure had produced a swelling. Increasing the gravity and pressure to the Hudlarian normal should, he hoped, halt that particular development—if it wasn't a symptom of something else entirely.

	O'Mara had thought of carrying his idea a step further and spraying the air around the patient with food compound. On Hudlar the natives' food was comprised of tiny organisms floating in their super-thick atmosphere, but then again the handbook expressly stated that food particles must be kept away from the affected areas of tegument, so that the extra gravity and pressure should be enough ... 

	"... Nevertheless," the Monitor was saying, "if a similar accident had happened on one of your previous jobs your story would have been believed. Even if it had been your fault, they would have rallied round to defend you from outsiders like myself.

	"What caused you to change from a friendly, likable type of personality to this ...?"

	"I was bored," said O'Mara shortly.

	There had been no sound from the infant yet, but he had seen the characteristic movements of the FROB's appendages which foretold of an outburst shortly to come. And it came. For the next ten minutes speech was, of course, impossible.

	O'Mara heaved himself onto his side and rolled back onto his now raw and bleeding elbows. He knew what was wrong; the infant had missed its usual after-feed nursing. O'Mara humped his way slowly across to the two counterweight ropes of the gadget he had devised for petting the infant, and prepared to remedy this omission. But the ends of the ropes hung four feet above the floor.

	Lying propped by one elbow and straining to raise the dead weight of his other arm, O'Mara thought that the rope could just as easily have been four miles away. Sweat poured off his face and body with the intensity of the effort, and slowly, trembling and wobbling so much that his gauntleted hand went past it first time, he reached up and grabbed hold. Still gripping it tightly, he lowered himself gently back, bringing the rope with him.

	The gadget operated on a system of counterweights, so that there was no extra pull needed on the controling ropes. A heavy weight dropped nearly onto the infant's back, administering a reassuring pat. O'Mara rested for a few minutes, then struggled up to repeat the process with the other rope, the pull on which would also wind up the first weight ready for use again.

	After about the eighth pat he found that he couldn't see the end of the rope he was reaching for, though he managed to find it all the same. His head was being kept too high above the level of the rest of his body for too long a time, and he was constantly on the point of blacking out. The diminished flow of blood to his brain was having other effects, too ...

	"... There, there," O'Mara heard himself saying in a definitely maudlin voice. "You're all right now, pappy will take care of you. There now, shush ..."

	The funny thing about it was that he really did feel a responsibility and a sort of angry concern for the infant. He had saved it once only to let this happen! Maybe the three Gs which jammed him against the floor, making every breath a day's work and the smallest movement an operation which called for all the reserves of strength he possessed, was bringing back the memory of another kind of pressure—the slow, inexorable movement together of two large, inanimate and uncaring masses of metal.

	The accident.

	As fitter-in-charge of that particular shift, O'Mara had just switched on the warning lights when he had seen the two adult Hudlarians chasing after their offspring on one of the faces being joined. He had called them through his translator, urging them to get to safety and leave him to chase the youngster clear—being much smaller than its parents, the slowly closing faces would take longer to teach it, and during those extra few minutes O'Mara would have been able to herd it out of danger. But either their translators were switched off or they were reluctant to trust the safety of their child to a diminutive human being. Whatever the reason, they remained between the faces until it was too late. O'Mara had to watch helplessly as they were trapped and crushed by the joining structures.

	The sight of the young one, still unharmed because of its smaller girth, floundering about between the bodies of its late parents sent O'Mara into belated action. He was able to chase it out of danger before the sections came close enough to trap it, and had just barely made it himself. For a few heart-stopping seconds back there, O'Mara had thought he would have to leave a leg behind.

-

	This was no place for kids anyway, he told himself angrily as he looked at the quivering, twitching body with the patches of vivid, scabrous blue. People shouldn't be allowed to bring kids out here, even tough people like the Hudlarians.

	But Major Craythorne was speaking again.

	"... Judging by what I hear going on over there," said the Monitor acidly, "you're taking very good care of your charge. Keeping the youngster happy and healthy will definitely be a point in your favor ..."

	Happy and healthy, thought O'Mara as he reached towards the rope yet again. Healthy ... 

	"... But there are other considerations," the quiet voice went on. "Were you guilty of negligence in not switching on the warning lights until after the accident occurred, which is what you are alleged to have done? And your previous record notwithstanding, here you have been a surly, quarrelsome bully, and your behavior towards Waring especially ...!"

	The Monitor broke off, looked faintly disapproving, then went on, "A few minutes ago you said that you did all these things because you were bored. Explain that."

	"Wait a minute, Major," Caxton broke in, his face appearing suddenly behind Craythorne's on the screen. "He's stalling for some reason, I'm sure of it. All those interruptions, this gasping voice he's using and this shush-a-bye-baby stuff is just an act to show what a great little nursemaid he is. I think I'll go over and bring him back here to answer you face to face—"

	"That won't be necessary," said O'Mara quickly. "I'll answer any questions you want, right now."

	He had a horrible picture of Caxton's reaction if the other saw the infant in its present state; the sight of it made O'Mara feel queasy, and he was used to it now. Caxton wouldn't stop to think, or wait for explanations, or ask himself if it was fair to place an e-t in charge of a human who was completely ignorant of its physiology or weaknesses. He would just react. Violently.

	And as for the Monitor ... 

	O'Mara thought that he might get out of the accident part, but if the kid died as well he hadn't a hope. The infant had had a mild though uncommon disease which should have responded to treatment days ago, and instead had become progressively worse, so it would die anyway if O'Mara's last desperate try at reproducing its home planet's conditions did not come off. What he needed now was time. According to the book, about four to six hours of it.

	Suddenly the futility of it all hit him. The infant's condition had not improved—it heaved and twitched and generally looked to be the most desperately ill and pitiable creature that had ever been born. O'Mara swore helplessly. What he was trying to do now should have been tried days ago, his baby was as good as dead, and continuing this treatment for another five or six hours would probably kill or cripple him for life. And it would serve him right!

Chapter Six

	The infant's appendages curled in the way O'Mara knew meant that it was going to cry again, and grimly he began pushing himself onto his elbows for another patting session. That was the very least he could do. And even though he was convinced that going on was useless, the kid had to be given the chance. O'Mara had to have time to finish the treatment without interruptions, and to insure that he would have to answer this Monitor's questions in a full and satisfactory manner. If the kid started crying again, he wouldn't be able to do that.

	"... For your kind co-operation," the major was saying drily. "First off, I want an explanation for your sudden change of personality."

	"I was bored," said O'Mara. "Hadn't enough to do. Maybe I'd become a bit of a sorehead, too. But the main reason for setting out to be a lousy character was that there was a job I could do here which could not be done by a nice guy. I've studied a lot and think of myself as a pretty good rule-of-thumb psychologist ..."

	Suddenly came disaster. O'Mara's supporting elbow slipped as he was reaching for the counterweight rope, and he crashed back to the floor from a distance of two and a half feet. At three Gs this was equivalent to a fall of seven feet. Luckily he was in a heavy duty suit with a padded helmet, so he did not lose consciousness. But he did cry out, and instinctively held onto the rope as he fell.

	That was his mistake.

	One weight dropped, the other swung up too far. It hit the ceiling with a crash and loosened the bracket which supported the light metal girder which carried it. The whole structure began to sag, and slip, then was suddenly yanked floorwards by four Gs onto the infant below. In his dazed state O'Mara could not guess at the amount of force expended on the infant—whether it was a harder than usual pat, the equivalent of a sharp smack on the bottom, or something very much more serious. The baby was very quiet afterwards, which worried him.

	"... For the third time," shouted the Monitor, "what the blazes is going on in there?"

	O'Mara muttered something which was unintelligible even to himself. Then Caxton joined in.

	"There's something fishy going on, and I bet it involves the kid! I'm going over to see—"

	"No, wait!" said O'Mara desperately. "Give me six hours ..."

	"I'll see you," said Caxton, "in ten minutes."

	"Caxton!" O'Mara shouted, "if you come through my airlock you'll kill me! I'll have the inner seal jammed open, and if you open the outer one you'll evacuate the place. Then the Major will lose his prisoner."

	There was a sudden silence, then:

	"What," asked the Monitor quietly, "do you want the six hours for?"

	O'Mara tried to shake his head to clear it, but now that it weighed three times heavier than normal he only hurt his neck. What did he want six hours for? Looking around him he began to wonder, because both the food sprayer and its connecting water tank had been wrecked by the fall of tackle from the ceiling. He could neither feed, wash, nor scarcely see his patient for fallen wreckage, so all he could do for six hours was watch and wait for a miracle.

	"I'm going over," said Caxton doggedly.

	"You're not," said the major, still polite but with a no-nonsense tone. "I want to get to the bottom of this. You'll wait outside until I've spoken with O'Mara alone. Now, O'Mara, what is happening?"

	Flat on his back again, O'Mara fought to gain enough breath to carry on an extended conversation. He had decided that the best thing to do would be to tell the Monitor the exact truth, and then appeal to him to back O'Mara up in the only way possible which might save the infant—by leaving him alone for six hours. But O'Mara was feeling very low as he talked, and his vision was so poor that he couldn't tell sometimes whether his eyelids were open or shut. He did see someone hand the major a note, but Craythorne didn't read it until O'Mara had finished speaking.

	"You are in a mess," Craythorne said finally. He briefly looked sympathetic, then his tone hardened again. "And ordinarily I should be forced to do as you suggest and give you that six hours. After all, you have the book and so you know more than we do. But the situation has changed in the last few minutes. I've just had word that two Hudlarians have arrived, one of them a doctor. You had better step down, O'Mara. You tried, but now let some skilled help salvage what they can from the situation. For the kid's sake," he added.

-

	It was three hours later. Caxton, Waring and O'Mara were facing the major across the Monitor's desk. Craythorne had just come in.

	He said briskly, "I'm going to be busy for the next few days, so we'll get this business settled quickly. First, the accident. O'Mara, your case depends entirely on Waring's corroboration for your story. Now there seems to be some pretty devious thinking here on your part. I've already heard Waring's evidence, but to satisfy my own curiosity I'd like to know what you think he said."

	"He backed up my story," said O'Mara wearily. "He had no choice."

	He looked down at his hands, still thinking about the desperately sick infant he had left in his quartets. He told himself again that he wasn't responsible for what had happened, but deep inside he felt that if he had shown more flexibility of mind and had started the pressure treatment sooner, the kid would have been all right now. But the result of the accident inquiry didn't seem to matter now, one way or the other, and neither did the Waring business.

	""Why do you think he had no choice?" prodded the Monitor sharply.

	Caxton had his mouth open, looking confused. Waring would not meet O'Mara's eyes, and he was beginning to blush.

	"When I came here," O'Mara said dully, "I was looking out for a secondary job to fill my spare time, and hounding Waring was it. He is the reason for my being an obnoxious type, that was the only way I could go to work on him. But to understand that you have to go a bit farther back. Because of that power pile accident," O'Mara went on, "all the men of his section were very much in Waring's debt—you've probably heard the details by now. Waring himself was a mess. Physically he was below par—had to get shots to keep his blood-count up, was just about strong enough to work his control console, and was fairly wallowing in self-pity. Psychologically he was a wreck. Despite all Pelling's assurances that the shots would only be necessary for a few more months, he was convinced that he had pernicious anemia. He also believed that he had been made sterile, again despite everything the doctor told him, and this conviction made him act and talk in a way which would give any normal man the creeps—because that sort of thing is pathological and there wasn't anything like that wrong with him. When I saw how things were, I started to ridicule him every chance I got. I hounded him unmercifully. So the way I see it, he had no other choice but to support my story. Simple gratitude demanded it."

	"I begin to see the light," said the major. "Go on."

	"The men around him were very much in his debt," O'Mara continued. "But instead of putting the brakes on, of giving him a good talking to, they smothered him with sympathy. They let him win all fights, card-games or whatever, and generally treated him like a little tin god. I did none of these things. Whenever he lisped or stuttered or was awkward about anything," O'Mara went on, "whether it was due to one of his mental and self-inflicted disabilities or a physical one which he honestly couldn't help, I jumped on him hard with both feet. Maybe I was too hard sometimes, but remember that I was one man trying to undo the harm that was being done by fifty. Naturally he hated my guts, but he always knew exactly where he was with me. And I never pulled punches. On the very few occasions when he was able to get the better of me, he knew that he had won despite everything I could do to stop him—unlike his friends who let him beat them at everything and in so doing made his winning meaningless. That was exactly what he needed for what ailed him, somebody to treat him as an equal and make no allowances at all. So when this trouble came," O'Mara ended, "I was pretty sure he would begin to see what I'd been doing for him—consciously as well as subconsciously—and that simple gratitude plus the fact that basically he is a decent type would keep him from withholding the evidence which would clear me. Was I right?"

	"You were," said the major. He paused to quell Caxton, who had jumped to his feet, protesting, then continued, "Which brings us to the FROB infant.

	"Apparently your baby caught one of the mild but rare diseases which can only be treated successfully on the home planet," Craythorne went on. He smiled suddenly. "At least, that was what they thought until a few hours ago. Now our Hudlarian friends state that the proper treatment has already been initiated by you, and that all they have to do is wait for a couple of days and the infant will be as good as new. But they're very annoyed with you, O'Mara," the Monitor continued. "They say that you've rigged special equipment for petting and soothing the kid, and that you've done this much more often than is desirable. The baby has been overfed and spoiled shamelessly, they say, so much so that at the moment it prefers human beings to members of its own species—"

	Suddenly Caxton banged the desk. "You're not going to let him get away with this," he shouted, red-faced. "Waring doesn't know what he's saying sometimes ..."

	"Mr. Caxton," said the Monitor sharply, "all the evidence available proves that Mr. O'Mara is blameless, both at the time of the accident and while he was looking after the infant later. However, I am not quite finished with him here, so perhaps you two would be good enough to leave ..."

	Caxton stormed out, followed more slowly by Waring. At the door the tractor-beam man paused, addressed one printable and three unprintable words to O'Mara, grinned suddenly and left. The major sighed.

	"O'Mara," he said sternly, "you're out of a job again, and while I don't as a rule give unasked-for advice, I would like to remind you of a few facts. In a few weeks' rime the staff and maintenance engineers for this hospital will be arriving, and they will be comprised of practically every known species in the galaxy. My job is to settle them in and keep friction from developing between them so that eventually they will work together as a team. No text-book rules have been written to cover this sort of thing yet, but before they sent me here my superiors said that it would require a good rule-of-thumb psychologist with plenty of common sense who was not afraid to take calculated risks. I think it goes without saying that two such psychologists would be even better ..."

	O'Mara was listening to him all right, but he was thinking of that grin he'd got from Waring. Both the infant and Waring were going to be all right now, he knew, and in his present happy state of mind he could refuse nothing to anybody. But apparently the major had mistaken his abstraction for something else.

	"... Dammit, I'm offering you a job! You fit here, can't you see that? This is a hospital, man, and you've cured our first patient ...!"

-

COUNTERCHARM

	Far out on the galactic Rim, where star-systems were sparse and the darkness almost absolute, the vast, angular structure of Sector Twelve General Hospital hung in space. In its three hundred and eighty-four levels were reproduced the environments of the sixty-nine different forms of intelligent life known to the Galactic Federation, a biological spectrum ranging from the ultra-frigid methane life-forms through the more normal oxygen-, chlorine- and water-breathing types up to the beings who existed by the conversion of hard radiation. And in a small ward on the two hundred and third level Senior Physician Conway was lecturing to three visiting specialists of physiological classification ELNT, and feeling confused and miserable because he was suffering from a severe dose of unrequited love.

	The object of his affection was one of the three ELNTs—six-legged, exoskeletal and vaguely crab-like beings from Melf Four—and as the lecture proceeded his gaze was drawn to this entity more and more frequently, and became almost lascivious in its intensity. One half of Conway's mind—the sane, human half—kept insisting that getting all hot and bothered about an outsize crab was ridiculous, while the other half thought lovingly of that gorgeously marked carapace and generally felt like baying at the moon.

	He had a problem, Conway thought unhappily; and like so many others in the past, this one had begun with a visit to the office of the Chief Psychologist, O'Mara ... 

-

	Major O'Mara had opened the interview with flattery of the type which, if Conway had not known the Chief Psychologist of old, would have been indistinguishable from insults. Hitherto, O'Mara had said, Dr. Conway had been pretty much a free agent in the hospital, and with the happy faculty of picking nice, juicy, dramatic cases to work on—levitating dinosaurs, SRTTs with water on the brain, and the like ... 

	"... But this dashing, melodramatic stuff is not typical of a doctor's existence," O'Mara had gone on, "and now that they've made you a Senior Physician, it is time you realized that.

	"Not that you'll stop curing people, far from it," he continued, "but now you will be responsible for upwards of fifty patients at a time instead of devoting all your energies to just one. And if some of those cases are straight-forward you won't even look at them, but will delegate treatment to a subordinate. Eventually you will be expected to join in one of the hospital's long-term research projects, a routine business with no glory attached to it at all, and a greater proportion of your time will be spent in teaching duties.

	"This will mean taking one or more Educator tapes," O'Mara had ended grimly, "and retaining them for extended periods. You know what that means?"

	Conway had nodded, thinking that he did.

	Without the Educator tape system a multi-environment hospital such as Sector General could not have existed. No single brain, human or otherwise, could hold the enormous quantity of physiological knowledge-required to successfully treat the variety of patients they received. But complete physiological data on any patient's species was available by means of Educator tapes, which were simply the brain record of some great medical mind belonging to the same or a similar species as the patient to be treated.

	A doctor taking such a tape had, literally, to share his mind with a completely alien personality. That was how it felt. Because all the memories and experience of the being who had donated the tape were impressed on the receiving mind, and not just selected pieces of medical data, Educator tapes could not be edited.

	"... Hitherto," O'Mara had gone on seriously, "you've experienced tapes for short periods only, during operations or for purposes of diagnosis, after which they have been erased. Even then the mental confusion can be considerable, and I've had to give you hypno treatments at times to remind you which of the two occupants of your mind was boss. From now on, however, you will have no help at all."

	"Not at ^"Conway had repeated, aghast. He had been expecting to get used to this thing in easy stages.

	"Senior Physicians are supposed to be big boys," O'Mara replied, smiling in the lopsided fashion which indicated that his amusement was tinged with sympathy, "and capable of fighting their own mental battles. So there will be no drugs or hypno-conditioning, all I may give you is advice which you probably won't consider helpful. But don't worry, your first assignment is comparatively easy ..."

-

	A new operative technique had been developed recently for the ELNT life-form, O'Mara had explained, and Conway was to have the job of teaching it to a group of visiting doctors of that species, who would then bring the technique back to their home world. The operation was similar to the work Conway had been doing recently, which was one of the reasons for him being chosen. Models, technical assistance and the finer details of procedure would be furnished by the Director's office. It was also in the nature of a test for Conway.

	"... Some odd things have been known to happen to doctors who are taking a long-term Educator treatment," O'Mara had gone on while Conway arranged himself comfortably on the couch and the psychologist fitted the helmet into position. O'Mara's hands, like the rest of him, were blunt, strong and competent. "Some people, ideal in every other way, are psychologically incapable of keeping a tape for more than a day. Pains, skin conditions, perhaps organic malfunctionings develop. All have a psychosomatic basis, of course, but we both know that to the person concerned they hurt just as much as the real thing. At the same time these disturbances can be controlled, even negated completely, by a strong mind. Yet a mind which has strength only will break under them in time.

	"Flexibility allied with strength is required," he had concluded, "and it is my job to see if that irresponsible lump of porridge you use for a brain possesses those qualities."

	O'Mara had then instructed him to keep his mind as blank as possible during the transfer, and a few minutes later removed the helmet and nodded dismissal. With the first evidence of double-mindedness already becoming apparent, Conway had left for the Director's office to receive the details of his assignment.

	And that had been only six hours ago.

-

	Conway brought his wandering mind back to the present to find that the other half of it had been carrying on without him. He shook his head irritably in an attempt to fuse the two personalities together, and began to wind up the lecture.

	He said: "... In the initial talk of the series I have dealt with the almost insoluble problem of treating the diabetic condition in the ELNT species. To summarize, this condition, or its near equivalent, is known to practically all of the warm-blooded oxygen-breathing life-forms. Ideally it can be cured by the restimulation of the faulty or inactive pancreas. Among certain species, which includes the ELNTs, this treatment is impossible due to its disruption of the endocrine balance generally, which is nearly always fatal and invariably destroys the mental processes.

	"Earlier and less efficient methods," Conway went on, "which control rather than cure the condition, are also unsuitable for your race. Administering insulin by subcutaneous injection presupposes a thin, flexible tegument underlaid by muscles, adipose and served by a capillary system which will wash the material slowly and evenly into the bloodstream. The ELNT is exoskeletal, and it is impossible to inject through five inches of bone. The idea of drilling a fine hole and implanting a needle permanently is unsuccessful for various physiological reasons. And taking insulin orally, which relies on a certain proportion being lost as waste and the resr absorbed through the walls of the stomach, is unsuitable for ELNTs because of your digestive tract, whose efficiency varies markedly with the emotional state.

	"All of which means," Conway ended simply, "that you Melfans are the only species remaining in which the diabetic condition is fatal."

-

	The three ELNTs made short, complimentary speeches in turn, thanking him for an extremely useful first lecture. Senreth, the being who Conway wanted to think of as if but which one half of his mind demanded that he call she, was most flattering. Which did not help Conway's peace of mind one little bit.

	Ordinarily he would have dismissed the class at this point and used the next twenty minutes or so in pulling himself together, Conway thought wryly; but not this time. These ELNTs were important people on the home world, so he was expected to act as host as well as instructor.

	Sitting cross-legged at the two-foot-high table in the Dining Hall involved no great discomfort, but shifting the mass of seafood—both plant and animal—set before him was a problem. Conway was ravenously hungry, he knew that the Catering Supervisor would not have sent him out anything which was likely to disagree with his Earth-human metabolism, and by ELNT standards the stuff was delicious— the Melfan part of his mind insisted that it was. But to the Earth-human eye and nose of Conway it was .1 disgusting mess which stank like over-ripe fish.

	He could always order some decent, Earth-human food, of course. But doing so would have been a breach of good manners, because he knew from the ELNT tape in his mind that the sight of steak and potatoes would have done worse things to his Melfan guests than their miniature fish and seaweed was doing to him. It wasn't until he began to relax and let his human identity slip into the background that he was able to eat at all, and then he found himself snapping at the food on his plate with both hands, using his index finger and thumb in imitation of the pincers of his guests. His nosefilters helped a lot, too.

-

	After lunch he showed them around those sections of the hospital which did not require them to don protective suits. Quite a number of races were warm-blooded oxygen-breathers with one-G gravity and pressure, so that the tour lasted over four hours. They talked shop most of the time, and Conway tried to keep at least one of the ELNTs between Senreth and himself. He was getting an overwhelming urge to bang his head against its/her carapace just between the neck and left fore-pincer.

	Melfans ate every ten hours and took a four-hour sleep between meals, so on his next visit to the Dining Hall Conway could have ordered what he liked. But now the ELNT tape had gained such a strong hold that both Melfan and Earthly wishes were distasteful to him. Yet he was hungry. In desperation he ran his eye down the menu, mentally visualizing the items and then hastily putting them out of his mind as the Melfan half registered revulsion or nausea. He had to fall back on sandwiches finally, the standby of all Tape-ridden Diagnosticians and Senior Physicians.

	Half his mind insisted that they tasted like cork, and the other half thought they were just barely better than nothing. Fuel, he thought disgustedly, just fuel. For Conway all pleasure in eating had gone.

	The following three hours Conway spent in his room working on the lectures he would be delivering during the next week. With the enormous mass of ELNT-oriented data and experience on tap, widening his association centers and doubling his brain power, he simply ran through the theoretical aspect of the work. He felt rather awed by himself, even though he realized that this near-genius quality of thinking was normal to one in these circumstances. This was the Ideal—a working synthesis between the knowledge and experience of an entity long dead and the live, original thinking of a practicing physician.

	Conway prepared material for the next three days. He could not go much further ahead until he had an idea how fast the visitors would absorb the stuff. He was feeling tired by then and decided to try to sleep as quickly as possible, because the ELNT sharing his mind had begun acting up once Conway had stopped concentrating on purely medical subjects. The sooner he could render himself naturally unconscious, the better for both of them.

	But with that idea he got nowhere at all.

	Tossing and turning in his bed, Conway told himself again and again that the entity sharing his mind was just a recording, the memories of a being long past caring about things physical. He, Conway, was the boss and he must put his mental foot down. This Melfan in his mind had no objective reality, and its needs therefore were only the barest shadows of desires.

-

	The trouble was, Conway told himself wretchedly, that they did not feel the slightest bit shadowy. Because the ELNT who had made the tape had done so at the height of his professional career, when he was still a comparatively young member of the species, so that all of Conway's objective knowledge that it was dead and gone to the contrary, the personality sharing his mind was as alive and rarin' to go as the day on which the tape had been made. And the Melfans were warm-blooded with a metabolism not too dissimilar to his own. Perhaps hot-blooded would describe them more aptly, because they were an intensely emotional and passionate race. Conway knew. And the being who had made the tape, even for one of his hot-blooded species, had been a hellion where the females were concerned.

	Conway drifted off to sleep finally, his mind seething with the hot, vivid imagery more normal to an adolescent seriously disturbed for the first time by a member of the opposite sex. Only on this occasion the girl of Conway's dreams was a six-legged, intelligent crab called Senreth ... 

	He awoke with a yell of sheer panic. A few minutes later, when his pulse-rate had dropped back to normal, Conway tried to analyze the nightmare which had awakened him. There had been a great and basic fear, vertigo, and the impression of being utterly defenseless. He lay back, closed his eyes ... and five minutes later sat up, sweating.

	Normally Conway did not dream, much less have nightmares. The sense of fear which had awakened him could not, he knew, apply to himself, so there must be something in the room or in the situation as a whole which was affecting the Melfan half of his mind. He lay back for the third time and began searching through the ELNT memories for some reason for his panic. It took a long time, because it was such a simple, basic thing that the ELNTs themselves did not think of it consciously. Conway rolled over onto his stomach, and his last thought before going peacefully to sleep was that of course any being with a heavy carapace would feel helpless and afraid if it was forced to sleep on its back.

-

	He awoke with long, rumbling explosions and alarm sirens ringing in his ears. Conway was a very heavy sleeper and had found this to be the combination which wakened him fastest. Some of his colleagues awakened themselves with gentle music, but this Conway considered sissy. The act of groping for the cut-off switch brought him fully awake, and he decided that he would like to crawl around the bottom of his private lake for half an hour before breakfast. If he was feeling particularly devilish he might even dine off a couple of ornamental fish, which were becoming fat and lazy these days. He was on his hands and knees trying to push open the sliding door with his head when the realization came of what was happening. The ELNT had sneaked up on him while his resistance had been low just after sleep.

	He remembered to dress. The Melfans did not use clothing.

	Like his last meal, breakfast was a compromise. There was another Earth-human doctor at the same table who was also working on an odd selection of dishes with a similar lack of enthusiasm. They exchanged sickly grins, and presently Conway left for the two hundred and third level.

	That day was bad, and the one that followed it even worse. The lectures had now progressed to the stage of four-way discussions—which was what Conway had hoped for—and occupied him for three hours each morning and afternoon. Inevitably they overflowed into his lunch period, and he had to talk shop while dining with the ELNTs. The food did not bother him so much as the fact that he was having to take Melfan company for nearly eight hours at a stretch every day. It was bothering him, badly. He was being thrown up against Senreth too much.

-
	In one of the busier corridors he had stepped aside to avoid being trampled by an elephantine FGLI. He had stumbled against Senreth and grabbed her mid-left leg to steady himself. The touch thrilled him to the core of his being, even though one half of his mind told him that it felt like a warm, slightly damp log. He drew back hurriedly, his face burning.

	"My apologies," said Senreth, in translated and therefore necessarily emotionless tones. "Ours is an unusually clumsy race."

	"My fault entirely," Conway stammered, then added with a rush, "On the contrary, you are both dexterous and physically beautiful ..." He stopped himself in time before the Melfans could realize that he was being personally complimentary to Senreth rather than being polite towards their race as a whole. This had been the first time Conway had engaged in anything other than strictly professional conversation with the Melfan female. His hands were shaking badly.

	It was then that Conway decided that he would have to see O'Mara. The ELNTs and himself would start working with models tomorrow, and even for that Conway could not afford to have shaky hands.

	But O'Mara wasn't available.

	"He's gone sick," said Carrington, the young, round-faced psychologist who was holding down O'Mara's desk. "Apparently his plumbing is clogged up with cholesterol and similar gunk, and Pathology wants to tinker with him for a week or so. Can I do anything for you?"

	Conway told him yes and began a somewhat edited account of his mental troubles. He ended by requesting permission to take another Educator tape—one belonging to a completely cold and emotionless life-form which would combat the effect of the female hunter currently inhabiting his mind. By playing the hothead off against the frigid type Conway could, he hoped, keep his own human emotions to the fore and so be able to ignore Senreth.

	Carrington looked thoughtful, then said, "Chances are it would make you more confused, but then again it might work. That is if I agreed to help you, which I don't."

	"But why?" said Conway angrily.

	"Because O'Mara says so," Carrington replied imperturbably. "He left explicit instructions regarding you. No conditioning, shots or any other form of medication aimed at helping you over the rough spots. Your mental confusion is understandable, and I sympathize, but giving help at this stage would not be a good idea. You must find your own methods of fighting or adapting to the situation. All new Senior Physicians have to do it. A psychological crutch now would mean you always needing one, and you could hope for no further advancement.

	"If things get too bad," the psychologist went on, watching him keenly, "serious enough to impair your physical efficiency, I'm thinking of violent digestive upsets, loss of co-ordination and so on, you can ask to be taken off the case."

	And that, of course, was unthinkable. It would be a public admission that he had neither professional ability nor moral fiber—in short, that he was unfitted for his job. It was the most humiliating thing which could happen to one in his position. Conway shook his head, growled "Thank you" and left.

-

	Mental confusion and overripe seafood Conway could take, but something would have to be done about Senreth. Maybe his earlier fit of the shakes had been a once-only occurrence, and if so then he had nothing to worry about. But he could not afford to make an assumption like that when there would shortly be a living entity under his knife, and with Senreth and the other two ELNTs assisting in the operation. Something would have to be done about that six-legged femme fatale, or about Conway himself.

	Fight or adapt, Carrington had said. Conway's trouble seemed to be that he was adapting—giving in—too much. But his original idea for fighting the ELNT influence was still a good one, even though Carrington refused to let him take another tape. He could still fight fire, not with fire, but with extreme cold.

	Walking rapidly, Conway went to the nearby inter-level lock and donned a lightweight suit. Ten minutes later he was swimming through the cool green of the water-breathing AUGL section. From there, and using the same suit, he went through a series of chlorine-filled wards belonging to the Illensan PVSJs. There were a lot of people he knew among the PVSJ staff, but by his haste he managed to discourage conversation. On the next level the cold struck at him even through the fabric of his suit. Conway negotiated the next lock quickly and climbed shivering into a tank-like vehicle which was parked inside. This vehicle—highly insulated, jammed with heaters inside and hung with refrigeration units out— was the only possible method of entering the Cold Section without both freezing himself to death in seconds and blasting the life out of every patient in the ward with his radiated body heat. For these were the quarters of the methane life-forms, an ultra-frigid, crystalline species which inhabited only the outermost planets of some of the coolest suns.

	The blackness outside was absolute and the temperature close to that. In his scanner Conway saw another vehicle like his own come rolling up. It belonged to the nurse on duty, and he had to explain that he was conducting some general research which did not require either assistance or the direct examination of the patients.

-

	Alone again, Conway wondered briefly who or what had been in the other tank. The nurse's voice had been translated, so it was certainly not an Earth-human. Then he switched off his translator, cut out two of the heaters, and increased the gain on his outside sound pick-ups: he wanted to hear the patients conversing without being distracted by what they said. The deliberate chilling of the vehicle's interior was designed simply to put him in a more receptive mood.

	With his eyes closed and his unseen breath fogging the cabin, Conway listened to a ward full of intelligent crystals talking. Ineffably sweet, incredibly fragile, they spoke like the chiming of colliding snow-flakes. This was a race, Conway thought as an elfin carillon of great purity rang out, whose thinking was cool and fragile and gentle. In all of their history there had been a complete absence of violence, and anything like a sex-motivated thought was something of which they were utterly incapable. They possessed a quality which could only be described as coldly spiritual.

	And this, Conway hoped, would be just the medicine to quell the Melfan hothead who was influencing far too much of his mind. And body.

	Next day began the practical work, with Conway demonstrating the new procedure on an ELNT model which Anatomy had built for him. It was an extremely life-like piece of work containing a functioning heart and circulatory system. The two male ELNTs expressed pleasure and surprise at its detail, and Senreth reacted in characteristic fashion.

	"A handsome brute," she exclaimed, giving the model a series of taps on the carapace which were half-playful, half affectionate. "We don't hatch them like that anymore."

	Conway shut his eyes tightly as the ELNT segment of his mind sat back on its haunches and howled, or whatever it was love-sick crabs did in similar circumstances. Desperately he thought back to the previous night in the methane ward, recapturing the chill, ethereal beauty of that environment. He concentrated hard, and apparently the therapy worked. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later and sneaked a look at his hands, they weren't shaking.

	Calling for attention, Conway began listing the instruments to be used, handling each one briefly as he discussed it. Some were standard Melfan equipment, others had been designed at Sector General especially for this operation, and all had their handles terminating in the ELNT-type grip—two narrow, hollow cones set at an angle of thirty degrees to each other. These were designed to fit the Melfan pincers, but Conway found that he could use them. The human hand was about the most adaptable appendage known.

	From the instruments he moved to an object enclosed in a transparent case which occupied an adjacent table. It looked a little like a large, three-inch pancake which had been pulled and twisted out of shape. Two lengths of narrow plastic tubing sprouted like limp antennae from its upper surface, and the whole occupied a volume of approximately one cubic foot.

	"... This is the artificial pancreas," Conway said with a touch of pride. The first model had taken up a whole room, and refining it down to this size had been no mean achievement. He went on, "Its use is made possible by the fact that in your species the vital organs are practically floating in a shock-absorbent fluid and have considerable free play. The device is convoluted to both accommodate and be held in position by the surrounding organs. The arterial blood supply is diverted into the artificial pancreas at a point close to the heart, which maintains the blood sugar level at optimum.

	"Unfortunately," Conway went on, "neutralization of the excess sugar causes a certain amount of waste to collect in the device, and this must be removed every three or four years. But this is a much simpler procedure than the initial operation."

	Continuing, he stressed the importance of fast, accurate work. When the section of carapace was removed and the fluid drained away, the vital organs together with their attached muscle and blood-supply networks were no longer floating in this frictionless medium. Serious displacement and compression was caused by both their own dead weight and that of surrounding organs, also possible interruptions of the blood-supply to several vital areas. The heart especially was placed under an abnormal strain. If death was not to result within a few minutes, these organs had to be supported during insertion of the device, which was the reason why three assistants were necessary. Considering the mass of the Melfan life-form, that was the number calculated to give the maximum help with the minimum of overcrowding.

-

	Conway placed a dummy of the artificial pancreas on the instrument tray and pushed it across to the operating frame where their "patient" was suspended.

	"This is to be a full dress rehearsal, but without the time limit," he said briskly. "So if you will take your positions we will begin ..."

	It began fairly easily with the removal of a section of carapace measuring eighteen inches by six and the uncovering of the underlying membrane, which he pierced with a suction probe. As pumps drew the internal fluid into an aseptic container, Conway made a long incision and snapped at his three assistants to go in with support pans. These were specially-shaped pans with long, angled handles which were designed to hold the vital organs in position when the fluid had been drained off.

	"One at a time, please!" Conway said sharply as six pincers converged on the operative field as one. "You're making a noise like a machine shop! That's better, but remember that I've to get in there, too ... Senreth, you're not supporting that lung properly. Let me show you ..."

	Conway grasped one of Senreth's pincers in each hand and gently eased them into the correct position, felt his mouth go dry, and began thinking furiously about the patients in the methane ward. He went on shakily, "To clear a path for the device we must first incise the muscle which anchors—"

	There was a sudden spurt of red over his gloves and then a great crimson tide welling into the field, obliterating everything. Conway stared at it foolishly, asking himself how this could have happened, and knowing all the time exactly how it had happened.

	"A shockingly life-like model," said one of the ELNTs. "And an object lesson to all of us, sir. We obstructed you, of course."

	Conway looked up. The ELNT was giving him an out, and he was tempted to take it. But instead he shook his head angrily and retorted, "If there's a lesson, it is that Teacher does not necessarily know everything. And now, Doctors, you may go. I'll have a technician repair the model before the next lecture."

	Deliberately he refrained from saying "my next lecture." He was going to see Carrington. He wanted to quit.

	But first he would have to find someone who could take over for him. 1 he Melfans had to be considered, too. Another Senior was needed— one with more experience and stability. Maybe Dr. Mannon would take over for him.

-

	He ran Dr. Mannon to earth as he was emerging from the LSVO theater. His old friend and one-time teacher specialized in surgery of the low-gravity, winged species of this classification and that of their MSVK cousins, and was in permanent possession of these two tapes. Despite this his manner and conversation was quite rational, if a trifle on the breezy side.

	"So you're in trouble and need help," Mannon boomed cheerfully. "What is it? Professional, or some sordid emotional involvement?" 

	"Both," said Conway bitterly.

	Mannon's eyebrows climbed. Grinning, he said, "And I always thought you were too straightlaced for that sort of thing. Well, well. But you can tell me the grisly details over lunch, that is if you don't mind watching me guzzle what looks like a plate of bird-seed?"

	"So long as it doesn't smell of fish," said Conway with great feeling, then launched into a somewhat incoherent account of his troubles. Both doctors switched off their Translators so that e-t passersby would not overhear them. This was one piece of scandal which just could not be allowed to get out.

	"Basically your trouble is that you want to whistle after crabs," Mannon said as they found a table. Before Conway could reply he added quickly, "Female crabs, of course. I did not mean to imply that there was anything seriously wrong with you."

	"This is serious," said Conway quietly.

	Mannon nodded. "To you it must be," he said sympathetically. "And I think it was a dirty trick saddling you with an ELNT tape for your first long-termer. A completely alien personality would have made it much easier to keep the two sets of data separate. The Melfans are very close to us temperamentally, which is one of the reasons for your trouble. And has it occurred to you that your subconscious may be aiding and abetting this six-legged Don Juan, that deep down inside, our quiet and ultra-respectable Dr. Conway shares its feelings? After all, this is just a set of memories impressed on your brain, and while a certain amount of confusion is to be expected, there should be no great difficulty in establishing which is the original you and which the superimposed entity."

-

	Mannon was silent for a moment. When he went on, his tone was almost harsh:

	"Maybe I'm beginning to sound like O'Mara, but it seems to me if the proximity of the ELNT female gave you the shakes so badly that you botched the demonstration, this is a clear indication that you want the superimposed personality to take over. My advice is to straighten yourself out, fast."

	Angrily, Conway denied the charge that he was a mental traitor to himself, and went into details regarding his efforts to combat the ELNT influence. Then he stopped suddenly. There was no need to tell Mannon what his greatest fear was; that of botching, not a demonstration but the operation proper, and killing the patient.

	"... I want to quit, Doctor," Conway ended miserably. "Will you take over for me?"

	"No!" Mannon snapped, then more quickly, "Use your head, man! Yon would have to tell the Melfans why you were ducking out, and you'd be laughed out of the hospital. Dammit, there must be some tricks you haven't thought of yet, you're supposed to be the boy with the unconventional ideas, remember. That melting SRTF and the chrysalis life-form ..."

	Mannon's voice died away and his eyes took on a far-away look. Suddenly he smiled and said, "There's one approach you haven't tried yet. Trouble is, you're not likely to think of it. I would, and a lot of others I know, but not you. And I'm not allowed to tell you."

	Conway breathed heavily through his nose. He said, "Stop hedging. O'Mara said you could advise me. Can't you phrase it so it sounds like advice?"

	Mannon shook his head. "I'll have to think about it, pull a few strings, and put it through the proper channels. Pity you aren't the type who shamelessly misuses authority for your own selfish purposes, like me ... 

	"Put what through proper channels?" Conway practically shouted. "Eat up," said Mannen, ignoring the question. "Your sandwich is getting cold."

-

	During the four days which followed, Conway did not again make a slip, but there had been several very near things. He continued to get the shakes every time Senreth touched him in the line of duty, but not, he thought, quite so badly. This he attributed to Mannon's earlier conversation, which had left him both angry and half hopeful—though what exactly he was hoping for, Conway could not say. Why was it a pity that he did not misuse his Senior Physician's authority for selfish ends, and what was it that other people could think of but not him? Was his subconscious acceptance of the ELNT personality part of the answer? Conway did not know, and there were times when he suspected that Mannon did not know either, or that the other was simply trying to make him so worried about the state of his own mind that he would be too engrossed to be bothered by Senreth. Yet Mannon had never struck him as being such a devious person.

	On the morning of the fifth day, the Melfan patient who had been waiting for the operation went into coma and Conway had to set the time for early that afternoon—three full days sooner than he had planned. There was now no time for him to instruct someone else in the job—he was stuck with it, Senreth, the shakes, and all. Then just as he was leaving for the theater came another calamity—the news that he was to have an Observer. True, it was only someone or other from the AUGL section anxious to brush up on their exoskeletal procedures, but nothing could have been better planned at that moment to wreck Conway's already weakened self-confidence. He hoped that he, she or it was nobody he knew.

	But even that small comfort was denied him. When Conway arrived he found Murchison gowned and waiting. Murchison he knew, both personally and by reputation.

	During the preliminaries—while the patient was brought in, transferred to the operating frame and strapped down—Conway spoke very little. And yet he wanted to talk, or do anything at all which would put off the moment of beginning—which would grant the patient a stay of execution. For that was how he had begun to think of it now; his hands were shaking already. Then abruptly he stepped into the recessed section of floor beside the frame—necessary because he was so much taller than the Melfans—and signaled that he was ready to start. Unobtrusively, Murchison drew closer.

	While the routine business of opening the carapace was in progress, Conway glanced across at Murchison. Since being exposed to the ELNT tape he had been given a completely objective view of his own species, and the opinion had been growing in him that they were, male and female alike, shapeless and unlovely bags of dough when compared with the clean, hard contours of the Melfans. Murchison, he thought, would not be pleased if she knew she was being thought of as a shapeless and unlovely bag. Unless covered by a heavy-duty spacesuit fitted with an opaque sun-filter, Nurse Murchison possessed that combination of physiological features which made it impossible for any male Earth-human member of the staff to regard her with anything like Clinical Detachment.

	But the regards were one way only—she was supposed to have a shoulder that was strictly from the methane section. At least so it was said. Conway had once worked on a case with her in the Nursery, however, and had found her very easy to get along with. At the moment he thought her gown was belted a little too tightly.

	Conway incised the underlying membrane, and while the pumps gurgled, drawing off the internal fluid, Senreth and the other two ELNTs were already bringing their support pans into position. They had the drill off perfectly—especially Senreth, who possessed a remarkably sure and delicate touch. If they had only had time to work up their speed, Conway could have allowed them to conduct the operation while he merely supervised. He would have had only his mental confusion to worry about then. There was still a distinct tremor in his hands.

	"Stop that!" Conway raged silently at them. "Are you trying to kill somebody?"

	This was a living being they were working on, and the internal organs were subtly different in size and placement from those in the model. There was also a complex of secondary blood-vessels and muscle structure which had only been suggested in the practice sessions. Conway sweated while they gently eased the heart, stomach and a section of lung aside preparatory to inserting the artificial pancreas. Shock had sent the pulse-rate away up, and Conway thought wildly that the heart itself might pull free. He didn't know how Senreth managed to hold it—it was like a landed fish flopping about on its support pan. He found his eyes drifting to Senreth's pincers, lingering on the sharp, hard contours and the lovely reddish-gray coloration which was enhanced rather than concealed by the aseptic film. Conway felt his face getting hot, and his hands trembled, badly. Helplessly he swore under his breath.

	"Can I be of any help, Doctor?" Murchison asked suddenly in her low, pleasant voice. "I'm familiar with your written lectures ..."

	"What? No!" said Conway, startled and irritated. "And don't talk, please."

	Murchison must be slipping, he thought. A nurse of her experience should have known better. And her belt was definitely too tight. The effect, in other circumstances, would have been distracting to say the least. Conway made an impatient sound, then turned to lift the artificial pancreas from its saline bath.

	A few seconds later it was in position, awaiting only to be linked into the main artery. This had to be clamped above and below the points of entrance and exit, cut, and the severed ends pressed over the two flexible connections coming from the new pancreas. A tight fit was insured by having the connections taper out to a width greater than that of the artery, and special non-corroding bands would secure the join. It was tricky work, complicated by both the tangle of subsidiary blood-vessels in the area and the obscuring effect of three pairs of ELNT pincers.

	On two occasions Murchison apparently got excited and started reporting on the patient's condition—information readily available to Conway from the tell-tales beside him—and he had to shush her. After giving her one particularly angry glare he found himself thinking, Not just the belt, her whole blasted outfit is too tight ...! We, returned to his work feeling confused, excited and overstimulated in some odd fashion. And for the last ten minutes he realized that his hands had been steady as the proverbial rock. Even when he was forced to compliment Senreth for a particularly deft piece of work on her part, or was obliged to move one of her pincers to the side while suturing underneath, they remained steady.

	He still regarded Senreth's mandibles as beautiful—hard, steady, wonderfully precise appendages which it was a joy to behold in operation. But when he touched one it felt like a warm, slightly damp log, and his emotional reaction was the same as would have been obtained from any other warm, slightly damp log. None at all.

-

	Almost before he knew it they were finished, the internal fluid returned, the membrane sutured and the carapace being wired in. Anxiously, then, they watched the analyzer. They watched it until there was no possible doubt that the blood-sugar level was coming down, then:

	"We've done it!" Conway yelled, practically falling our of his recess with excitement. He jumped up and did a shambling dance around the frame, slapped Senreth's carapace in a most familiar manner and ended up by hugging Murchison.

	"Put me down!" the nurse said severely, when the hug began stretching past the two-minute mark. "This isn't like you, Doctor Conway ..."

	Conway eased the pressure without quite letting go. He said seriously, "You don't know how lucky it was for me that you turned up here. Every time I ... she ... you ... Anyway, I didn't even know you were interested in this sort of work."

	"I'm not," said Murchison, still trying to push him away, "but it was suggested that I so interest myself, the suggestion being worded remarkably like an order. This is undignified, Dr. Conway."

	Suddenly Conway saw the light. It was Mannon's work, of course! His friend had not been allowed to help him, but through devious channels so that the truth would never be suspected he had arranged to have Murchison planted on him at just the time when he most needed a counterweight—or was counter-attraction the word, considering Murchison's physical endowments—to check his emotional imbalance towards Senrerh. It had turned out to be the simple answer to a complex psychological problem. First chance he got he would have to thank Mannon for being a true friend and a lecherous old man. And Murchison, too.

	The Melfans were leaving. A little wildly he said, "Murchison, I love you all to pieces. You'll never know why, but I've got to show my appreciation somehow. When do you come off duty?"

	"Dr. Conway," said Murchison gently, temporarily ceasing her attempts to pull free, "I may never know but I can guess an awful lot. And I flatly refuse to catch someone on the rebound from a six-legged, female crustacean ...!"

	Conway laughed and let her go—temporarily, he hoped. So Murchison knew, then. He was going to have to ask her very nicely not to blab it around.

	Solemnly, he said, "Senreth was just a silly infatuation, she isn't really my type. Now, what time do you come off duty?"

-

VISITOR AT LARGE

Chapter One

	Despite the vast resources of medical and surgical skill available, resources which were acknowledged second to none anywhere in the civilized galaxy, there had to be times when a case arrived in Sector General for which nothing whatever could be done. This particular patient was of classification SRTT, which was a physiological type never before encountered in the hospital. It was amoebic, possessed the ability to extrude any limbs, sensory organs or protective tegument necessary to the environment in which it found itself, and was so fantastically adaptable that it was difficult to imagine how one of these beings could ever fall sick in the first place.

	The lack of symptoms was the most baffling aspect of the case. There was in evidence none of the visually alarming growths of malfunctionings to which so many of the extraterrestrial species were prone, nor were there any bacteria present in what could be considered harmful quantities. Instead the patient was simply melting—quietly, cleanly and without fuss or bother, like a piece of ice left in a warm room, its body was literally turning to water. Nothing that was tried had any effect in halting the process and, while they continued their attempts at finding a cute with even greater intensity, the Diagnosticians and lesser doctors in attendance had begun to realize a little sadly that the run of medical miracles produced with such monotonous regularity by Sector Twelve General Hospital was due to be broken.

	And it was for that reason alone that one of the strictest rules of the hospital was temporarily relaxed.

	"I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning," said Dr. Conway, trying hard not to stare at the iridescent and not quite atrophied wings of his new assistant. "At Reception, where the problems of admittance are dealt with."

	Conway waited to see if the other had any comments, and continued to walk in the direction of the stated objective while doing so. Rather than walk beside his companion he maintained a two-yard lead—not out of any wish to give offense, but for the simple reason that he was afraid of inflicting severe physical damage on his assistant if he strayed any closer than that.

	The new assistant was a GLNO—six-legged, exoskeletal and insectlike, with the empathic faculty—from the planet Cinruss. The gravity-pull of its home world was less than one-twelfth Earth-normal, which was the reason for an insect species growing to such size and becoming dominant, so that it wore two anti-G belts to neutralize the attraction which would otherwise have mashed it into ruin against the corridor floor. One neutralizer belt would have been adequate for this purpose, but Conway did not blame the being one bit for wanting to play safe. It was a spindly, awkward-looking and incredibly fragile lifeform, and its name was Dr. Prilicla.

	Prilicla had previous experience both in planetary and in the smaller multi-environment hospitals and so was not completely green, Conway had been told, but it would naturally feel at a loss before the size and complexity of Sector General. Conway was to be its guide and mentor for a while and then, when his present period of duty in charge of the nursery was complete, he would hand over to Prilicla. Apparently the hospital's director had decided that light-gravity lifeforms with their extreme sensitivity and delicacy of touch would be particularly suited to the care and handling of the more fragile e-t embryos.

	It was a good idea, Conway thought as he hastily interposed himself between Prilicla and a Tralthan intern who lumbered past on six elephantine feet, if the low-gravity lifeform in question could survive the association with its more massive and clumsy colleagues.

	"You understand," said Conway as he guided the GLNO towards Reception's control-room, "that getting some of the patients into the place is a problem in itself. It isn't so bad with the small ones, but Tralthans, or a forty-foot-long AUGL from Chalderescol ..." Conway broke off suddenly and said, "Here we are."

	Through a wide, transparent wall section could be seen a room containing three massive control desks, only one of which was currently occupied. The being before it was a Nidian, and a group of indicator lights showed that it had just made contact with a ship approaching the hospital.

	Conway said, "Listen ..."

	"Identify yourself, please," said the red teddybear in its staccato, barking speech, which was filtered through Conway's translator as flat and toneless English and which came to Prilicla as equally unemotionless Cinrusskin. "Patient, visitor or staff, and species?"

	"Visitor," came the reply, "and human."

	There was a second's pause, then: "Give your physiological classification, please," said the red-furred receptionist with a wink towards the two watchers. "All intelligent races refer to their own species as human and think of all others as being non-human, so that what you call yourself has no meaning ..."

-

	Conway only half heard the conversation after that, because he was so engrossed in trying to visualize what a being with that classification could look like. The double-T meant that both its shape and physical characteristics were variable, R that it had high heat and pressure tolerance, and the S in that combination ...! If there had not actually been one waiting outside, Conway would not have believed such a weird beastie could exist.

	And the visitor was an important person, apparently, because the receptionist was now busily engaged in passing on the news of its arrival to various beings within the hospital—most of whom were Diagnosticians, no less. All at once Conway was intensely curious to see this highly unusual being, but thought that he would not be showing a very good example to Prilicla if he dashed off on a rubbernecking expedition when they had work to do elsewhere. Also, his assistant was still very much an unknown quantity where Conway was concerned—Prilicla might be one of those touchy individuals who held that to look at a member of another species for no other reason than to satisfy mere curiosity was a grievous insult ... 

	"If it would not interfere with more urgent duties," broke in the flat, translated voice of Prilicla, "I would very much like to see this visitor."

	Bless you! thought Conway, but outwardly pretended to mull over the latter. Finally he said, "Normally I could not allow that, but as the lock where the SRTT is entering is not far from here and there is some time to spare before we are due at our wards, I expect it will be all right to indulge your curiosity just this once. Please follow me, Doctor."

	As he waved goodbye to the furry receptionist, Conway thought that it was a very good thing that Prilicla's translator was incapable of transferring the strongly ironic content of those last words, so that the other was not aware what a rise Conway was taking out of him. And then suddenly he stopped in his mental tracks. Prilicla, he realized uncomfortably, was an empath. The being had not said very much since they had met a short time ago, but everything that it had said had backed up Conway's feelings in the particular matter under discussion. His new assistant was not a telepath—it could not read thoughts—but it was sensitive to feelings and emotions and would therefore have been aware of Conway's curiosity.

	Conway felt like kicking himself for forgetting that empathic faculty, and wryly wondered just who had been taking the rise out of which.

	He had to console himself with the thought that at least he was agreeable, and not like some of the people he had been attached to recently like Dr. Arretapec.

-

	Lock Six, where the SRTT was to be admitted, could have been reached in a few minutes if Conway had used the short cut through the water-filled corridor leading to the AUGL operating room and across the surgical ward of the chlorine-breathing PVSJs. But it would have meant donning one of the lightweight diving suits for protection, and while he could climb in and out of such a suit in no time at all, he very much doubted if the ultra-leggy Prilicla could do so. They therefore had to take the long way round, and hurry.

	At one point a Tralthan wearing the gold-edged armband of a Diagnostician and an Earth-human maintenance engineer overtook them, the FGLI charging along like a runaway tank and the Earthman having to trot to keep up. Conway and Prilicla stood aside respectfully to allow the Diagnostician to pass—as well as to avoid being flattened—and then continued. A scrap of overheard conversation identified the two beings as part of the arriving SRTT's reception committee, and from the somewhat caustic tone of the Earth-human's remarks it was obvious that the visitor had arrived earlier than expected.

	When they turned a corner a few seconds later and came within sight of the great entry lock, Conway saw a sight which made him smile in spite of himself. Three corridors converged on the antechamber of Lock Six on this level, as well as two others on upper and lower levels which reached it via sloping ramps, and figures were hurrying along each one. As well as the Tralthan and Earthman who had just passed them there was another Tralthan, two of the DBLF caterpillars, and a spiny, membranous Illensan in a transparent protective suit—who had just emerged from the adjacent chlorine-filled corridor of the PVSJ section— all heading for the inner seal of the big lock, already swinging open on the expected visitor. To Conway it seemed to be a wildly ludicrous situation, and he had a sudden mental picture of the whole crazy menagerie of them coming together with a crash in the same spot at the same time ... 

	Then while he was still smiling at the thought, comedy changed swiftly and without warning to tragedy.

Chapter Two

	As the visitor entered the antechamber and the seal closed behind it, Conway saw something that was a little like a crocodile with horn-tipped tentacles and a lot like nothing he had ever seen before. He saw the being shrink away from the figures hurrying to meet it, then suddenly dart towards the PVSJ—who was, Conway was to remember later, both the nearest and the smallest. Everybody seemed to be shouting at once then, so much so that Conway's and presumably everyone else's translators went into an ear-piercing squeal of oscillation through sheer overload,

	Faced by the teeth and hard-tipped tentacles of the charging visitor, the Illensan PVSJ, no doubt thinking of the flimsiness of the envelope which held its life-saving chlorine around it, fled back into the inter-corridor lock for the safety of its own section. The visitor, its way suddenly blocked by a Tralthan booming unheard reassurances at it, turned suddenly and scuttled for the same airlock ... 

	All such locks were fitted with rapid-action controls in case of emergency, controls which caused one door to open and the other to shut simultaneously instead of waiting for the chamber to be evacuated and refilled with the required atmosphere. The PVSJ, with the berserk visitor close behind it and its suit already torn by the SRTT's teeth so that it was in imminent danger of dying from oxygen poisoning, rightly considered his case to be an emergency and activated the rapid-action controls. It was perhaps too frightened to notice that the visitor was not completely into the lock, and that when the inner door opened the outer one would neatly cut the visitor in two ... 

	There was so much shouting and confusion around the lock that Conway did not see who the quick-thinking person was who saved the visitor's life by pressing yet another emergency button, the one which caused both doors to open together. This action kept the SRTT from being cut in two, but there was now a direct opening into the PVSJ section, from which billowed thick, yellow clouds of chlorine gas. Before Conway could react, contamination detectors in the corridor walls touched off the alarm siren and simultaneously closed the air-tight doors in the immediate vicinity, and they were all neatly trapped.

-

	For a wild moment Conway fought the urge to run to the airtight doors and beat on them with his fists. Then he thought of plunging through that poisonous fog to another intersection lock which was on the other side of it. But he could see a Maintenanceman and one of the DBLF caterpillars in it already, both so overcome with chlorine that Conway doubted if they could live long enough to put on the suits. Could he, he wondered sickly, get over there? The lock chamber also contained helmets good for ten minutes or so—that was demanded by the safety regulations—but to do it he would have to hold his breath for at least three minutes and keep his eyes jammed shut, because if he got a single whiff of that gas or it got at his eyes he would be helplessly disabled. But how could he pass that heaving, struggling mass of Tralthan legs and tentacles spread across the corridor floor while groping about with his eyes shut ...?

	The fear-filled chaos of his thoughts was interrupted by Prilicla, who said, "Chlorine is lethal to my species. Please excuse me."

	Prilicla was doing something peculiar to itself. The long, many-jointed legs were waving and jerking about as though performing some weird, ritual dance, and two of the four manipulatory appendages—whose possession was the reason for its species' fame as surgeons—were doing complicated things with what looked like rolls of transparent plastic sheeting. Conway did not see exactly how it happened, but suddenly his GLNO assistant was swathed in a loose, transparent cover through which protruded its six legs and two manipulators—its body, wings and other two members, which were busily engaged in spraying sealing solution on the leg openings, were completely covered by it. The loose covering bellied out and became taut, proving that it was air-tight.

	"I didn't know you had ..." Conway began, then with a surge of hope bursting up within him he gabbled, "Listen. Do exactly as I tell you. You've got to get me a helmet, quickly ..."

	But the hope died just as suddenly before he finished giving the GLNO his instructions. Prilicla could doubtless find a helmet for him, but how could the being ever hope to make it to the lock where they were kept, through that struggling mass on the floor between. One blow could tear off a leg or cave in that flimsy exoskeleton like an eggshell. He couldn't ask the GLNO to do it, it would be murder.

	He was about to cancel all previous instructions and tell the GLNO to stay put and save itself, when Prilicla dashed across the corridor floor, ran diagonally up the wall and disappeared into the chlorine fog, traveling along the ceiling, Conway reminded himself that many insect lifeforms possessed sucker-tipped feet and began to feel hopeful again, so much so that other sensations began to register.

-

	Close beside him the wall annunciator was informing everyone in the hospital that there was contamination in the region of Lock Six, while below it the intercom unit was emitting red light and harsh buzzing sounds as somebody in Maintenance Division tried to find out whether or not the contaminated area was occupied. The drifting gas was almost on him as Conway snatched at the intercom mike.

	"Quiet and listen!" he shouted. "Conway here, at Lock Six. Two FGLIs, two DBLFs, one DBDG, all with chlorine poisoning not yet fatal. One PVSJ in damaged protective suit with oxy-poisoning and possibly other injuries, and one up there—"

	A sudden stinging sensation in the eyes made Conway drop the mike hurriedly. He backed away until stopped by the airtight door, and watched the yellow mist creep nearer. He could see practically nothing of what was going on down the corridor now, and an agonizing eternity seemed to go by before the spindly shape of Prilicla came swinging along the ceiling above him.

Chapter Three

	The helmet which Prilicla brought was in a reality a mask, a mask with a self-contained air supply which, when in position, adhered firmly along the edge of the hair line, cheeks and lower jaw. Its air was good only for a very limited time—ten minutes or so—but with it on and the danger of death temporarily removed, Conway discovered that he could think much more clearly.

	His first action was to go through the still-open intersection lock. The PVSJ inside it was motionless and with the gray blush, the beginning of a type of skin cancer, spreading over its body. To the PVSJ lifeform oxygen was vicious stuff. As gently as possible he dragged the Illensan into its own section and to a nearby storage compartment which he remembered being there. Pressure in this section was slightly greater than that maintained for warm-blooded oxygen breathers, so that where the PVSJ was concerned the air here was reasonably pure. Conway shut it in the compartment, after first grabbing an armful of the woven plastic sheets, in this section the equivalent of bed linen. There was no sign of the SRTT.

	Back in the other corridor he explained to Prilicla what he wanted done—the Earth-human he had seen earlier had succeeded in donning his suit, but was blundering about, eyes streaming and coughing violently, and was obviously incapable of giving any assistance. Conway picked his way around the weakly moving or unconscious bodies to the seal of Lock Six and opened it. There was a neatly racked row of air bottles on the wall inside. He lifted down two of them and staggered out.

	Prilicla had one unconscious form already covered with a sheet. Conway cracked the valve of an air bottle and slid it under the coveting, then watched as the plastic sheet bellied and rippled slightly with the air being released underneath it. It was the crudest possible form of oxygen tent, Conway thought, but the best that could be done at the moment. He left for more bottles.

	After the third trip Conway began to notice the warning signs. He was sweating profusely, his head was splitting and big black splotches were beginning to blot out his vision—his air supply was running out. It was high time he took off the emergency helmet, stuck his own head under a sheet like the others and waited for the rescuers to arrive. He took a few steps towards the nearest sheeted figure, and the floor hit him. His heart was banging thunderously in his chest, his lungs were on fire and all at once he didn't even have the strength to pull off the helmet ... 

	Conway was forced from his state of deep and oddly comfortable unconsciousness by pain: something was making strong and repeated attempts to cave in his chest. He stuck it just as long as he could, then opened his eyes and said, "Get off me, dammit, I'm all right!"

	The hefty intern who had been enthusiastically engaged in giving Conway artificial respiration climbed to his feet. He said, "When we arrived, daddy-longlegs here said you had ceased to emote. I was worried about you for a moment—well, slightly worried." He grinned and added, "If you can walk and talk, O'Mara wants to see you."

	Conway grunted and rose to his feet. Blowers and filtering apparatus had been set up in the corridor and were rapidly clearing the air of the last vestiges of chlorine, and the casualties were being removed, some on tented stretcher-carriers and others being assisted by their rescuers. He fingered the raw area of forehead caused by the hurried removal of his helmet, and took a few great gulps of air just to reassure himself that the nightmare of a few minutes ago was really over.

	"Thank you, Doctor," he said feelingly.

	"Don't mention it, Doctor," said the intern.

-

	They found O'Mara in the Educator Room. The Chief Psychologist wasted no time on preliminaries. He pointed to a chair for Conway and indicated a sort of surrealistic wastepaper basket to Prilicla and barked, "What happened?"

	The room was in shadow except for the glow of indicator lights on the Educator equipment and a single lamp on O'Mara's desk. All Conway could see of the psychologist as he began his story was two hard, competent hands projecting from the sleeves of a dark green uniform and a pair of steady gray eyes in a shadowed face. The hands did not move and the eyes never left him while Conway was speaking.

	When he was finished, O'Mara sighed and was silent for several seconds, then he said, "There were four of our top Diagnosticians at Lock Six just then, beings this hospital could ill afford to lose. The prompt action you took certainly saved at least three of their lives, so you're a couple of heroes. But I'll spare your blushes and not belabor that point.

	Neither," he added drily, "will I embarrass you by asking what you were doing there in the first place."

	Conway coughed. He said, "What I'd like to know is why the SRTT ran amok like that. Because of the crowd running to meet it, I'd say, except that no intelligent, civilized being would behave like that. The only visitors we allow here are either government people or visiting specialists, neither of which are the type to be scared at the sight of an alien lifeform. And why so many Diagnosticians to meet it in the first place?"

	"They were there," replied O'Mara, "because they were anxious to see what an SRTT looked like when it was not trying to look like something else. This data might have aided them in a case they are working on. Also, with a hitherto unknown lifeform like that it is impossible to guess at what made it act as it did. And finally, it is not the type of visitor which we allow here, but we had to break the rules this time because its parent is in the hospital, a terminal case."

	Conway said softly, "I see."

	A Monitor lieutenant came into the room at that point and hurried across to O'Mara. "Excuse me, sir," he said. "I've been able to find one item which may help us with the search for the visitor. A DBLF nurse reports seeing a PVSJ moving away from the area of the accident at about the right time. To one of the DBLF caterpillars the PVSJs are anything but pretty, as you know, but the nurse says that this one looked worse than usual, a real freak. So much so that the DBLF was sure that it was a patient suffering from something pretty terrible—"

	"You checked that we have no PVSJ suffering from the malady described?"

	"Yes, sir. There is no such case."

	O'Mara looked suddenly grim. He said, "Very good, Carson, you know what to do next," and nodded dismissal.

	Conway had been finding it hard to contain himself during the conversation, and with the departure of the lieutenant he burst out, "The thing I saw come out of the air lock had tentacles and ... and ... Well, it wasn't anything like a PVSJ. I know that an SRTT is able to modify its physical structure, of course, but so radically and in such a short time ...!"

	Abruptly O'Mara stood up. He said, "We know practically nothing about this lifeform—its needs, capabilities or emotional response patterns—and it is high time we found out. I'm going to build a fire under Colinson in Communications to see what he can dig up; environment, evolutionary background, cultural and social influences and so on. We can't have a visitor running around loose like this, it's bound to make a nuisance of itself through sheer ignorance.

	"But what I want you two to do is this," he went on. "Keep an eye open for any odd-looking patients or embryos in the Nursery sections. Lieutenant Carson has just left to get on the PA and make these instructions general. If you do find somebody who may be our SRTT, approach them gently. Be reassuring, make no sudden moves and be sure to avoid confusing it, that only one of you talks at once. And contact me immediately."

	When they were outside again Conway decided that nothing further could be done in the current work period, and postponing the rounds of their wards for another hour, led the way to the vast room which served as a dining hall for all the warm-blooded oxygen-breathers on the hospitals Staff. The place was, as usual, crowded, and although it was divided up into sections for the widely variant lifeforms present, Conway could see many tables where three or four different classifications had come together—with extreme discomfort for some—to talk shop.

	Conway pointed out a vacant table to Prilicla and began working towards it, only to have his assistant—aided by its still functional wings— get there before him and in time to foil two Maintenancemen making for the same spot. A few heads turned during this fifty-yard flight, but only briefly—the diners were used to much stranger sights than that.

	"I expect most of our food is suited to your metabolism," said Conway when he was seated, "but do you have any special preferences?"

	Prilicla had, and Conway nearly choked when he heard them. But it was not the combination of well-cooked spaghetti and raw carrots that was so bad, it was the way the GLNO set about eating the spaghetti when it arrived. With all four eating appendages working furiously, Prilicla wove it into a sort of rope which was passed into the being's beak-like mouth. Conway was not usually affected by this sort of thing, but the sight was definitely doing things to his stomach.

	Suddenly Prilicla stopped. "My method of ingestion is disturbing you," it said. "I will go to another table—"

	"No, no," said Conway quickly, realizing that his feelings had been picked up by the empath. "That won't be necessary, I assure you. But it is a point of etiquette here that, whenever it is possible, a being dining in mixed company uses the same eating tools as its host or senior at the table. Er … do you think you could manage a fork?"

	Prilicla could manage a fork. Conway had never seen spaghetti disappear so fast.

	From the subject of food the talk drifted not too unnaturally to the hospital's Diagnosticians and the Educator Tape system without which these august beings—and indeed the whole hospital—could not function.

	Diagnosticians deservedly had the respect and admiration of everyone in the hospital—and a certain amount of the pity as well. For it was not simply knowledge which the Educator gave them, the whole personality of the entity who had possessed that knowledge was impressed on their brains as well. In effect the Diagnostician subjected himself or itself voluntarily to the most drastic type of multiple schizophrenia, and with the alien other components sharing their minds so utterly different in every respect that they often did not even share the same system of logic.

	Their one and only common denominator was the need of all doctors, regardless of size, shape or number of legs, to cure the sick.

	There was a DBDG Earth-human Diagnostician at a table nearby who was visibly having to force himself to eat a perfectly ordinary steak. Conway happened to know that this man was engaged on a case which necessitated using a large amount of the knowledge contained in the Tralthan physiology tape which he had been given. The use of this knowledge had brought into prominence within his mind the personality of the Tralthan who had furnished the brain record, and Tralthans abhorred meat in all its forms ... 

Chapter Four

	After lunch Conway took Prilicla to the first of the wards to which they were assigned, and on the way continued to reel off more statistics and background information. The Hospital comprised three hundred and eighty-four levels and accurately reproduced the environments of the sixty-eight different forms of intelligent life currently known to the Galactic Federation. Conway was not trying to cow Prilicla with the vastness of the great hospital nor to boast, although he was intensely proud of the fact that he had gained a post in this very famous establishment. It was simply that he was uneasy about his assistant's means of protecting itself against the conditions it would shortly meet, and this was his way of working around to the subject.

	But he need not have worried, for Prilicla demonstrated how the light, almost diaphanous, suit which had saved it at Lock Six could be strengthened from inside by a scaled-down adaptation of the type of force-field used as meteorite protection of interstellar ships. When necessary, its legs could be folded so as to be within the protective covering as well, instead of projecting outside it as they had done at the lock.

	While they were changing prior to entering the AUGL Nursery Ward, which was their first call, Conway began filling in his assistant on the case history of the occupants.

	The fully-grown physiological type AUGL was a forty-foot-long, oviparous, armored fish-like lifeform native to Chalderescol II, but the beings now in the ward for observation had been hatched only six weeks ago and measured only three feet. Two previous hatchings by the same mother had, as had this one, been in all respects normal and with the offspring seemingly in perfect health, yet two months later they had all died. A PM performed on their home world gave the cause of death as extreme calcification of the articular cartilage in practically every joint in the body, but had been unable to shed any light on the cause of the death. Now Sector General was keeping a watchful eye on the latest hatching, and Conway was hoping that it would be a case of third time lucky.

	"At present I look them over every day," Conway went on, "and on every third day take an AUGL tape and give them a thorough checkup. Now that you are assisting me, this will also apply to you. But when you take this tape I'd advise you to have it erased immediately after the examination, unless you would like to wander around for the rest of the day with half of your brain convinced that you are a fish and wanting to act accordingly ..."

	"That would be an intriguing but no doubt confusing hybrid," agreed Prilicla. The GLNO was now enclosed completely—with the exception of two manipulators—in the bubble of its protective suit, which it had weighted sufficiently for it not to be hampered by too much buoyancy. Seeing that Conway was also ready, it operated the lock controls, and as they entered the great tank of warm, greenish water that was the AUGL ward it added, "Are the patients responding to treatment?"

	Conway shook his head. Then realizing that the gesture probably meant nothing to the GLNO, he said, "We are still at the exploratory stage—treatment has not yet begun. But I've had a few ideas, which I can't properly discuss with you until we both take the AUGL tape tomorrow, and am fairly certain that two of our three patients will come through—in effect, one of them will have to be used as a guinea-pig in order to save the others. The symptoms appear and develop very quickly," he continued, "which is why I want such a close watch kept on them. Now that the danger point is so close, I think I'll make it three-hourly, and we'll work out a timetable so's neither of us will miss too much sleep. You see, the quicker we spot the first symptoms, the more time we have to act and the greater the possibility of saving all three of them. I'm very keen to do the hat-trick."

-

	Prilicla wouldn't know what a hat-trick was either, Conway thought, but the being would quickly learn how to interpret his nods, gestures and figures of speech—Conway had had to do the same in his early days with e-t superiors, sometimes wondering fulminatingly why somebody did not make a tape on Alien Esoterics to aid junior interns in his position. But these were only surface thoughts. At the back of his mind, so steady and so sharp that it might have been painted there, was the picture of a young, almost embryonic lifeform whose developing exoskeleton—the hundred or so flat, bony plates normally free to slide or move on flexible hinges of cartilage so as to allow mobility and breathing—was about to become a petrified fossil imprisoning, for a very short time, the frantic consciousness within ... 

	"How can I assist you at the moment?" asked Prilicla, bringing Conway's mind back from near future to present time with a rush. The GLNO was eying the three thin, streamlined shapes darting about the great tank and obviously wondering how it was going to stop one long enough to examine it. It added, "They're fast, aren't they?"

	"Yes, and very fragile," said Conway. "Also, they are so young that for present purposes they can be considered mindless. They frighten easily, and any attempt to approach them closely sends them into such a panic that they swim madly about until exhausted or injure themselves against the tank walls. What we have to do is lay a minefield ..."

	Quickly Conway explained and demonstrated how to place a pattern of anesthetic bulbs which dissolved in the water and how, gently and at a distance, to maneuver their elusive patients through it. Later, while they were examining the three small, unconscious forms and Conway saw how sensitive and precise was the touch of Prilicla's manipulators and the corresponding sharpness of the GLNO's mind, his hopes for all three of the infant AUGLs increased.

	They left the warm and to Conway rather pleasant environment of the AUGLs for the "hot" ward of their section. This time the checking of the occupants was done with the aid of remote-controlled mechanisms from behind twenty feet of shielding. There was nothing of an urgent nature in this ward, and before leaving Conway pointed out the complicated masses of plumbing surrounding it. The Maintenance Division, he explained, used the "hot" ward as a standby power pile to light and heat the hospital.

	Constantly in the background the wall annunciators kept droning out the progress of the search for the SRTT visitor. It had not been found yet, and cases of mistaken identity and of beings seeing things were mounting steadily. Conway had not thought much about the SRTT since leaving O'Mara, but now he was beginning to feel a little anxious at the thought of what the runaway visitor might do in this section especially— not to mention what some of the infant patients might do to it. If only he knew more about it, had some idea of its limitations. He decided to call O'Mara.

	In reply to Conway's request the Chief Psychologist said, "Our latest information is that the SRTT lifeform evolved on a planet with an eccentric orbit around its primary. Geologic, climatic and temperature changes were such that a high degree of adaptability was necessary for survival. Before they attained a civilization their means of defense was either to assume as frightening an aspect as possible or to copy the physical form of their attackers in the hope that they would escape detection in this way—protective mimicry being the favorite method of avoiding danger, and so often used that the process has become almost involuntary. There are some other items regarding mass and dimensions at different ages. They are a very long-lived species— and this not particularly helpful collection of data, which was digested from the report of the survey ship which discovered the planet, ends by saying that all the foregoing is for our information only and that these beings do not take sick."

	O'Mara paused briefly, then added, "Hah!"

	"I agree," said Conway.

	"One item we have which might explain its panicking on arrival," O'Mara went on, "is that it is their custom for the very youngest to be present at the death of a parent rather than the eldest—there is an unusually strong emotional bond between parent and last-born. Estimates of mass place our runaway as being very young. Not a baby, of course, but definitely nowhere near maturity."

	Conway was still digesting this when the major continued, "As to its limitations, I'd say that the methane section is too cold for it and the radioactive wards too hot—also that glorified turkish bath on level 18 where they breathe super-heated steam. Apart from those, your guess is as good as mine where it may turn up."

	"It might help a little if I could see this SRTT's parent," Conway said. "Is that possible?"

	There was a lengthy pause, then: "Just barely," said O'Mara drily. "The immediate vicinity of that patient is literally crawling with Diagnosticians and other high-powered talent ... But come up after you've finished your rounds and I'll try to fix it."

	"Thank you, sir," said Conway and broke the circuit.

	He still felt a vague uneasiness about the SRTT visitor, a dark premonition that he had not yet finished with this e-t juvenile delinquent who was the ultimate in quick-change artists. Maybe, he thought sourly, his current duties had brought out the mother in him, but at the thought of the havoc which that SRTT could cause—the damage to equipment and fittings, the interruption of important and closely timed courses of treatment, and the physical injury, perhaps even death, to the more fragile lifeforms through its ignorant blundering about—Conway felt himself go a little sick.

	For the failure to capture the runaway had made plain one very disquieting fact, and that was that the SRTT was not too young and immature not to know how to work the intersection locks ... 

	Half angrily, Conway pushed these useless anxieties to the back of his mind and began explaining to Prilicla about the patients in the ward they were going to visit next, and the protective measures and examination procedures necessary when handling them.

-

	This ward contained twenty-eight infants of the FROB classification low, squat, immensely strong beings with a horny covering that was like flexible armor plate. Adults of the species with their increased mass tended to be slow and ponderous, but the infants could move surprisingly fast despite the condition of four times Earth-normal gravity and pressure in which they lived. Heavy-duty suits were called for in these conditions, and the floor level of the ward was never used by visiting physicians or nursing staff except in cases of the gravest emergency. Patients for examination were raised from the floor by a grab and lifting apparatus to the cupola set in the ceiling for this purpose, where they were anesthetized before the grab was released. This was done with a long, extremely strong needle which was insetted at the point where the inner side of the foreleg joined the trunk—one of the very few soft spots on the FROB's body.

	"... I expect you to break a lot of needles before you get the hang of it," Conway added, "but don't worry about that, or think that you are hurting them. These little darlings are so tough that if a bomb went off beside them they would hardly blink."

	Conway was silent for a few seconds while they walked briskly towards the FROB ward—Prilicla's six multi-jointed and pencil-thin legs seeming to spread out all over the place, but somehow never actually getting underfoot. He no longer felt that he was walking on eggs when he was near the GLNO, or that the other would crumple up and blow away if he so much as brushed against it. Prilicla had demonstrated its ability to avoid all contacts likely to be physically harmful to it in a way which, now that Conway was becoming accustomed to it, was both dextrous and strangely graceful.

	A man, he thought, could get used to working with anything.

	"But to get back to our thick-skinned little friends," Conway resumed, "physical toughness in that species—especially in the younger age-groups—is not accompanied by resistance to germ or virus infections. Later they develop the necessary antibodies and as adults are disgustingly healthy, but in the infant stage ..."

	"They catch everything," Prilicla put in. "And as soon as a new disease is discovered they get that, too."

	Conway laughed. "I was forgetting that most e-t hospitals have their quota of FROBs and that you may already have had experience with them. You will know also that these diseases are rarely fatal to the infants, but that their cure is long, complicated, and not very rewarding, because they straightaway catch something else. None of our twenty-eight cases here are serious, and the reason that they are here rather than at a local hospital is that we are trying to produce a sort of shotgun serum which will artificially induce in them the immunity to infection which will eventually be theirs in later life and so ... Stop!"

	The word was sharp, low and urgent, a shouted whisper. Prilicla froze, its sucker-tipped legs gripping the corridor floor, and stared along with Conway at the being who had just appeared at the intersection ahead of them.

-

	At first glance it looked like an Illensan. The shapeless, spiny body with the dry, rustling membrane joining upper and lower appendages belonged unmistakably to the PVSJ chlorine-breathers. But there were two eating tentacles which seemed to have been transplanted from an FGLI, a furry breast pad which was pure DBLF, and it was breathing, as they were, an atmosphere rich in oxygen.

	It could only be the runaway.

	All the laws of physiology to the contrary, Conway felt his heart battering at the back of his throat somewhere as, remembering O'Mara's strict orders not to frighten the being, he tried to think of something friendly and reassuring to say. But the SRTT took off immediately it caught sign of them, and all Conway could find to say was, "Quick, after it!"

	At a dead run they reached the intersection and turned into the corridor taken by the fleeing SRTT, Prilicla scuttling along the ceiling again to keep out of the way of Conway's pounding feet. But the sight in front of them caused Conway to forget all about being gentle and reassuring, and he yelled, "Stop, you fool! Don't go in there ...!"

	The runaway was at the entrance to the FROB ward.

	They reached the entry lock just too late and watched helplessly through the port as the SRTT opened the inner seal and, gripped by the four-times-normal gravity pull of the ward, was flung down out of sight. The inner door closed automatically then, allowing Prilicla and Conway to enter the lock and prepare for the environment within the ward.

	Conway struggled frantically into the heavy-duty suit which he kept in the lock chamber, and quickly set the repulsion of its anti-gravity belt to compensate for the conditions inside. Prilicla, meanwhile, was doing similar things to its own equipment. While checking the seals and fastenings of the suit, and swearing at this very necessary waste of time, Conway could see through the inner inspection window a sight which made him shudder.

	The pseudo-Illensan shape of the SRTT lay plastered against the floor. It was twitching slightly, and already one of the larger FROB infants was coming pounding up to investigate this odd-looking object. One of the great, spatulate feet must have trod on the recumbent SRTT, because it jerked away and began rapidly and incredibly to change. The weak, membranous appendages of the PVSJ seemed to dissolve into the main body, which became the bony, lizard-like form with the wicked, horn-tipped tentacles which they had seen first at Lock Six. This was obviously the SRTT's most frightening manifestation.

	But the infant FROB possessed nearly five times the other's mass and so could hardly be expected to be frightened. It put down its massive head and butted, sending the SRTT crashing against the wall plating twenty feet across the ward. The FROB wanted to play.

	Both doctors were out of the lock and onto the ceiling catwalk now, where the view was much clearer. The SRTT was changing again, fast. The tentacled lizard shape had not worked at all well for it in four-G conditions against these infant behemoths, and it was trying something else.

	The FROB had closed in on it again and was watching fascinated.

Chapter Five

	Conway said urgently, "Doctor, can you handle the grab apparatus? Good! Then go to it ..." As Prilicla scurried along the catwalk to the control cupola, Conway set his anti-gravity controls to zero and called, "I'll direct you from below." Weightless now, he kicked himself towards the floor.

	But Conway was no stranger to the FROB infant—very probably it disliked or was bored by this diminutive figure whose only game was that of sticking big needles in it while something big and strong held it still, and despite all of Conway's frantic shouting and arm-waving he found himself being ignored. But other occupants of the ward were taking an interest, and their attention was being drawn to the still-changing SRTT ... 

	""No!"Conway shouted, aghast at what the visitor was changing into. "No! Stop! Change back ...!"

	But it was too late. The whole ward seemed to be stampeding towards the SRTT, giving vent to a thunderous bedlam of excited growls and yelps which, from the older infants, were translated into shouts of "Dolly! Dolly! Nice dolly ...!"

	Springing upwards to avoid being trampled, Conway looked down on the milling mass of FROBs and felt the strong and sickening conviction that the luckless SRTT had departed this life. But no. The being had somehow managed to run—or squeeze—the gauntlet of stamping feet and eager, bludgeoning heads by keeping low and tightly pressed against the wall. It emerged battered but still in the shape which it had, chameleon-like, adopted in the mistaken idea that a tiny version of an FROB would be safe.

	Conway called, "Quickly! Grab!"

	But Prilicla was not sleeping on its job. The massive jaws of the grab were already hanging open above the dazed and slow-moving SRTT, and as Conway shouted they dropped and crashed shut. Conway sprang for one of the lifting cables, and as they rose from the floor together he said hurriedly, "You're safe now. Relax. I'm here to help you ..."

	His reply was a sharp convulsion of the SRTT which nearly shook him loose, and suddenly the being had become a thing of lithe, oily convolutions which slipped between the fingers of the grab and slapped onto the floor. The FROBs hooted excitedly and charged again.

	It could not possibly survive this time, Conway thought with a mixture of horror, pity and impatience; this being who had had one fright on arrival and who had not stopped running since, and who was still too utterly terrified even to be helped. The grab was useless, but there was one other possibility. O'Mara would probably skin him alive for it, but he would at least be saving the SRTT's life for the time being if he allowed it to escape.

	On the wall opposite the entry lock which Prilicla and himself had used was the door through which the FROB patients were brought ro the ward. It was a simple door because the corridor outside it, which led to the FROB operating theater, was maintained at the same levels of gravity and pressure as was the ward. Conway dived across the intervening space to the controls and slid it open, watching the SRTT—who was not so insensible with fear that it missed seeing this way of escape—as it slithered through. He closed it again just in time to prevent some of the patients from getting out as well, then made for the control cupola to report the whole ghastly mess to O'Mara.

	For the situation was now much worse than they all had thought. While he had been at the other end of the ward he had seen something which increased the difficulties of catching and pacifying the runaway many, many times, and which explained the visitor's lack of response to him while in the grab. It had been the shattered, trampled ruin of the SRTT's translator pack.

	Conway's hand was on the intercom switch when Prilicla said, "Excuse me, sir, but does my ability to detect your emotions cause you mental distress? Or does mentioning aloud what I may have found trouble you?

	"Eh? What?" said Conway. He thought that he must be radiating impatience at a furious rate at the moment, because his assistant had picked a great time to start asking questions like that! His first impulse was to cut the other off, but then he decided that delaying his report to O'Mara by a few seconds would not make any difference, and possibly Prilicla considered the matter important. Aliens were funny.

	"No to both questions," Conway replied shortly. "Though in the second instance I might be embarrassed if you made known your findings to a third party in certain circumstances. Why do you ask?"

	"Because I have been aware of your deep anxiety regarding the possible depredations of this SRTT among your patients," Prilicla said, "and I am loath to further increase that anxiety by telling you of the type and intensity of the emotions which I detected just now in the being's mind."

	Conway sighed. "Spit it out, things couldn't be much worse than they are now ..."

	But they could and were.

-

	When Prilicla, finished speaking, Conway pulled his hand away from the intercom switch as though it had grown teeth and bit him. "I can't tell him that over the intercom!" he burst out. "It would be sure to leak to the patients and if they, or even some of the Staff knew about it, there would be a panic." He dithered wildly for a moment, then cried, "Come on, we've got to see O'Mara!"

	But the Chief Psychologist was not in his office or in the nearby Educator room. However, information supplied by one of his assistants sent them hurrying to the forty-seventh level and Observation Ward Three.

	This was a vast, high-ceilinged room maintained at a pressure and temperature suited to warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. DBDG, DBLF, and FGLI doctors carried out preliminary examinations here on the more puzzling or exotic cases—the patients, if these atmospheric conditions did not suit them, being housed in large, transparent cubicles spaced at intervals around the walls and floor. It was known irreverently as the Punch and Ponder department, and Conway could see a group of medics of all shapes and species gathered around a glass-walled tank in the middle of the ward. This must be the older and dying SRTT he had heard about, but he had no attention to spare for anything until he had spoken to O'Mara.

	He caught sight of the psychologist at a communications desk beside the wall and hurried over.

	While he talked O'Mara listened stolidly, several times opening his mouth as though to interrupt, then each time closing it in a grimmer, tighter line. But when Conway reached the point where he had seen the broken Translator, O'Mara waved him to silence and hit the intercom switch with the same jerky motion of his hand.

	"Get me Engineering Division, Colonel Skempton," he barked. Then: "Colonel, our runaway is in the FROB nursery area. But there is a complication, I'm afraid—it has lost its translator ..." There was a short pause, then: "Neither do I know how I expect you to pacify it when you can't communicate, but do what you can in the meantime—I'm going to work on the communication angle now."

	He snapped the switch off and then on again, and said, "Colinson, in Communications ... hello, Major. I want a relay between here and the Monitor Survey team on the SRTT's home planet—yes, the one I had you collecting about a few hours ago. Will you arrange that. And have them prepare a sound tape in the SRTT native language—I'll give you the wording I want in a moment-—and have them relay it here. The substance of the speech, which must be obtained from an adult SRTT, will have to be roughly as follows—"

	He broke off as Major Colinson's voice erupted from the speaker. The communications man was reminding a certain desk-bound head-shrinker that the SRTT planet was halfway across the Galaxy, that sub-space radio was susceptible to interference just like any other kind, and that by the time every sun in the intervening distance had splattered the signal with their share of static it would be virtually unintelligible.

	"Have them repeat the signal," O'Mara said. "There are sure to be usable words and phrases which we can piece together to reconstruct the original message. We need this thing badly, and I'll tell you why ..."

-

	The SRTT species were an extremely long-lived race, O'Mara explained quickly, who reproduced hermaphroditically at very great intervals and with great pain and effort. There was therefore a bond of great affection and—what was more important in the present circumstances—discipline between the adults and children of the species. There was also the belief, so strong as to be almost a certainty, that no matter what changes a member of this species worked, it would always try to retain the vocal and aural organs which allowed it to communicate with its fellows.

	Now if one of the adults on the home planet could prepare a few general remarks directed towards youths who misbehaved when they ought to have known better, and these were relayed to Sector General and in turn played over the PA to their runaway visitor, then the young SRTT's ingrained obedience to its elders would do the rest.

	"... And that," said O'Mara to Conway as he switched off, "should take care of that little crisis. With any luck we'll have our visitor quieted down within a few hours. So your troubles are over, you can relax ..."

	The psychologist broke off at the expression on Conway's face, then he said softly, "There's more?"

	Conway nodded. Indicating his assistant he said, "Dr. Prilicla detected it, by empathy. You must understand that the runaway is in a very bad way psychologically—grief for its dying parent, the fright it received at Lock Six when everyone came charging at it, and now the mauling it has undergone in the FROB nursery. It is young, immature, and these experiences have thrown it back to the stage where its responses are purely animal and ... well ..." Conway licked dry lips, "... has anyone calculated how long it has been since that SRTT has eaten?"

	The implications of the question were not lost on O'Mara either. He paled suddenly and snatched up the mike again. "Get me Skempton again, quickly! ... Skempton? ... Colonel, I am not trying to sound melodramatic but would you use the scrambler attached to your set, there is another complication ..."

-

	Turning away, Conway debated with himself whether to go over for a brief look at the dying SRTT or to hurry back to his section. Back in the FROB nursery Prilicla had detected in the runaway's mind strong hunger radiation as well as the expected fear and confusion, and it had been the communication of these findings which had caused first Conway, then O'Mara and Skempton, to realise just what a deadly menace the visitor had become. The youths of any species are notoriously selfish, cruel and uncivilized, Conway knew, and driven by steadily increasing pangs of hunger this one would certainly turn cannibal. In its present confused mental state, the young SRTT would probably not know that it had done so, but that fact would make no difference at all to the patients concerned.

	If only the majority of Conway's charges were not so small, defenceless and ... tasty.

	On the other hand, a look at the elder being might suggest some method of dealing with the younger—his curiosity regarding the SRTT terminal case having nothing to do with it, of course ... 

	He was maneuvering for a closer look at the patient inside the tank and at the same time trying not to jostle the Earth-human doctor who was blocking his view, when the man turned irritably and asked, "Why the blazes don't you climb up my back? ... Oh, hello, Conway. Here to contribute another uninformed wild guess, I suppose?"

	It was Mannon, the doctor who had at one time been Conway's superior and was now a Senior Physician well on the way to achieving Diagnostician status. He had befriended Conway on his arrival at the hospital, Mannon had several times explained within Conway's hearing, because he had a soft spot for stray dogs, cats and interns. Currently he was allowed to retain permanently in his brain just three Educator tapes— that og a Tralthan specialist in micro-surgery and two belonging to surgeons of the low-gravity LSVO and MSVK species—so that for long periods of each day his reactions were quite human. At the moment he was eyeing Prilicla, who was skittering about on the fringe of the crowd, with raised eyebrows.

	Conway began to give details regarding the character and accomplishments of his new assistant, but was interrupted by Mannon saying loudly, "That's enough, lad, you're beginning to sound like an unsolicited testimonial. A light touch and the empathic faculty will be a big help in your current line of work. I grant that. But then you always did pick odd associates: levitating balls of goo, insects, dinosaurs, and such like—all pretty peculiar people, you must admit. Except for that nurse on the twenty-third level, now I admire your taste there—"

	"Are they making any headway with this case, sir?" Conway said, determinedly shunting the conversation back onto the main track again. Mannon was the best in the world, but he had the painful habit sometimes of pulling a person's leg until it threatened to come off at the hip.

	"None," said Mannon. "And what I said about wild guesses is a fact. We're all making them here, and getting nowhere—ordinary diagnostic techniques are completely useless. Just look at the thing!"

	Mannon moved aside for Conway, and a sensation as of a pencil being laid across his shoulder told him that Prilicla was behind him craning to see, too.

Chapter Six

	The being in the tank was indescribable for the simple reason that it had obviously been trying to become several different things at once when the dissolution had begun. There were appendages both jointed and tentacular, patches of scales, spines and leathery, wrinkled tegument together with the suggestion of mouth and gill openings, all thrown together in a gruesome hodge-podge. Yet none of the physiological details were clear, because the whole flaccid mass was softened, eroded away, like a wax model left too long in the heat. Moisture oozed from the patient's body continuously and trickled to the floor of the tank, where the water level was nearly six inches deep.

	Conway swallowed and said, "Bearing in mind the adaptability of this species, its immunity to physical damage and so on, and considering the wildly mixed-up state of its body, I should say that there may be a strong possibility that the trouble stems from psychological causes."

	Mannon looked him up and down slowly with an expression of awe on his face, then said witheringly, "Psychological causes, hey? Amazing! Well, what else could cause a being who is immune to both physical damage and bacterial infection to get into this state except something wrong with its think tank? But perhaps you were going to be more specific?"

	Conway felt his neck and eats getting warm. He said nothing.

	Mannon grunted, then went on, "The water that it is melting into is just that, plus a few harmless organisms which are suspended in it. We've tried every method of physical and psychological treatment that we could think of, without results. At the moment someone is suggesting that we quick-freeze the patient, both to halt the melting and to give us more time to think of something else. This has been vetoed because in its present state such a course might kill the patient outright. We've had a couple of our telepathic lifeforms try to tune to its mind with a view to straightening it out that way, and O'Mara has gone back to the dark ages to such a point that he has tried crude electro-shock therapy, but nothing works. Altogether we have brought, singly and acting in concert, the viewpoints of very nearly every species in the Galaxy, and still we can't get a line on what ails it ..."

	"If the trouble was psychological," put in Conway, "I should have thought that the telepaths—"

	"No," said Mannon. "In this lifeform the mind and memory function is evenly distributed throughout the whole body and not housed in a permanent brain casing, otherwise it could not accomplish such marked changes in its physical structure. At present the being's mind is withdrawing, draining away, into smaller and smaller units—so small that the telepaths cannot work them."

	"This SRTT is a real weirdie," Mannon continued thoughtfully. "It evolved out of the sea, of course, but later its world saw outbreaks of volcanic activity, earthquakes—the surface being coated with sulfur and who knows what else—and finally a minor instability in their sun converted the planet into the desert which it now is. They had to be adaptable to survive all that. And their method of reproduction—a budding and splitting-off process which causes the loss of a sizable portion of the parent's mass—is interesting, too, because it means that the embryo is born with part of the body-and-brain cell structure of the parent. No conscious memories are passed to the newly born, but it retains unconsciously the memories which enable it to adapt—"

	"But that means," Conway burst out, "that if the parent transfers a section of its body-and-mind to the offspring, then each individual's unconscious memory must go back—"

	"Arid it is the unconscious which is the seat of all psychoses," interrupted O'Mara, who had come up behind them at that point. "Don't say any more, I have nightmares at the very idea. Imagine trying to analyze a patient whose subconscious mind goes back fifty thousand years ...!"

-

	The conversation dried up quickly after that and Conway, still anxious about the younger SRTT's activities, hurried back to the Nursery Section. The whole area was infested with Maintenancemen and green-uniformed Monitors, but the runaway had not been sighted again. Conway placed a DBDG nurse—the one Mannon was so fond of pulling his leg about, strangely enough—on duty in a diving suit at the AUGL ward, because he was expecting developments there at any time, and prepared with Prilicla to pay a call on the methane nursery.

	Their work among the frigid-blooded beings in that ward was also routine, and during it Conway pestered Prilicla with questions about the emotional state of the elder SRTT they had just left. But the GLNO was very little help; all it would say was that it had detected an urge towards dissolution which it could not describe more fully to Conway because there was nothing in its own previous experience which it could relate the feeling to.

	Outside again, they discovered that Colinson had wasted no time. From the wall annunciators there poured out a staccato howl of static through which could be dimly heard an alien gobbling which was presumably the SRTT sound tape. Conway thought that if positions were reversed and he was a frightened small boy listening to a voice striving to speak to him through that incredible uproar, he would feel any-thing but reassured. And the atmosphere of the SRTT's home planet would almost certainly be of a different density to this one, which would further increase the distortion of the voice. He did not say anything to Prilicla, but Conway thought that it would be nothing less than a miracle if this cacophony produced the result which O'Mara had intended.

	The racket cut off suddenly, was replaced by a voice in English which droned out, "Would Dr. Conway please go to the intercom," then it returned unabated. Conway hurried to the nearest set.

	"This is Murchison in the AUGL lock, Doctor," said a worried female voice. "Somebody—I mean something—just went past me into the main ward. I thought it was you at first until it began opening the inner seal without putting on a suit, then I knew it must be the runaway SRTT." She hesitated, then said, "Considering the state of the patients inside, I didn't give the alarm until checking with you, but I can call—"

	"No, you did quite right, Nurse," Conway said quickly. "We'll be down at once."

-

	When they arrived at the lock five minutes later, the nurse had a suit ready for Conway, and the combination of physiological features which made it impossible for the Earth-human members of the Staff to regard Murchison with anything like a clinical detachment were rendered slightly less distracting by her own protective suit. But Conway had eyes at the moment only for the inner inspection window and the thing which floated just inside it.

	It was, or had been, very like Conway. The hair coloring was right, also the complexion, and it was in whites. But the features were out of proportion and ran together in a way that was quite horrible, and the neck and hands did not go into the tunic, they became the collar and sleeves of the garment. Conway was reminded of a lead figure that had been crudely fashioned and carelessly painted.

	At the moment Conway knew that it was not a threat to the lives of the ward's tiny patients, but it was changing. There was a slow growing together of the arms and legs, a lengthening out and the sprouting of long, narrow protuberences which could only be the beginnings of fins. The AUGL patients might be difficult for an Earth-human DBDG to catch, but the SRTT was adapting to water also, and speed.

	"Inside!" said Conway urgently. "We've got to herd it out of here before it—"

	But Prilicla was making no attempt to begin the bodily contortions which would bring it inside its protective envelope. "I have detected an interesting change in the quality of its emotional radiation," the GLNO said suddenly. "There is still fear and confusion present, and an overriding hunger ..."

	"Hunger ...!" Murchison had not realised until then just what deadly danger the patients were in.

	"... But there is something else," Prilicla continued, disregarding the interruption. "I can only describe it as a background pleasure sensation coupled with that same urge towards dissolution which I detected a short time ago in its parent. But I am puzzled to account for this sudden change."

	Conway's mind was on his three tiny patients, and the predatory form the SRTT was beginning to take. He said impatiently, "Probably because recent events have affected its sanity also, the pleasure trace being due possibly to a liking for the water—"

	Abruptly he stopped, his mind racing too fast for words or even ordered logical thought. Rather it was a feverish jumble of facts, experiences and wild guesswork which boiled chaotically through his brain, then incredibly became still and cool and very, very clear as ... the answer.

	And yet none of the tremendous intellects in the observation ward could have found it, Conway was sure, because they were not present with an empathic assistant when a young SRTT close to insanity through fear and grief had been immersed suddenly in the tepid, yellow depths of the AUGL tank ... 

	When an intelligent, mature and mentally complex being encounters unpleasant and hurtful facts of sufficient numbers and severity, the result is a retreat from reality. First a striving to return to the simple, unworrisome days of childhood, and then, when that period turns out to be not nearly so carefree and uncomplicated as remembered, the ultimate retreat into the womb and the motionless, mindless condition of the catatonic. But to a mature SRTT the fetal position of catatonia could not be simple to attain, because its reproductive system was such that instead of the unborn offspring being in a state of warm, mindless comfort, it found itself part of its parent's mature adult body and called upon to share in the decisions and adjustments its parent had to make. Because the SRTT body, every single cell of it, was the mind and any sort of separation was impossible to a lifeform whose every cell was interchangeable.

	How to divide a glass of water without pouring some off into another container?

	The diseased intellect would be forced to retreat again and again, only to find that it had become involved in endless changes and adaptations in its efforts to return to this non-existent womb. It would go back— far, far back—until it eventually did find the mindless state which it craved, and its mind, which was inseparable from its body, became the warm water teeming with unicellular life from which it had originally evolved.

	Now Conway knew the reason for the slow, melting dissolution of the terminal case upstairs. More, he thought he saw a way of solving the whole horrible mess. If he could only bank on the fact that, as was the case with most other species, a complex, mature mind tended to go insane faster than an undeveloped and youthful one ... 

	He was only vaguely aware of going to the intercom again and calling O'Mara, and of Murchison and Prilicla drawing closer to him as he talked. Then he was waiting for what seemed like hours for the Chief Psychologist to absorb the information and react. Finally:

	"An ingenious theory, Doctor," said O'Mara warmly. "More than that—I would say that that is exactly what has happened here, and no theorizing about it. The only pity is that understanding what has happened does nothing to aid the patient—"

	"I've been thinking about that, too," Conway broke in eagerly, "and the way I see it, the runaway is the most urgent problem now—if it isn't caught and pacified soon, there are going to be serious casualties among the Staff and patients, in my section anyway, if nowhere else. Unfortunately, for technical reasons, your idea of calming it by means of a sound tape in its own language is not very successful up to now ..."

	"'that's putting it kindly," said O'Mara drily.

	"... But," went on Conway, "if this idea was modified so that the runaway was spoken to, reassured, by its parent upstairs. If we first cured the elder SRTT—"

	"Cured the elder! What the blazes do you think we've been trying to do this past three weeks?" O'Mara demanded angrily. Then as the realization came that Conway was not trying to be funny or willfully stupid, that he sounded in deadly earnest, he said flatly, "Keep talking, Doctor."

	Conway kept talking. When he had finished, the intercom speaker registered the sound of a great, explosive sigh, then: "I think you've got the answer all right, and we've certainly got to try it despite the risks you mentioned," O'Mara said excitedly. Then abruptly his tones became clipped and efficient. "Take charge down there, Doctor. You know what you want done better than anyone else does. And use the DBLF recreation room on level fifty-nine—it's close to your section and can be evacuated quickly. We're going to tap in on the existing communications circuits so there will be no delay here, and the special equipment you want will be in the DBLF recreation room inside fifteen minutes. So you can start anytime, Conway ..."

	Before he was cut off, he heard O'Mara begin issuing instructions to the effect that all Monitor Corps personnel and Staff in the nursery section were to be placed at the disposal of Doctors Conway and Prilicla, and he had barely turned away from the set before green-uniformed Monitors began crowding into the lock.

Chapter Seven

	The SRTT youth had somehow to be forced into the DBLF recreation room, which was rapidly being booby-trapped for its benefit, and the first step was to get it out of the AUGL ward. This was accomplished by twelve Monitors swimming, sweating and cursing furiously in their heavy issue suits who chased awkwardly after it until they had it hemmed in at the point where the entry lock gave it the only avenue of escape.

	Conway, Prilicla and another bunch of Monitors were waiting in the corridor outside when it came through, all garbed against any one of half a dozen environments through which the chase might lead them.

	Murchison had wanted to go, too—she had wanted to be in at the kill, she had stated—but Conway had told her sharply that her job was watching over the three AUGL patients and that she had better do just that.

	He had not meant to lose his temper with Murchison like that, but he was on edge. If the idea he had been so enthusiastic about to O'Mara did not pan out, there was a very good chance that there would be two incurable SRTT patients instead of one, and "in at the kill" had been an unfortunate choice of words.

	The runaway had changed again—a semi-involuntary defense mechanism triggered off by the shapes of its pursuers—into a vaguely Earth-human form. It ran soggily along the corridor on legs which were too rubbery and which bent in the wrong places, and the scaly, dun-colored tegument it had worn in the AUGL tank was twitching and writhing and smoothing out into the pink and white of flesh and medical tunic. Conway could look on the most alien beings imaginable suffering from the most horrible maladies without inward distress, but the sight of the SRTT trying to become a human being as it ran made him fight to retain his lunch.

	A sudden sideways dash into an MSVK corridor took them unawares and resulted in a kicking, floundering pile-up of pursuers beyond the inner seal of the connecting lock. The MSVK lifeforms were tri-pedal, vaguely stork-like beings who required an extremely low gravity pull, and the DBDGs like Conway could not adjust to it immediately. But while Conway was still slowly falling all over the place the Monitors' space training enabled them to find their feet quickly. The SRTT was headed off into the oxygen section again.

	It had been a bad few minutes while it lasted, Conway thought with relief, because the dim lighting and the opacity of the fog which the MSVKs called an atmosphere would have made the SRTT difficult to find if it had been lost to sight. If that had happened at this stage ... Well, Conway preferred not to think about that.

	But the DBLF recreation room was only minutes away now, and the SRTT was heading straight for it. The being was changing again, into something low and heavy which moved on all fours. It seemed to be drawing itself in, condensing, and there was a suggestion of a carapace forming. It was still in that condition when two Monitors, yelling and waving their arms wildly, dashed suddenly out of an intersection and stampeded it into the corridor which contained the recreation room ... 

	 ... And found it empty!

-

	Conway swore luridly. There should have been half a dozen Monitors strung across that corridor to bar its way, but he had made such good time getting here that they were not in position yet. They were probably still inside the rec room placing their equipment, and the SRTT would go right past the doorway.

	But he had not counted on the quick mind and even more agile body of Prilicla. His assistant must have realized the position in the same instant that he did. The little GLNO ran clicking down the corridor, rapidly overtaking the SRTT, then swinging up onto the ceiling until it had passed the runaway before dropping back. Conway tried to yell a warning, tried to shout that a fragile GLNO had no chance of heading off a being who now had the characteristics of an outsize and highly mobile armored crab, and that Prilicla was committing suicide. Then he saw what his assistant was aiming at.

	There was a powered stretcher-carrier in its alcove about thirty feet ahead of the fleeing SRTT. He saw Prilicla skid to a halt beside it, hit the starter, then charge on. Prilicla was not being stupidly brave, it was being brainy and fast, which was much better in these circumstances.

	The stretcher-carrier, uncontrolled, lurched into motion and went wobbling across the corridor—right into the path of the charging SRTT. There was a metallic crash and a burst of dense yellow and black smoke as its heavy batteries shattered and shorted across. Before the fans could quite clear the air, the Corpsmen were able to work around the stunned and nearly motionless runaway and herd it into the recreation room.

	A few minutes later a Monitor officer approached Conway. He gave a jerk of his head which indicated the weird assortment of gadgetry which had been rushed to the compartment only minutes ago and which lay in neat piles around the room, and included the green-clad men ranged solidly against the walls—all facing towards the center of the big compartment, where the SRTT rotated slowly in the exact center of the floor, seeking a way of escape. Quite obviously he was eaten up with curiosity, but his tone was carefully casual as he said, "Dr. Conway, I believe? Well, Doctor, what do you want us to do now?"

	Conway moistened his lips. Up to now he had not thought much about this moment—he had thought that it would be easy to do this because the young SRTT had been such a menace to the hospital in general and caused so much trouble in his own section in particular. But now he was beginning to feel sorry for it. It was, after all, only a kid who had been sent out of control by a combination of grief, ignorance and panic. If this thing did not turn out right ... 

	He shook off the feelings of doubt and inadequacy and said harshly, "You see that beastie in the middle of the room. I want it scared to death."

-

	He had to elaborate, of course, but the Monitors got the idea very quickly and began using the equipment which had been sent them with great fervor and enthusiasm. Watching grimly, Conway identified items from Air Supply, Communications and the various diet kitchens, all being used for a purpose for which they had never been designed. There were things which emitted shrill whistles, siren howls of tremendous volumes, and others which consisted simply of banging two metal trays together. To this fearful racket was added the whoops of the men wielding those noisemakers.

	And there was no doubt that the SRTT was scared—Prilicla reported its emotional reactions constantly. But it was not scared enough.

	"Quiet!" yelled Conway suddenly. "Start using the silent stuff!"

	The preceding din had only been a primer. Now would come the really vicious stuff—but silent, because any noise made by the SRTT had to be heard.

	Flares burst around the shaking figure in the middle of the floor, blindingly incandescent but of negligible heat. Simultaneously tractor and pressor beams pushed and pulled at it, sliding it back and forth across the floor, occasionally tossing it into mid-air or flattening it against the ceiling. The beams worked on the same principle as the gravity neutralizer belts, but were capable of much finer control and focus. Other beam operators began flinging lighted flares at the suspended, wildly struggling figure, only yanking them back or turning them aside at the last possible moment.

	The SRTT was really frightened now, so frightened that even non-empaths could feel it. The shapes it was taking were going to give Conway nightmares for many weeks to come.

	Conway lifted a hand mike to his lips and flicked the switch. "Any reaction up there yet?"

	"Nothing yet," O'Mara's voice boomed from the speakers which had been set up around the room. "Whatever you're doing at the moment, you'll have to step it up."

	"But the being is in a condition of extreme distress ..." began Prilicla.

	Conway rounded on his assistant. "If you can't take it, leave!" he snapped.

	"Steady, Conway," O'Mara's voice came sharply. "I know how you must feel, but remember that the end result will cancel all this out ..."

	"But if it doesn't work," Conway protested, then: "Oh, never mind." To Prilicla he said, "I'm sorry." To the officer beside him he asked, "Can you think of any way of putting on more pressure?"

	"I'd hate anything like that being done to me," said the Monitor tightly, "but I would suggest adding spin. Some species are utterly demoralized by spin when they can take practically anything else ..."

-

	Spin was added to the pummeling which the SRTT was already undergoing with the pressors—not a simple spin, but a wild, rolling, pitching movement which made Conway's stomach feel queasy just by looking at it—and the flares dived and swooped around it like insane moons around their primary. Quite a few of the men had lost their first enthusiasm, and Prilicla swayed and shook on its six pipe-stem legs, in the grip of an emotional gale which threatened to blow it away.

	It had been wrong to bring Prilicla in on this, Conway told him angrily; no empath should have to go through this sort of hell by proxy. He had made a mistake from the very first, because the whole idea was cruel and sadistic and wrong. He was worse than a monster ... 

	High in the center of the room, the twisting, spinning blur that was the younger SRTT began to emit a high-pitched and terrified gobbling noise.

	A crashing bedlam erupted from the wall speakers; shouts, cries, breaking noises and the sounds of running feet over-laying that of something slower and infinitely heavier. They could hear O'Mara's voice shouting out some sort of explanation to somebody at the top of his lungs, then an unidentified voice yelled at them, "For Pete's sake stop it down there! Buster's papa has woke up and is wrecking the joint ...!"

	Quickly but gently they checked the spinning SRTT and lowered it to the floor, then they waited tensely while the shouting and crashing being relayed to them from Observation Ward Three reached a crescendo and began gradually to die down. Around the room men stood motionless watching each other, or the whimpering being on the floor, or the wall speakers, waiting. And then it came.

	The sound was similar to the alien gobbling which had been relayed through the annunciators some hours previously, but without the accompanying roar of static, and because everyone had their translators switched on, the words also came through as English.

	It was the elder SRTT, incurable no longer because it was psychically whole again, speaking both reassuringly and chidingly to its erring offspring. In effect it was saying that junior had been a bad boy, that he must cease forthwith turning around and getting himself and everyone else into a state, and that nothing else unpleasant would happen to him if he did as he was told by the beings now surrounding him. The sooner it did these things, the elder SRTT ended, the sooner they could both go home.

	Mentally, the runaway had taken a terrible beating, Conway knew Maybe it had taken too much. Tense with anxiety he watched it still in a shape that was neither fish, flesh or fowl—begin humping its way across the floor. When it began gently and submissively to butt one of the watching Monitors in the knees, the cheer that went up very nearly gave it a relapse.

-

	"When Prilicla here gave me the clue to what was troubling the elder SRTT, I was sure that the cure would have to be drastic," Conway said to the Diagnosticians and Senior Physicians ranged around and behind O'Mara's desk.

	The fact that he was seated in such august company was a sure sign of the approval in which he was held, but despite that he still felt nervous as he went on. "Its regression towards the—to it—fetal state—complete dissolution into individual and unthinking cells floating in the primeval ocean—was far advanced, perhaps too far judging by its physical state. Major O'Mara had already tried various shock treatments which it, with its fantastically adaptable cell structure, was able to negate or ignore. My idea was to use the close physical and emotional bond which I discovered existed between the SRTT adult and its last-born offspring, and get at it that way."

	Conway paused, his eyes drifting sideways briefly to take in the shambles around them. Observation Ward Three looked as though a bomb had hit it, and Conway knew that there had been a rather hectic few minutes here between the time the elder SRTT had come out of its catatonic state and when explanations had been given it. He cleared his throat and went on:

	"So we trapped the young one in the DBLF recreation room and tried to frighten it as much as possible, piping the sounds it made up here to the parent. It worked. The elder SRTT could not lie doing nothing while its latest and most loved offspring was apparently in frightful danger, and parental concern and affection overcame and destroyed the psychosis and forced it back to present time and reality. It was able to pacify the young one, and so all concerned were left happy."

	"A nice piece of deductive reasoning on your part, Doctor," O'Mara said warmly. "You are to be commended ..."

	At that moment the intercom interrupted him. It was Murchison reporting that the three AUGLs were showing the first signs of stiffening up, and would he come at once. Conway requested an AUGL tape for Prilicla and himself, and explained the urgency of the matter. While they were taking them, the Diagnosticians and Senior Physicians began to leave. A little disappointedly, Conway thought that Murchison's call had spoiled what might have been his greatest moment.

	"Don't worry about it, Doctor," O'Mara said cheerfully, reading his mind again. "If that call had come five minutes later your head would have been too swollen to take a physiology tape ..."

-

	Two days later Conway had his first and only disagreement with Dr. Prilicla. He insisted that without the aid of Prilicla's empathic faculty— an incredibly accurate and useful diagnostic tool—and Murchison's vigilance, the cure of all three AUGLs would not have been possible. The GLNO stated that, much as it was against its nature to oppose his superior's wishes, on this occasion Dr. Conway was completely mistaken. Murchison said that she was glad that she had been able to help, and could she please have some leave?

	Conway said yes, then continued the argument with Prilicla, even though he knew he had no hope of winning it.

	Conway honestly knew that he would not have been able to save the infant AUGLs without the little empath's help—he might not have saved any of them, in fact. But he was the Boss, and when a Boss and his assistants accomplish something, the credit invariably goes to the Boss.

	The argument, if that was the proper word for such an essentially friendly disagreement, raged for days. Things were going well in the Nursery and they hadn't anything of a serious nature to think about. They were not aware of the wreck which was then on its way to the hospital, or of the survivor it contained.

	Nor did Conway know that within the next two weeks, the whole Staff of the hospital would be despising him.

AN INTRODUCTION TO REAL VIRTUALITY
by Bruce Pelz

	What, another introduction? Well, yes. Mike Resnick, from the Professional Side, and Walt Willis, from the Fan Side, have introduced you to James White the writer. A bit further on, James, with Wilt's help, will introduce you to James White the (an. Hut before that, I think you need to meet IF. IF—the full name is Irish Fandom—is something of a Who, something of a What, something of a When, and something of a Where. And meeting it is necessary for your better enjoyment of James White's fan writings.

	Let's start at 170 Upper Newtownards Road, in a Belfast of almost fifty years ago. It's a large house, domicile for Walt and Madeleine Willis, and hatchery for the fanzine Slant—sometimes cited as "/"— edited by Walt with James as Art Editor. In a few years, after several issues of the fanzine, it will get named Oblique House, and it will serve as a locus ... hmm ... a focal point ... hmmm ... a nexus for the coalescence of IF.

	As the second half of the century began to unfold, Bob Shaw joined the Slant Gaels, becoming Associate Editor for the last few issues of that laboriously typeset icon of fan publications. (The computer-pixilated among you will have to put up with the term—though this was an icon you clicked with, not on.) And as the era of cold type was setting, that of mimeography was rising, and IF assimilated English fan Chuck Harris as co-editor, with Walt, of the new fanzine icon Hyphen. Bob Shaw—"BoSh"—became Art Editor, and James became Editorial Assistant.

	Walt went to the 1952 World SF Convention in Chicago through .1 Special Fund organized by stateside fan Shelby Vick "WAW With the Crew In '52." Those statesiders who were at the convention or along his coast-to-coast path of travel got to add an in-person dimension to the in-print one of the Willis part of IF. Walt brought home even more—and more solidified—stateside friendships, together with stateside puns and some in-group references from the Tenth Worldcon, which would be a leaven to the home-groan ones. His trip would also help generate the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund the following year.

	Sometime in the early '50's, George Charters, from Bangor, Co. Down, was added to the IF Gestalt; then came 1954, a year of Many Changes. Londoner Vincent Clarke ("Vin¢, a contributor to Hyphen since the first issue, became Assistant Editor for five bimonthly issues before disappearing from the masthead. (He showed up as support staff years later.) And with the last two issues of the year, Belfaster John Berry and Londoner Arthur Thomson—who signed his art "ATom"—arrived. The Wheels of IF turned ever more merrily, and IF would never be the same!

	The classic fan fiction piece The Enchanted Duplicator was written by Walt and Bob Shaw in 1954. (It was stencilled by George Charters, who added the action to his fan credentials as Top Item: "I stencilled The Enchanted Duplicator!") There was a second edition in 1962, and a third in 1971, and ... Each had a different illustrator for the story of Jophan, a modern Pilgrim, and his Journey to the land of Trufandom.

	Through the years various members of IF would write articles about the doings of the group or parts of it, and it was admitted that some exaggeration would creep in occasionally. But when John Berry started writing his articles, exaggeration came roaring in jet-propelled! His "Berry Factual Articles" appeared in IF's own fanzines, and in almost every other general-circulation fanzine being published. And what John Berry wrote, Atom's cartoons and drawings would illustrate. The legends grew, and grew.

	No matter who was writing, the reader could see the members of IF as their Atom-illustrations. Walt, the mainstay of IF, was drawn with a beanie-cap that had a shamrock instead of a propellor; James, the Professional Writer, had one with a "$"; and John Berry showed up as his out-at-heels fan detective, "Goon Bleary," with a droopy walrus mustache and looking generally disheveled. George Charters was inevitably portrayed as ancient—ear trumpet, snaggle-toothed, and/or in a wheel-chair. Chuck Harris was a (figurative) wolf, with pop-eyes for better staring at femme-fans. And BoSh was the gourmand, with food and drink—especially drink—always close at hand.

	Fans were treated to staged intra-IF feuds—James and Chuck Harris, Chuck and BoSh, John Berry & almost anyone—and some outside, not always staged. (Chuck Harris published a Black List, mixing for-real opponents with not-for-real.) Games and parties at Oblique House were duly reported in the fan press, sometimes by the members of IF, sometimes by the outside visitors. The game of "Ghoodminton" was invented, in which a badminton shuttlecock was launched into the crowded air of the upstairs room known as the Fan Attic, and attacked by two pairs of fans armed with large squares of cardboard and their infamous wits. James introduced water pistols, John Berry introduced suction-cup dart guns. (Not all of fandom was amused when the interest in these fannish weapons crossed the ocean as "Zap Guns" and "Plonkers." But their use in situ was delightful to read about.)

	The distaff side of IF—Madeleine Willis, Sadie Shaw, Peggy White, and Diane Berry—were regular participants in the activities, but infrequent chroniclers.

	Hyphen continued for 36 issues into the mid-'60's. Fandom was changing, and with less emphasis on fanzines and more on conventions. IF was quieter, but it was still there. Well, it wasn't always quieter—Ian McAulay, a Southern Ireland fan displaced to Belfast from Dublin, joined the editorial ranks in 1960 and stayed until he was re-displaced back again three years later. And a 40th Anniversary of Irish Fandom issue of Hyphen —#37—was produced in 1987.

	Special Funds brought John Berry (1959), both Walt & Madeleine (the Tenth Anniversary Willis Fund, 1962), and BoSh (1971) to stateside Worldcons, and the members of IF were occasionally coaxed onstage at World SF Conventions. BoSh was Toastmaster for the 1986 Atlanta convention; Walt was Fan Guest of Honor for Orlando's 1992 Worldcon, and Vin<f for Glasgow's in 1995. James is Professional Guest of Honor for the 1996 L.A.con III.

	Over the past decade a few of the members have died: George-AJl-the-Way Charters, Atom, Sadie Shaw, and BoSh. But IF is still there— and the co-founders are looking forward to celebrating the 50th Anniversary in 1997. And for those who have known them, or have read (or will read) such fanzines as Slant, Hyphen, The Scarr, Retribution, and others from and about IF, it will always be there.

	Now go on reading, and let James show you Why ...

THE LAST TIME I SAW HARRIS

	It is summer. Out of a clear blue sky the Sun glares relentlessly down on the white, concrete pavements of the London suburb of Welling. The white concrete pavements just lie there and glare right back. Butterflies flit lazily, bees buzz drowsily, and fans fan furiously. Through the slit of the half-open letterbox of No. 16 a tall broad-shouldered young man watches the shambling approach of the Harris Thing along Wendover Way.

	As it stops at the gate and begins tinkering with the latch, the hidden watcher checks quickly to see that beard and dark glasses are securely in place. Garden gates are the same all over the world. The ten minutes or so it takes to solve the combination give the observer a chance to get a good look at the loathsome being at close range.

	He sees grey flannels and, inevitably, a rather shoddy imitation Harris tweed sports-coat; and horn-rimmed glasses. There is also a vague impression of a face of sorts, which is tanned a deep rich brown. The effect of extraordinary good health is spoiled, he thinks, by the tan ending abruptly under the chin, giving way to a horribly dirty and greenish white skin, like the colour of a zombie on one of its bad nights. (Actually, it was Harris's shirt collar. The observer had on sunglasses and astigmatism.) Thick pendulous lips drawn back in a perpetual snarl and rows of uneven brown and yellow teeth complete the rather unwholesome picture.

	The gate opens, and Harris comes lumbering up the path.

	As the footsteps halt at the door, the tall broad-shouldered handsome young man grips the inside handle firmly and waits, tense. His other hand holds the gun, fully charged. This is it. His moment of destiny is at hand. He flings open the door.

	The Harris Thing stands there petrified, with one claw-like hand outstretched towards the spot where the bell-push would have been, and the surprise on its face changing rapidly to utter terror as it realises the implications of the beard and the gun. But before its reflexes can take over, the other has gone into action.

	He has been waiting for over a year for this. He knows exactly what to do; so coldly, ruthlessly and silently he does it. Two lightning bursts on the glasses—the resultant spray of droplets on each lens alters drastically their refractive properties, thus completely blinding the brute—then three fast, accurate shots into each nostril. This, besides interfering with their functioning as organs of breathing, tends to have a demoralising effect on the recipient. This is shock tactics. There is no time to think. It does the one thing its adversary had hoped for. It opens its mouth to scream.

	It doesn't scream, quite. To one who has repeatedly drowned a fast-flying blue-bottle at ten paces this is a very easy target. Just like firing into a barrel. Sound waves trying to get out meet water succeeding in getting in; the result is a most intriguing gurgling noise. The Thing staggers back shaking its head, desperately trying to avoid those deadly accurate shots; but in vain. The tall broad-shouldered handsome intelligent young man follows it remorselessly, pumping all the time. He is losing control now, grimacing and spitting and shouting things; but perhaps he can be forgiven—he has waited so long for this. His lightning speed and accuracy remain unimpaired. "Take that—squish—for the Biro pen cover crack, and that—squish—for that Lily crack, and that—squish—for the bit in SFN and that—squish—for the garret piece, and that—squish—for the Biro pen cover crack ..."He babbles, he chortles, he laughs hysterically. Revenge is so sweet.

	It is on its knees now, mouth open, choking and strangling in a hopeless attempt to breathe air when there is nothing available but staccato hard-driven jets of water. Out there in that pleasant sunlit garden, miles from any lake or sea, the unspeakably foul and monstrous life-form is slowly being drowned to death. It gurgles wetly for pity. It bubbles for mercy. In vain. It dribbles "Ubble gop glug"—but the fan with the gun won't forget it and be friends. He stands over it and squirts rapidly down that obscenely gaping gullet, smiling coldly. In a sudden fit of sadism he directs a few rounds down inside the front of the open-necked shirt; then he goes back to his task of filling the lungs of this air-breather with water. With utterly ruthless efficiency he squirts, and watches it slowly drown. This is what he has lived for. Fulfilment.

	But no. It is not to be. He has been snuck up upon. Fannish hands seize, overpower, disarm him. The sodden mass is helped to its feet and poured into the sitting room and revived. One of the others present wishes to speak to it and has ordered that the gunfan be restrained.

	Next year, maybe ...

	EDITORIAL NOTE: Shocked readers must realise that when James first showed me his water pistol I thought this was too terrible a weapon ever to be used. Even when he spoke of bringing it from Paris already loaded, I thought he was merely giving Hob an opening for his famous pun about Harris being "wringing in the Seine." I was wrong, terribly terribly wrong; and now I publish the above starkly horrible account to rouse public opinion to put an end to this terrible feud before it is too late ... before next year's Armageddon. I hear that Chuck has already bought a Govt, surplus fire pump. Worse, the other day when I was weeding the garden path with my blowlamp, James began talking reflectively about flame-throwers! This armaments race must be stopped. The matter must be taken before the United Nations—or even the National Fantasy Fan Federation!! —WAW

THE BEACON
or
Through Darkest Ireland
Carrying a Torch for Bea Mahaffey

	Introduced by Walt Willis:

	The better part of this issue of Hyphen is, like its author, devoted to Bea Mahaffey; or at least to her epic-making trip round Ireland. At about 6:30 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, on Wednesday the 13th May, she boarded a TWA Constellation at New York Airport for the 3000-mile flight to Shannon, on the West Coast of Ireland. Almost a whole day earlier, Madeleine and I had left Belfast in an 8-hp car to meet her.

	Stopping only for the usual reasons, and to send a postcard to Robert Block from Birr, Co. Off'aly, reading simply "It's cold," Madeleine and I arrived in Limerick by nightfall. Next morning, having bought some postcards for Bea to send to her limerick-collecting friends, we set out for the airport.

	We were a little late because I'd had trouble manoeuvering the car safely out of the hotel garage—I'd only just learned to drive and the car belonged to my father-in-law, who knows the history of every tiny scratch on the paintwork and keens over them individually every night—but we arrived in time. Only to find that my baleful influence over all forms of American public transport extends to their transatlantic airlines—Bea's plane would be two hours late. I went back to park the car properly in case one of the big ones ran over it, and we hung about hoping desperately that the weather would clear so that Bea would have a good first view of Ireland and that we'd be able to see her plane coming in. At about one o'clock, as we were scanning the sky keenly towards the West, a fitful sun came out and an aircraft landed from the direction of Constantinople. On the distant tarmac an apparently endless stream of people got out of the Consternation, as from a taxi in an early Mack Sennett comedy, but none of them looked like Bea though we waved at everyone just in case. Even when she came into the arrival lounge I didn't recognise her. She had changed. She was wearing a blue costume instead of the black dress she'd worn in Chicago. Also, she had put her hair up and was wearing glasses. Furthermore, she had an American accent. I'm sure she didn't have the last time I was talking to her. But it was Bea all right—I recognised the little mannerism she has of extending her left hand daintily in front of her, palm upwards, as if she were patting a very large dog or gently repulsing the advances of a very small fan.

	Over coffee we talked nervously in the atmosphere of tension that pervades airports and railway stations—people feel they are missing something all the time—and then we led the way to the car, warning Bea not to trip over it. I drove assuredly along the broad concrete road and past a notice marked ALL VEHICLES TURN LEFT AND STOP Unaccustomed to being a vehicle or to obeying notices for which there seemed no obvious reason, I kept right and went straight on. There was a frenzied wail and a Customs policeman dashed out of his hut like a sabre-toothed tiger out of its cave. I stopped the car, switched off the engine, and listened miserably to his stern reproaches. Useless, I thought to myself, to explain to Bea that this little corner of easygoing Ireland must have been contaminated by foreign efficiency seepingfrom the airport—she must be terribly disappointed. However, as we drove off again, Bea, always the soul of tact, said happily "He was much nicer than a Chicago policeman. "

	Things hadn't gone very well so far, but the sun came out as we neared Ennis, Co. Clare, and we thought we might have a picnic. We bought a couple of pounds of steak in Ennis and stopped at the entrance to the grounds of Loughcultra Castle a few miles further on. I got out the primus stove and started to light it. Ten minutes and twenty matches later I declared that the resources of modern science had been defeated, and began to gather wood. I had a nice fire going, and the tender promise of steak was beginning to pervade the air, when it started to rain. Almost immediately afterwards, it began to pour. The fire was obviously losing ground. We put everything back in the car except the fire and the steak, donned raincoats, and sallied forth again to fight for our existence like primaeval man. Madeleine cooked, I prowled about looking for dry fuel, and Bea crouched gallantly on the grass holding an umbrella over the fire. Well, I thought ruefully, at least it must be a change from New York.

	However, she seemed to enjoy the experience nearly as much as the steak, and we set off again. It was really raining now, with a determination worthy of a better cause. Nothing was to be seen but an occasional picturesque ruin by the side of the road. With vague memories of a hastily leafed-through guidebook, we authoritatively identified as gazebos all the ones that weren't big enough to be monasteries or castles, until Bea was tactless enough to ask what a gazebo was. After that we merely pointed them out as picturesque ruined Things.

	From Galway we took the road into the wilds of Connemara, through Oughterard and Maam Cross, and at Recess branched off on the mountain road by Lough Inagh to Kylemore. It was not a good road, even by Irish standards, though sometimes we hit up to 20 mph. Many of the most scenic roads in Ireland are like this, and I suspect it's a deliberate policy of the Irish Tourist Board's. Ireland is a small country, and they have to spin it out.

	The clouds were lifting now, and we could see the lower slopes of the mountains towering dramatically into the mist. About nine o'clock we reached Kylemore, a faery-like Gothic castle on the brink of a sheltered little lake. (The grounds also include two more lakes, a mountain range, and several hundred acres of woods.) I slowed the car on the entrance drive at the point where you see between the trees the castle mirrored in the lake, and, just as I'd been subconsciously blaming myself for the rain, took as much pride in the fabulous thing as if I'd built it myself. I'd wanted to get Bea here for the first night after her long and hectic journey because it's the most restful as well as one of the most beautiful places in Ireland. Admittedly the bus from Galway now passes the gatelodge twice a week instead of once, but in spite of this hectic onrush of civilisation the people seem to have all the time in the world. As we waited for them in the huge panelled entrance hall with its great oak staircase and gallery it occurred to us, being fans, what a wonderful place it would be for a convention; and after we'd been shown to our rooms Bea called us delightedly down the corridor to look at hers. "Look," she said, pointing to the enormous interior, "Four beds'." It was the clincher. We decided to start a campaign for Kylemore in '54, and next morning sent poctsarcds to Tucker and Block pointing out, among other things, that they hadn't really lived until they'd dropped bags of hot water from a battlement.

	But I'd better get on if you're to meet James on the next page. Actually, nothing much happened during the next two days except that we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of scenery. We toured through Leenane, Westport, Catlebar, Ballina, Sligo (with a detour to Lough Gill to show Bea the Lake Isle of Innisfree), Bundoran and Ballyshannon, and at noon on Sunday we were parked in the market square of Donegal Town looking out for James' bus.

	While we're waiting for him maybe I'd better explain a couple of the allusions in his report.

	First, all this talk about people trying to poison him doesn't mean that he's got a persecution complex. The fact is that many years ago, in an over-enthusiastic endeavour to emulate H. G. Wells, he acquired a mild form of diabetes. The result is that sugar doesn't agree with him. As Bob explained it once, soon after James takes sugar his temperature drops and he gets stiff all over. This is known as rigor mortis.

	Then there's the reference to the "guilty secret" under the bonnet of our car. I should explain that the designers of the Morris Minor Car have, in their infinite wisdom, provided a space among the intricacies of the engine just large enough to accommodate a tea-kettle. However, surprisingly few people know what this space is for. This ignorance of the finer points of automobile design extends to the garage attendant in Collooney Co. Sligo, where we stopped for oil. The youth opened the bonnet and stood for a moment transfixed with astonishment. You could see him reviewing in his mind all his knowledge of the various types of internal combustion engine and associated machinery. This apparatus did not seem to be connected to anything, but he thought he knew what it was. Coming to a decision, he sidled round to my window and dropped his voice confidentially. "Do you know," he asked tactfully, "that you have a kettle underneath your carburettor?"

	"Yes," I admitted with manly frankness, "I do"; and I drove off amid giggles and a flood of jokes about mavericks, stray kettle, and steering.

	But here is James now ...

	Unlike some people, buses don't break down under me, so I arrived in Donegal Town exactly on time. It was raining heavily, which wasn't surprising, as according to the hits conductor it always rains in DonegalTown. I alighted with a splash and looked around quickly for a maroon Morris Minor No. MZ5975 before the rain ruined the refractive properties of my glasses. I saw one. Madeleine was standing beside it, holding the door open with one hand and an umbrella up with the other and urging me to get in quick before she drowned. I didn't want to drown either, so I sprinted toward the car, slung my stuff in ahead of me, and dived neatly after it. Doors slammed, engines revved, horns tooted, and we started off with a jerk (*I resent that last word, whether it refers to me or my driving.—WAW).

	After the two of us in the back seat untangled ourselves I took a look at Miss Mahaffey. I saw dark hair framing a rather blurred face with three or four nice dark brown eyes. She was rubbing gently at the ankle on which I had landed with my chin. I held out a hand and said, "Pleased to meet you." She did likewise and said, "Likewise." Her voice reminded me of the Boston Symphony working over the Overture to Romeo and Juliet—and remember, the car hadn't got a radio.

	Some time later, after she had managed to pull her hand free and counted her fingers, I thought maybe it would be a good idea if I wiped my glasses. I did, and took another look at Miss Mahaffey.

	Wow!

	Just then Walter, who was up front with Madeleine, introduced us formally. He said, with typical old-world courtesy, "James, this is Bea. Bea, that's James," adding by way of helping to break the ice that Other Worlds was now paying 3¢ a word. I reeled my tongue in and told him we'd already met but that I didn't mind shaking hands again. Then I enquired politely about the journey from Shannon Airport.

	As I remember, the way I phrased it was, "Why aren't you all lying dead in a ditch?"

	I gathered that the fair face of Ireland had been wringing wet most of the way from Shannon, and that the only thing that had kept Bea from catching the first plane homewards was the prospect of meeting me. It seems he had told her I could control the weather—apparently reasoning that if I could sell one of my stories to ASF (*"The Scavengers," ASF Oct. '53 —WAW), I could do anything—and that there was bound to be sunshine when I joined the party. He wanted me to start working on it right away.

	First I tried the sunshine of my smile, but this, Bea informed me, was not quite what she had had in mind. She wanted to photograph a thatched cottage, and for that she required a sun, a blue sky, and a few alto-cumulus arranged artistically for effect. A girl of simple tastes, I thought, little knowing what was to follow, and I directed my attention to the weather.

	The rain stopped, and the sun dried the water off the road. It got so warm that Walter had to open the windows. There was some cirro-stratus among the alto-cumulus in the sky, but I don't think anyone noticed it. After making sure the sunshine would stay put, I lay back in my seat and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery, talking to it about word-rates, Robert Bloch, and the scenery outside the car.

	There was some language difficulty at first, but once I understood the distinction between "cute," "real cute," "George" and "George all the way" it ceased to be a problem. It was a very beautiful section of country we were driving through, and every lake, mountain, of wave-lashed headland was given a high George rating by Bea. There was a blurb three paragraphs long by the Irish Tourist Association about Donegal Bay which she neatly condensed to "real George" and still made it sound worth coming three thousand miles to see. But somehow I got the impression that she was a little disappointed—I couldn't produce a thatched cottage which measured up to her specifications. I pointed out that the Donegal County Council were inclined to frown on thatched cottages nowadays ...birds nested in them and they were in constant need of repair ...so they were busy replacing the thatch with horribly modernistic roof tiles. I tried very hard to sell her on the new look in cottages, but as far as she was concerned, tiled cottages just weren't George. She was very nice about it though, she told me not to worry and she wasn't blaming me personally, and she patted me on the head.

	Just about then somebody began to sing—me, I think—and we all joined in. The song was "I want to BEA Near You" and nobody knew all the words except Walter, and he only knew the French version, so it was a rather interesting choral arrangement. Bea kept watching Walter with a sort of horrible fascination—it was the first time she'd heard a song sung in French with an Irish accent. The noise was monstrous, and lasted until we pulled into some town or other for lunch.

	There were no fans in that town, at least nobody noticed the s-f mags propped up in the car's windows. During lunch I taught Bea a smattering of Gaelic and Russian. Mostly the words for "yes" and "no." She already knew these words in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, having learned them for her trip around Europe, but de Camp hadn't told her how to deal with Irishmen or Russian spies. (Bea by this time knew all about the incident in the London Underground during which Evelyn Smith was accused of being a foreign agent.) Before the meal was finished Miss Mahaffey had said "No!" to me three times in German, once in Spanish, and seven times in Gaelic.

	All I wanted was a lock of her hair.

	Of course I hadn't got scissors with me, but I could easily have pulled some out if she'd only have let me. I'm stronger than I look. I think she was just playing hard to get.

	Half an hour out of town Walter discovered that his tanks were almost empty. We all lifted our incredulous eyebrows at each other and said "Hah!" But he was serious and began consulting maps. In an aside to Bea he told her that he was looking for a "Filling Station" to get some "Gasoline." (Walter has been to America.) Bea, in an aside to me, said, "He's looking for a 'Garage' to get some more 'Petrol'." (Bea goes to a lot of trouble to learn the language of the natives.) I told Madeleine that the vehicle required a further supply of reaction mass in order to continue its journey. (I am a member of the British Interplanetary Society.) Madeleine relayed this to Walter, and Walter said "Duh-h-h???"

	After we'd found a garage, and somehow kept the attendant from uncovering our guilty secret concealed under the bonnet while we were being refueled, Walter consulted a few more maps and told us he was taking us towards a breath-taking vista on the north-west coast of Donegal. Off we went again.

	We were travelling through wild, rugged country now. The scenery was real George, but the surface of the roads wasn't even cute, and they climbed and twisted all over the place. We were going fairly fast, and every time we turned a corner, Bea and I would be plastered against one of the inner walls. Walter seemed to take a fiendish delight in throwing us together at all the sharp corners. I was delighted, too. Once I was flung violently into Bea's side of the car when we were on a perfectly straight section of roadway, and I had to talk about Newton's Third Law for about ten minutes to convince her that I was a perfect gentleman. After that we murdered "Frankie and Johnny" until the neighbourhood of the breath-taking vista was reached.

	This vista, we were informed by Walter, could only be seen properly from the top of the small mountain ahead of us which overlooked the sea. There was a sort of fishing village built on the lower slopes of this mountain, and we parked the car here. After piling rocks against the back of it to keep it from sliding into the sea, we started climbing.

	It was a fairly easy climb—there were stretches when the precipices were several degrees from the vertical—but Bea was handicapped somewhat by high heels and a pencil skirt. I had to help her over the difficult spots ... There were difficult stretches of cliff. It was great fun—a person hasn't really lived until he's helped Bea Mahaffey climb a mountain.

	When we reached the top, the vista was everything that Walter had said it would be, and mote. It was George all the way. Its breath-taking qualities were helped considerably by an invigorating breeze which blew in from the sea. Occasionally this breeze would die down to a mere forty-miles-per-hour zephyr, and when one of these lulls occurred, we took shelter in a nearby hollow to try to take our breaths back off the vista. The hollow was carpeted with a rare form of white heather, which costs a fortune back in civilisation, and was as comfortable as any fakir's bed. We lay for a while just soaking in the sunlight and listening to the wind howling by above our heads, and talking mostly about Robert Bloch, but not for publication. After a while I said a few appropriate words to Bea and presented her with a bouquet of wild-flowers, with instructions to stick them in her hair and save one for her mouth to give it a sort of exotic touch as I wanted to take a photograph. I then climbed out of the hollow and took two photographs. While I was doing this, Bea took one of me standing on top of a rock taking her. She later explained that she'd hoped to get an action shot of me being blown into the bay by the gale, and that that would have been even better than a thatched cottage. But I didn't get blown more than a few yards, so I fooled her. A few minutes later we tore ourselves and our clothes away from the heather-covered mountaintop and headed back towards the car.

	A person hasn't really lived until he's helped Bea Mahaffey down off a mountain.

	Later, in the car, Walter told us that we hadn't seen nor done nuthin' yet. That that mole-hill back there was merely an appetizer for the real job. He was, he announced with an imaginary flourish of trumpets, taking us to Mount Errigal! The second (by a few yards) highest mountain in Ireland. As we were all expected to climb it, Walter and I began talking shop.

	Experienced mountain-climbers that we are, we realised that Bea might be in need of some helpful advice and encouragement, so we discussed the many ways used to negotiate a glacier, as well as first aid measures and how to keep the tope from jiggling when somebody fell off. We also touched upon the egoboo which would accrue to the person who got herself a nice romantic unmarked grave in some foreign strand. But Bea seemed strangely unmoved by the thought of an unmarked grave, and as Errigal loomed ever higher and closer above us, she became actively disinterested. I even offered to carry her oxygen tanks, but she declined politely, saying that she'd letters to write and that she'd stay in the car. When we started coaxing her to come, she said, "No!"

	I should say that the climbing of Errigal would make an epic in itself, but E.E. Smith has said the same thing about the taking of Onlo, so I won't. I will merely say that Madeleine, Walter, and myself climbed it, said some corny but very sincere things about the view from the top, and came down again. I broke away from the others and got back to the car first—I wanted food. Besides, I wanted to break the sad news to Bea that I'd left my camera somewhere on the upper slopes of the mountain— I'd left some of the skin off my shin up there, too—and that it had contained the two pictures which I'd taken of her earlier. To soften the blow, however, I told her about the fannish slogan I'd written on a flat stone at the top, which may be read only by true fans willing to make the pilgrimage to Errigal for the recovery of my two exposures of Bea Mahaffey,

	She took this tragic news well, like a true fan. She even forced herself to laugh at it for about ten minutes. I was so relieved that I went and got a freshly-dug lump of peat and presented it to her as a momento of this great occasion. The bit of peat weighed about eight pounds, and was fresh and brown and nice and sticky, but it wouldn't fit in her handbag, so she was forced to refuse this gift. I could see that she was profoundly moved, though. For a long time she was speechless.

	Walter and Madeleine returned and we began building a turf fire for a picnic. The sun picked that moment to go down behind Errigal, and so the usual sunset gale started trying to blow both us and the fire into a nearby river. But the cooking was finished by this time, so the grub was carried into the car and polished off there. While the wind rocked the car we all sat snugly inside feasting on an interesting mixture of fried sausages, soda bread, and sweet biscuits (Oops, sorry, I mean cookies). Several times Bea tried to poison me.

	When we'd driven out from the shadow of Mount Errigal the wind dropped again, and we discovered that the sunset wasn't for two more hours yet. Walter said he was taking us to Dunfanaghy to stay the night with some people he knew there. Madeleine, who was navigating, began telling him how to get there, and Bea and I started talking about leprechauns, word rates, and Robert Bloch. Bea had wanted to see some Little People, and Walter explained that I was the biggest of the Little People in the whole of Ireland. Bea didn't believe this at first. She wanted proof. She asked for a green sunset.

	Green sunsets are difficult. They require time to prepare, and the mix has to be just so. Besides, the sun was almost touching the horizon when she made her request. 1 pointed all this out to her, and added that I was tired from holding the rain off all day, but she looked reproachful and just said, "Oh, well, if you're too tired to show me a green sunset ..." I started working on it.

	I was still working on it when we passed through Dunfanaghy on the way to the people Walter knew. Bea kept watching me expectant like and muttering little words of encouragement ... "Have you gone to sleep?" and "It's still orange-striped, are you colour-blind?" But finally I did it. There was a lot of blue mixed in with the green, of course, but it was a decidedly green sunset. I lay back and received my egoboo.

	The people Walter knew were remodelling their house, so they couldn't take us in. We found this out just as night was falling, so we retraced our steps across a mile or so of hills, bogs, and low stone walls to where we'd left the car. By arrangement with Arthur C. Clarke there was a beautiful crescent moon, and somewhere along the way nightingales or something began singing. Bea and I tried a duet with "Listen to the Mockingbird" but I don't think anyone could do justice to a song while walking in their sleep. We were all rather tired by this time, and I seem to remember someone asking whether we should go back to some ordinary old hotel in Dunfanaghy or just fall into a fannish-type haystack in the next field.

	Breakfast next morning lasted two hours. We just sat around sending postcards to people—-and one to harris as well—until the waitresses began rattling dishes discreetly, then we left.

	It was a fine morning, though I say so myself. The sun shone from a cloudless sky and everything was in glorious Technicolour. It was real George. The car seemed to spend its time crawling around the steep sides of mountains, with Walter pointing out breath-taking vistas to us—split seconds before the vistas vanished behind the stone walls lining the road. Once all us passengers had to leave the car while Walt took it across a bridge that was under repair. When the car didn't go crashing into the bay, we followed it across. Writer looks rather distinguished with white hair.

	Bea kept complimenting me on the weather; she was very pleased with me, she said. She patted me on the arm, and my glasses fogged up. But this unrelieved joy didn't last. I spent an anxious ten minutes while she toyed with the idea of asking for a small rainstorm so that there'd be a rainbow and she could get the pot of gold at the end of it.

	I was inexpressibly shocked. A True Fan like Bea Mahaffey shouldn't think about things like that. I wondered if she perhaps hadn't become tainted with vile professionalism. Her work does bring her into contact with such people. I changed the subject and we stopped on the shore of Mulroy Bay for another picnic.

	The meteorological conditions then obtaining were eminently suited for the holding of picnics. While the womenfolk unpacked the grub, Walter started the fire and I went to look for more fuel. When I came back I told him I had made a dogged search and had found some pieces of bark. He said, "Ah well, every little yelps," and threw it on the fire. When it had assumed the aspect of a conflagration we went down to the shore and threw stones at empty tin cans. Ah, the fannish way of life. When we got back, Bea pointed at a corner of the rug and told me to fall down. It was probably an accident that this corner was laid over a heap of flinty rocks, so I didn't say anything. We lay around the fire, the second one ...the first one, which had got out of control, was some distance away.. .juggling plates and ripping fannish reputations to shreds, while birds sang in the trees, butterflies flitted in the bushes, and a local farmer went by with a load of old seaweed. Twice Bea Mahaffey tried to poison me.

	A person hasn't really lived until Bea Mahaffey has tried to poison him.

	When all the plates had been licked clean, and the others were nerving themselves to the effort of getting to their feet, I was overcome by a sudden urge to climb a tree. I mentioned it aloud. Madeleine looked incredulous, Walter asked if I was going to open a branch office of Other Worlds, and Bea went for her camera. (I found out later she wanted to take a photograph to give to harris.) I gave a few Weissmuller yodels to warm up, then sprang into the lower branches.

	The tree fell down.

	It was quite a big tree, but the trunk had been rotten. The effect was rather spectacular. While the others were standing around making cracks about my fine White frame, I dashed the couple of hundred yards to the shore, snatched a couple of hard-shell sea organisms off a rock, and ran back to proffer them to Bea, asking if she'd like to feel my mussels. Bea looked faintly ill, Walter held his nose, and Madeleine groaned. Altogether it was a most satisfactory reaction. It pays, I think, to put a little extra effort into one's puns. After this we drove off again. Nobody would talk to me for a long time.

	Things went smoothly for a while—too smoothly, I wasn't thrown to Bea's side of the car once—until we approached the frontier. About half a mile from the Eire Customs Post, Walter pulled up behind some trees and told everyone to hide their contraband. At the customs post he left the car to get a signature on something called a triptyque, and a man in a blue uniform came out to talk to us. He glared at Madeleine and roared in a soft brogue, "Anything to declare?" Madeleine shook her head.

	He continued, "Any cigarettes, nylons, foodstuffs, jewelry, ornaments ..." He went on for a long time. Madeleine looked as if she'd never heard of any of these things. At last, apparently satisfied, he turned to Bea. Madeleine heaved a sigh of relief and the cellophane round her three pairs of nylons crackled loudly, but the man didn't hear it. He looked at Bea and said: "Anything to ...to ...er, h'mm."

	Now Bea had concealed in various recesses of the car about two thousand American cigarettes as well as other odd bits of contraband. But when the customs officer asked her the question, she looked at him wide-eyed and innocent, and said, "Why, no!"

	The man wasn't used to the Mahaffey wide-eyed innocent look. He couldn't take it. He hadn't any spectacles to get steamed up, but as he backed away, aqueous vapour spurted gently from his nostrils. An impressionable type, I thought. He staggered back to his post and after a few minutes Walter came out and we drove away. The man hadn't even seen me, apparently.

	The next stop was at a signpost which said H.M. CUSTOMS INSPECTION POST, HALT ! ! We did what the notice screamed, Walter got out with his triptyque, and we went through it all again.

	The second man was in civilian clothes—probably he was an M.I.5 Special Agent, or some relative relieving the regular man while he went for a smoke. This one didn't even look at Madeleine and Bea—no appreciation of the finer things in life, I suppose—but concentrated on poor little me. He kept asking was I concealing alcohol. Me! Alcohol! Then he went to the boot and we heard Walter and him arguing for a few minutes, then Walter climbed in and we were off again. Half a mile down the road we slowed to sixty and everybody averted their eyes while Madeleine fished for her three pairs of nylons. We had arrived in the Province of Northern Ireland.

	For the next fifty miles or so I lay back and talked to Bea about such subjects as the prison sentences given to smugglers, word rates, and Bea Mahaffey. I made the discovery that she much prefers volcanoes to snakes—we have neither in Ireland, thanks to St Patrick—and that, given the choice, Bea would much rather be run over by a car than by a railway train, because the wheels of a locomotive are sharper. This shows a firm grasp of the fundamentals of life, and it's little things like this which make Bea different from ordinary women. How many others have ever really given thought to this vital problem? Very few, I'll warrant.

	The next time we stopped there were long Atlantic toilets breaking on one side of the road and tall, beetling crags on the other side, and we were hungry again. There was some trouble finding water for the tea, but eventually the picnic was held in the back garden of a deserted bungalow overhung by cliffs. We sat and ate and watched the sea-gulls carefully. When Bea asked us why, we told her that when all the sea-gulls flew off the cliff at once, it meant that an avalanche had started and we would all be killed. She seemed sorry she asked. Later on, Madeleine and Bea both tried to poison me, but Bea's attempt was an accident, I think, because I hadn't tried to make a pun for more than ten minutes, and she let me light her cigarette afterwards.

	As we were going back to the car she gave me a whole book of matches to use on later occasions. Sometimes it's worth getting nearly poisoned. A person hasn't really lived until he's lighted one of Bea Mahaffey's cigarettes.

	When the journey had been resumed, I noticed that Bea was looking thoughtfully at the horizon. I wondered how many cents I should offer for her thoughts, but she spoke first. "Tonight I'd like," she said, smiling sweetly, "a polka-dotted sunset." She paused, then, so's there'd be no semantic confusion about this request, she amplified, "Purple with pink polka-dots."

	For a while I toyed with the idea of giving back the book of matches and breaking off diplomatic relations. I mean to say, a polka-dotted sunset. I'd be run out of the union for sure. Still, being the Custodian of the Mahaffey Matches was worth something, too. I went to work. I was still muttering incantations, or something, when Walter stopped the car at a granite parapet. We had arrived at Dunluce Castle.

	Dunluce Castle is a fairly well preserved Norman castle on the north-east coast—you can read about the Normans in Russell's Dreadful Sanctuary (plug)—and is set on top of a sheer mountain which becomes an island at high tide. We climbed around the battlements and walked about on the grassy courtyard where the Knights used to joust. A couple of sheep had got in, and they kept going "Maaaa" at us, and once Bea dropped the trapdoor on me while I was exploring a dungeon. It was very damp inside, but the spiders were the worst. Walter came along later and let me out.

	A person hasn't really caught pneumonia until he's been thrown into a dungeon by Bea Mahaffey.

	It was about this time that people began to notice the sunset. I yelled and pointed a few times and soon everybody noticed it. The sky was turning a deep purple, and there were lots of tiny clouds in it. The clouds weren't all pink, and they didn't look like polka-dots because the colours had sort of run, but the effect was terrific. It looked just like the covet for Slant 6, except that there were three coal boats steaming dramatically across the horizon instead of a blue fountain pen hanging at three thousand feet. Madeleine said, "Oh!" Walter said, in a voice charged with emotion, "James, you have surpassed yourself." Bea patted me on the head and said huskily, "Youse is a good kid." She pulled out a cigarette and waited for me to light it. The sheep said, "Maaaa." They must have been faaaans.

	Back in the car I lay back and just basked in the warmth of Bea's cigarette smoke and regard. We all admired my sunset and spoke in hushed tones about my sensitive fannish soul. After a decent interval of time had elapsed, Walter announced that he planned to stop at the next town or village, dump our bags, and just walk around until bedtime admiring the scenery and looking for birdbaths. I don't care much about birdbaths, but I like walking and admiring Bea Mahaffey. And so, in the still of a beautiful evening in early summer, singing and laughing and talking about Robert Bloch and Bob Tucker, we drove all unknowing into that hotbed of alien intrigue, that roaring, wide-open seaport, that BRE Babylon, Portballintrae!

	We left our luggage at the Bay Hotel and came right out again. It was a lovely evening. The sunset was so proud of itself that it wanted to hang around all night, which was all right by us. We wandered down to the little harbour and along the sea wall. It was one of those periods of idyllic calm before the holocaust, and it lasted until we felt hungry again and went back to the hotel.

	It was then that we began to notice that this was no ordinary hotel. The entrance hall was festooned with various instruments of destruction, ranging from assegais right up to flintlocks. In a clearing among the potted plants there was a glass show case containing a shapeless hunk of metal, billed as part of a shell fired at the heroic hotel by a German submarine in 1916—a shock from which the residents had obviously never fully recovered. There were also a television set, a radiogram, and two radios. None of them was working. Perhaps at some time in the past some rash soul craving for new sensations had impulsively switched one of them on, only to find to his horror that it made a noise. Since then they had remained as mute as the residents, all of whom had obviously been switched off long ago.

	There were two lounges, one of them marked "Adults Only." We tiptoed in and sat down. It was at once obvious that the term "Adult" has a very special meaning in Portballintrae. It is not used to describe any young thing of less than eighty, however long his beard. The lounge was inhabited—or at least occupied—by six of the elder Things, all either reading copies of the Financial Times or decomposing quietly behind them. So much of their skulls as was visible through their paper shrouds had the brown patina of great age, and their clutching fingers were the delicate hue of old bones seen through cellophane. They did not move; neither, Bea asserted later, did they breathe. We wondered to ourselves whether they were stored in some vault at night or merely draped in dust-sheets.

	The silence was sepulchral, at least. As it dragged on, Walter produced a pin and dropped it solemnly on the carpet. At the earsplitting crash Madeleine covered her ears, Bea winced elaborately, and I, tripping over the threshold of audibility, muttered "Shhhh!" But They had heard. There was a low rumbling sound like the sound of distant thunder as They cleared their throats, a frigid alien wind blew momentarily from outer darkness, making us shiver with the sense of impending doom ...and then it happened. One of them lowered its Financial Times by several centimetres, and rustled it at me.

	We all ran out into the porch.

	There we survivors discussed our soul-searing experience, speculating on Yog Soggoth and the Elder Gods and whether the Financial Times should not be outlawed as a weapon too terrible to be used. Walter was just urging Bea that it was her duty as an American to cow them by going right back in there and rustling some cattle at them, when the waiter announced that our supper was ready. We followed him into the dining room and discovered that there were more of Them in there—no doubt enjoying a cheerful nightcap of embalming fluid.

	It was murder. Every time somebody tried to eat something, somebody else would whisper something and the person trying to eat would either have to choke to death or spew bread-crumbs over a twenty-foot radius—they daren't laugh, not out loud. After a while we gave up hope of ever being able to eat in that place. Bea gripped the sides of her chair and stared at the ceiling, Madeleine covered her eyes, Walter put the corner of his scarf in his mouth and chewed at it, and I stuck two fingers in my mouth and bit. But it was no good. The pressure kept building up inside us. It was actually painful, to me anyway. We staggered away from our table and reeled out into the night to laugh before we exploded and messed up the Bay Hotel's dining room floor.

	When we got back we found that the Arisians had gone from the "Adults" lounge and we had the place to ourselves. Bea kept urging me to get up early next morning so's I could go for a swim, but not too early because she hadn't any flash-bulbs. She'd been very keen for me to go swimming ever since I'd told her that I'd made an error during my hasty packing for this trip, and brought a black beret instead of my black bathing trunks. She's always trying to get photographs for harris—maybe she's sorry for it or something. I like swimming, but I had to decline. Even though Walter offered me the loan of his beret to make a two-piece. After all, as a vile pro, I have certain standards of dignity to maintain, and bathing in black berets just isn't done—even by Tucker. A few minutes later I told her that she could pat my forehead and steam up my glasses all she wanted to, but I still wouldn't do it. Somehow I think my voice lacked conviction.

	Walter saved the situation by saying that I could swim all I wanted to tomorrow morning, after I'd helped him wash the car, so that was that. We started talking about the inhabitants again. Every now and then someone would whisper some outrageous speculation, and we would stick our heads in the cushions and make muffled snorkling sounds.

	A person hasn't really lived until he's heard Bea Mahaffey make muffled snorkling sounds in a cushion.

	A little after midnight a potter came into the room, and I inferred he thought it was time we went to bed. In Portballintrae the porters don't switch the lights off and on. They do not even cough discreetly. A discreet cough, in that place, would rouse the neighbourhood for miles around. Instead, their method is to tiptoe in, stand quietly, and raise their eyebrows. The faint rustling sound their eyebrows make in that awful, ever-present silence attracts the attention immediately. Then they switch on a pained expression and the crestfallen wrongdoers retire discomfited. We went up to bed.

	Now, the next thing that happened is one of those events which people will distort. Already Walter has begun to garble it in his oral versions, and I'm terrified at what Bloch will make of it if Bea tells him. When people start relating it at second hand ... As the person most concerned in the incident, I will state briefly the facts.

	Shortly before one o'clock in the morning of May 16th, 1953, while I was lying face downwards on the corridor floor passing a note (*The text of the note is understood to have been as follows: "Remember, don't snore!"—WAW) under Bea Mahaffey's bedroom door, a chambermaid walked on me.

	After I got the footprint off the back of my jacket, I went to bed.

	Next morning the sky was overcast and there was a gale blowing up. Waltet and I finished washing the car in rain and we went in for breakfast. Bea was late in coming down, so I went upstairs to rout her out. I slammed my door, which was opposite hers, a few times, and then pounded on her door with my fist shouting "Is Tucker there?" This had been quite effective the previous morning in Dunfanaghy, and it worked here too. She came out on the run. On the way down to breakfast I told her about the incident the previous night, lest she would overhear some of the servants talking and misunderstand, and begged her not to breathe a word about it to Walter.

	Hah!

	Madeleine said "What!" and Walter's eyes gleamed and he began pressing for details, fishing out a postcard and addressing it to harris. I tried to cover my confusion by dropping one of Bea's cigarette stubs into the coffee dregs from an altitude of six feet. It hissed nicely and made an interesting black mess, but three waiters and a porter rustled their eyebrows. I looked reproachfully at Bea. She said "Quien sabe," which was completely uncalled-for no matter what it means, and patted me on the shoulder. My glasses didn't steam up as much as usual; I was terribly, terribly disappointed in her. After all, it was supposed to be our secret.

	After breakfast we ransomed ourselves from the hotel and drove off. The weather was awful. High wind, lashing rain, and great grey waves battered at the sea wall we had been sitting on last night. As we left Portballintrae we all turned round and shouted "Boo" at it to relieve our feelings, and then Walter asked his Navigator for directions to the Giant's Causeway.

	But the weather was unsuitable for inspecting rock formations, so we merely gave Bea a vivid word picture of what she would have seen— "a lot of funny-shaped rocks"—and drove on through Bushmills, Dunseverick, Portbraddon and Ballintoy. Bea mentioned the weather a few times, but I don't think she really expected me to change it. Portballintrae and the polka-dot sunset had shot my finely coordinated nervous system to pieces. But I felt better after Bea had smoked a few more cigarettes and we blundered through "Stormy Weather" a couple of times. Madeleine and Walter kept talking in low voices, and occasionally scraps of dialogue like "Flat on the floor ..." and "Can the maid sue?" would drift back to us. Bea would comfort me by saying I had done nothing of which I should be ashamed even if nobody would believe it, and I would smile bravely and wipe the steam off my glasses.

	The weather still wasn't suitable for climbing around on rocks, but we left the car at Carrick-a-Rede and went down the steep cliff path to the famous rope bridge. This bridge connects the mainland to a high rocky island which can't be reached by any other way but parachute. It is about 500 feet above the sea at both ends, if a good deal less in the middle, and it sways in the slightest breeze. That day there was a gale blowing which Bea judged to be about three times as invigorating as the one that nearly blew us off Errigal.

	Madeleine went out on it first, a brave glorious stupid thing to do. I began to console the imminent widower, but she came back without falling off. I went next, feeling gloriously stupid too. A merciful blank covers the memory. When I got back, Bea pleaded her high heels and Walter made some lame excuse about being completely lacking in moral and physical courage. The rain suddenly became heavy and we decided to go up the cliff by a short cut instead of the more circuitous path, and we started climbing again.

	As I said, I wasn't feeling so good. A lot of things had been happening to me. I was in a bad way. This time I didn't help Bea up a mountain.

	A person hasn't really lived until Bea Mahaffey has helped him up a mountain.

	Eventually we poured ourselves back into the car and took off again for Ballycastle, Cushendall and the Antrim Coast Road. When the coast road was reached, spray as well as rain began to run down the windows. Walter pointed out where Scotland would be seen if it weren't for that row of tidal waves. We talked to Bea about the cars that got washed into the sea here every month and the ones that escaped that fate by being pinned down by landslides from the cliffs. Bea just lay back nonchalantly and smoked five cigarettes in a row.

	At Ballygally Castle, where we stopped for lunch, Walter tried for twenty-five minutes to phone Bob Shaw to let him know we were nearly home again. But he couldn't get through. The lines were down, or at least some telegraph poles had fallen into the sea. Madeleine and Walter were inclined to worry a little about what had happened to the road alongside the poles, but not Bea or I—we can swim.

	Bea began to talk about artificial respiration and lifesaving methods generally. We had a most interesting discussion. Bea favoured holding their heads under until they calmed down before towing them ashore, while I plumped for the rabbit punch. Madeleine and Walter didn't say anything.

	In Belfast I said a tearful farewell to Bea and went home to tell my mother look who was back. Two hours later, in Oblique House, while Walter and I were trying to fix the flash bulb attachment on Bea's camera. Bob Shaw came in. It is a measure of Miss Mahaffey's multilingual proficiency that she understood the very first words he uttered. They were, "Welcome to Ireland."

	I felt like kicking myself, or him. Walter felt the same way, for the one thing we had forgotten to do was to welcome Bea officially to Ireland. Her sensitive fannish soul must have been hurt at this even though she complained not, and there must have been times when she may even have felt ...not wanted? Many a time and oft, as she clung by her fingernails to some cliff in a howling gale, she must have thought she should have stood at home—all because we had forgotten this simple ritual. I was a cad. However, to try and make it up to her we conducted her around the Slant pressroom. We showed her the printing press, the waterpistol used in the White-harris encounter of '52, Walter's Honorary Swamp-Critter Certificate, the water pistol used on harris this year, the duper, and the waterpistols to be used on hams next year. Then we all went downstairs again and began to tell Bob about Portballintrae, with actions.

	When Madeleine wheeled in the food a couple of hours later, however, Bob and I were talking about "High Noon."

	"High Noon" is a wonderful subject for discussion. That film had something. It was tense. At that time Bob and I were the only people who had seen it, but though the others begged us not to trouble ourselves, we didn't mind explaining about it. Especially that bit where the guy rides over the hill ... That picture was—tense.

	We got so good at talking about it that we could do it in sign language. That meant that Bob and I could talk about out latest masterpiece, word rates, and how nice it was to have a pro editor partaking of our hospitality—and still be able to talk about "High Noon" in sign language.

	A person hasn't really lived until he's seen Bea Mahaffey talk about "High Noon" in sign language.

	When I went up again next day the weather had changed again. It was the hottest day yet, and Walter planned on driving us around County Down. Madeleine wasn't coming this time, so there would be room for Bob beside Walter. But strangely enough, Bob didn't want to sit beside Walter. After Bea got in there was quite a bit of jostling for position, but it was finally agreed that if Bob gave me three new plots and let me keep the rear-view mirror trained on him all the time, then he could sit beside Bea. We blasted off.

	Just outside town it was discovered that the car horn had lost its voice. It is a punishable offence here to drive without apparatus to give audible warning of one's approach, but Bob, Bea and myself solved the difficulty until we reached a garage, by leaning out of the windows and yelling "Honk" at anyone that got in the way. After the horn was fixed we headed for the Mourne Mountains, but seeing, when we got near them, that they were covered in cloud, we turned off to Downpatrick to show Bea St Patrick's grave. Even there Walt and Bob continued the ceaseless barrage of puns and jokes that had started when Bea commented, as we left Belfast, on how clean it was, and Bob explained it was because the "Mountains of Mourne sweep Down to the sea." During one sequence about snakes as Bea was as usual alternately saying she should go home, and that she should have brought her tape recorder, Bob remarked that it was indeed something to writhe home about. How is it one can never remember any of the good jokes made on these occasions? I should have noted them down as I said them.

	We made a stop once at a little bridge on a byroad, and sat in the sun playing a game we have invented called "Moon Base." (In this you prop up a cigarette butt in the middle of the road and throw pebbles at it.) But we had to hurry back, because after tea there was going to be a full scale convention. As well as the present company of vile pros and fans, Gerard Quinn, a pro artist on New Worlds, would be coming, and that legendary figure, George L. Charters, the Bangor bibliophile who had gotten his name in HARD COVERS and who likes to talk about it the way normal people talk about "High Noon," would also appear. We got back just in time to keep them from welcoming us instead of the other way around.

	The next thing that happened will live in my memory till my dying day—and probably haunt me for centuries after that. It was, sort of, a pun. We were all going in to tea, with Bob several lengths in front and moving fast, when he suddenly stopped, turned round, and said to Bea, "Bea, you look good enough to eat." A harmless enough remark of the soft that hungry wolves say to Miss Mahaffey as a matter of course. As Bea sat down she said, sort of off-hand, "I do—three times a day." Bob said, "Glumph."

	It had happened at last, we thought. Shaw caught without a comeback. History had been made. But no.

	All during tea he gazed abstractedly at Bea—she must be used to this, too—and he didn't speak at all except for a few monosyllables like "More tea," "More bread," and "More salad." While the rest of us demonstrated the proper way to rustle a paper, and waved our hands through the opening sequences of "High Noon," he was in some horrible world of his own. Finally, after approximately three quarters of an hour's silence, he spoke.

	He said, "What other newspapers do you take?" and began to laugh for about ten minutes. He really appreciates his puns.

	When we had recovered somewhat, Bea thought it would be a good idea to take some pictures of the Slant pressroom with the staff draped about it in characteristic positions. She took a picture of Walter, Bob, George, and self standing in a characteristic pose, then sitting in one. After this, by a majority vote, the camera was taken away from Miss Mahaffey and we photographed her—once sitting in the Editor's Chair, twice soft of lounging against the duper, once operating the press (she isn't really a negress), and once standing on the Art Ed's Chair—a sort of Statue of Liberty shot, but with a more scientifically accurate stratospheric beanie.

	After we'd used up all her film, we let her have the camera back again. Bob was still acting up. Every few minutes he would guffaw and shout out, "What other papers do you take? Papers, Times, Financial Times, three 'Times' a day—Hee-hee-hee—Get it? Times." We did, but there should be a law. At nine o'clock he left, still loudly deriving amusement from its subtleties.

	Shortly after midnight Madeleine made more tea. Another downpour had started and I'd a four-mile walk home ahead of me, so she wanted to give me one for the road. Both Walter and Madeleine had been urging me to stay the night, but I'd declined with thanks. I think all they wanted was to get flashlight pictures of me pushing notes under bedroom doors.

	We dawdled a little over tea, mostly because Walter, Madeleine, and I had decided that Other Worlds should bring out an anthology. We told Bea what stories, other than "Deaf Devil," to use, what authors to approach for new stuff, what stories to reprint from Slant, what author we'd all like to see in the book, and how good I was. We were all very helpful. With the anthology disposed of, we made other suggestions, one of which was that Other Worlds publish a BRE from an office in Belfast, and to make sure that the venture would succeed, one of the editors would run this office in person. We discussed at some length the qualifications this editor would need to have. It was a straight, one-cornered fight. Bea got the job. We went on to tell her how the Slant staff could assist her by writing stories around spaceship covers, paint spaceship covers around stories, and do spaceship interior illos. Walter could advise her on which of my stories to print first, and conduct the fan departments. We didn't know what Bob could do, though a lot of rather bizarre suggestions were put forward. Things were getting really interesting when suddenly I noticed it was three o'clock in the morning. We had dawdled, but good.

	Regretfully, I had to tear myself away. I'd a long distance to walk, and my mother might be annoyed if I was late for breakfast.

	I awoke bright and very late next morning and, after checking my symptoms to make sure I still hadn't caught pneumonia, sashayed off to Oblique House. It was a disorganised sort of day. We were due to sail to Liverpool that night, and many and varied were the preparations that had to be made. Every few minutes the brilliant fannish discourse would be interrupted by someone dashing off to pack something she'd forgotten, or somebody else deciding that they'd some last-minute shopping to do— Walter and Madeleine turned up later with a pound of sugar and a television set—or me wanting to run some more tests on the waterpistols. Mostly we talked about "High Noon" and read the weather reports. When Walter and Madeleine left on their shopping spree, they requested that the remaining fannish population keep their eyes on the garden and baby sit.

	It was a warm day, and Carol Willis and a horde or her six-year-old insurgents were holding a convention in the font garden. There was heavy traffic on the road outside—mostly buses and trucks—and we were supposed to keep them from overturning any of it. We did, too, though there was one bad moment when they all suddenly disappeared from sight. But they returned a few minutes later sucking lollipops. Between intensive bouts of packing, Bea talked about Portballintrae (I don't particularly like talking about Portballintrae), gave invaluable technical advice on babysitting (she's an aunt yet), and made with the entente cordiale.

	This last, which is a French word, consisted of her looking regal and gracious and exchanging polite diplomacies while Carol Willis presented each of her friends to Bea in turn. Carol had been telling them about the legendary figure visiting Oblique House, and they wanted to see. (Who could blame them?) Carol performed the introductions, and one by one they came forward and shuffled their feet, said "Hello," or said nothing, according to age and temperament. Bea put them at their ease at once. Such charm, such tact, such delightful informality. When Ninth Fandom emerges, it's going to be solidly behind Bea (Call Me Madam) Mahaffey. What an ambassador she is.

	A person hasn't really lived until he's seen Bea Mahaffey deal tactfully with an offer of a very sticky, half-eaten lollipop which a young and earnest admirer is waving in her face.

	After that incident I remembered that I'd packing to do, too, so I hurried home. We had arranged to meet at the quayside at seven-thirty. Madeleine's father was going to take Bea, Madeleine, and Walter Himself down to the boat in the car while I was supposed to proceed independently on my dogs. About ten minutes to eight I began to worry. At five to I was funning my half-eaten fingers through my beautiful silvery hair. At eight o'clock I was standing at the gangplank sort of staring down a stevedore who thought he was going to cast it off. At five past they arrived dramatically in a cloud of dust and scorched-rubber fumes. Bob Shaw had kept them late saying goodbye and talking about "High Noon."

	To all who have read Mr. Willis's Con reports, the operation of— and the various items of equipment carried by—ships on the Belfast-Liverpool run is old stuff, but as this was Bea's first trip we had to tell her what the different things were for, and why the chimney was tilted and the front end sharp, and so on. There was also a slight mix-up with the berths we'd booked which made it necessary for Walter to pose as Bob Shaw (who'd found at the last moment he wouldn't be able to come) and for Bea to masquerade as Walter A. Willis. (What an actress that girl is, but I still think it was lousy casting.)

	This was the third time we'd watched the cranes and anchored ships and the South Antrim mountains slide past us as we headed towards another Convention, but I think we get a bigger kick out of it every time. There's something about starting off for a Convention, with the same old sun setting behind Cave Hill, and the lights of Bangor and Donaghadee still shining away as if they'd never been turned off from last time, that makes one wonder if there really are such things as time warps, and wish one could only keep on doing this for the test of one's life.

	When night began to fall and the sea toughened up a bit, I showed Bea how to get into a lifejacket so that her head would stay above water even after shed died from exposure. But it was getting chilly—my glasses hadn't steamed up for more than five minutes—so we went below.

	The cabin which was supposed to belong to Mr and Mrs Willis held four people uncomfortably. There was just enough room for their heads to rattle against the walls and ceiling when the boat lunched. But to fans who'd lived through Portballintrae and Carrick-a-Rede this was nothing. Besides, we were happy. The environment was suitable for close harmony and we sang several songs, frequently simultaneously. After a while someone croaked that they were dying for a cup of tea. Walter organised the operation from a commanding position near the ventilator, and finally I was able to get the door open.

	The floor of the corridor was beginning to fill up with prostrate Air Force men. They hadn't booked berths, and the spray was making the deck upstairs uninhabitable, so they had seeped down here to sleep. Trying to avoid stepping on anyone's face, I waded across the yielding mass to the restaurant. Soon I was back with lour steaming half-cups of tea— the sea was roughening up—and the party continued.

	I never realised until then that Walter and Madeleine knew so many seditious and revolutionary Irish songs. When Bea had eagerly learned the words there was a marked increase in volume, and I began to worry about the regiment of Englishmen camped out in the corridor. We moved on to more peaceful songs, trampling soulfully on "The Rose of Tralee."

	Just as I was winding up for my beautiful top note, two teacups fell into the washbasin, and Walter suggested there might be some people on the ship, or maybe another one close by, who wanted to go to sleep. We decided we'd turn in before we were turned out, but first we'd go up on deck for some air. The corridors were by now covered with a fitted carpet of airmen, and it was interesting to watch Bea and Madeleine negotiating them with spike-heeled shoes. The men who were deeply unconscious muttered querulously in their sleep, sighed, and dropped off again. Those who'd been merely dozing said "Aaaargh!" and came fully awake, and those who were awake already said ... (How does one spell a long low whistle?) The stairs were heaped with men, too, and when we got outside we realised why. The wind had grown to invigorating proportions. This did not stop me, however—science must be served. I had seen a musical once in which two dancers waltzed round the deck of a ship in a gale, and I hadn't believed it was possible. In the interests of science and with her help, I told Bea, I hoped to prove it was impossible. We found a relatively sheltered spot on "Assembly Deck B" (how fitting!), and Walter and Madeleine hung onto a sort of ladder and screamed "Till I Waltz Again With You" above the howling of the gale.

	Dancing on the deck of a storm-lashed ship is impossible. Still, it was quite an experience. A person hasn't really lived until he's waltzed down a heaving and shuddering deck, tripped over a life-raft, and come to a skidding halt against a ventilator with Bea Mahaffey.

	After this I think we all retired, but I can't remember. Concussion plays funny tricks, sometimes.

	The gale must have got behind the boat and pushed most of the way, because Liverpool was reached about an hour ahead of schedule. It was an unbelievable sight. It looked completely alien. It wasn't just the Coronation decorations or the bright green trams (we'd never known before what colour they were supposed to be) or the cleaned-up buildings. These were extraordinary enough, but on top of all that the sun was shining. It just shows what these English fans are capable of when they want to impress someone. Previously we'd been welcomed with the normal rain, fog and soot, but this time we had a distinguished visitor with us and they laid on sunshine. They must have been saving it up for years. I went down to tell Bea about it.

	The corridor looked unfamiliar with the floor visible. I beat on the cabin door as usual and yelled for Tucker. The steward who was picking odd socks, playing cards and empty bottles off the floor looked askance at me, but I ignored him and shouted again for Tucker. The door opened, a face covered in shaving soap looked out. "Go away," it said soapily, "he isn't here." Walt said, "She must have brought Shaver with her," but it turned out to be just the wrong cabin. When I took a good look round, I found I wasn't even in the right corridor.

	We went up on deck again to wait for the girls and leaned over the side marvelling at the Liverpool sunshine. Shortly it occurred to us that it was still very early and the English fans who were to meet us wouldn't have arrived yet. We got off the ship and waited at the end of the gangway. Shortly Bea and Madeleine, looking fresh and pretty in the Spring morning, came walking down it.

	"Welcome to England," we said.

James White, co-founder of Irish Fandom,
assesses the changes wrought by
that arch-wroughter, John Berry.

THE NOT-SO-HOT GOSPELLER
or
THE NEW LUKE IN IRISH FANDOM

	Bob Shaw has gone to Canada. Bob Shaw, supreme exponent of the murderous art of Ghoodminton, possessor of the only known fifth-dimensional gut, and late owner—before I bought it—of the Tower Bridge, London. A solid bloc bulkhead of Irish Fandom since those far-off, golden days BB. His character and accomplishments have become legend— mainly because both wete so unbelievable. His genius for finding money in public litter-boxes, for instance, and his unceasing quest for an entirely new and non-mechanical form of humour—a form of humour which was funny. And there was his prowess at shooting spiders with a high-powered air-rifle. But all this was in the good old days; the days of the Fansmanship Lectures, the Hoffwoman, and of the sawing of Courtney's boat, when not only Bob Shaw was a living legend ...

	Walter Willis was engaged in a one-man massacre of Fandom by doing his best to write himself across the Atlantic, and some of the casualties are still in stitches. George Longfellow Charters was carefully shopping for a typewriter worthy of stencilling The Enchanted Duplicator, wearing cowboy shirts and loudly reminding us at least seventeen times a week that his name had appeared in hard covers. And I was doing things, too. Because of that grim and watery encounter at Welling in the summer of '52 between Harris and myself, the zap-gun was introduced into Irish fandom, and became so popular that it had to be outlawed. And about the same time I was proving that the age of chivalry was not dead to an unknown Antrim chambermaid by going one better than even Sir Walter Raleigh.

	All these events were written up, of course, and incredible though they sometimes were, fans believed them. The Wheels of IF became known to Fandom as a sensitive, cultured, happy, and more than slightly wacky fan group to whom incredible things happened as a matter of course.

	Gentle, restrained, and civilised was the group then, and if prone to any weakness it was that of understatement. The brutality of the fast-growing Spillane Fandom was abhorred, and although BoSh and I often lay on Walter's lawn to wait for bees too young or careless to heed their comrades' warnings regarding this danger area, these encounters were conducted strictly in accordance with the rules and usages of war.

	Many a time I remember us catching a big fat one in our crossfire and bringing it down out of control, waterlogged. And then, after it had given us its name and serial number only, we'd put it on the biggest flower we could find—usually a dandelion—to dry out and refuel before returning to base. We'd think then of its comrades back at the hive waiting, waiting until all hope was gone and the drinking-glass of the missing bee would be sadly upended. Then suddenly a buzz would go up and the missing one would come limping in on three wings, heavy with water but otherwise unhurt, and we'd get a sort of warm glow, we'd think of the bees speculating on the nature of those awful, yet strangely merciful beings inhabiting the Willis lawn, and the stories would grow and spread. Egoboo from a bee isn't much, but the whole bee population of Ireland ...

	Even now, bees from far and wide come to hover above the Willis lawn. They hang there for hours, waiting, hoping for some manifestation. Then at sunset they fly slowly away to spread the sad news that the benevolent old gods are dead, and in their place is a hairy debased creature waving a fly-swatter made from cardboard who is childishly easy to elude.

	Yes, those days have gone forever. Subtly and horribly the characters of this fan group are changing. Our minds and bodies are being ruthlessly forced into a new mould, a mould formed by the diseased thought processes of the Nemesis that has lately come among us.

	Nemesis has cast a dark shadow over Irish Fandom—or rather, his moustache has. Nemesis, alias John Berry. According to Berry, IF is too tame. It needs more blood and guts and Marilyn Monroe. The diffident, understated treatment of fan articles, he says, is sissy stuff. What is needed is some good old MGM-type superlatives to liven the reports up, with plenty of exclamation marks scattered through them. And as he has fifty million relatives chained to typewriters somewhere, his opinions carry weight. There are, in fact, no opinions remaining in print other than those of John Berry—at least so far as readers are concerned. Everything which occurs in Oblique House is written up by him immediately it happens, and usually before that, and published everywhere. We don't have a chance.

	Our own laziness was to blame for this at first. We should not have lain back, encouraging him as he matched, then exceeded, the combined word-output of Ireland's most active fan group. But it is so easy to take things easy. Easier even. And suddenly it was too late to stop him. Under the weight of his factual articles—which have, occasionally, a tenuous connection with the truth—a fearful metamorphosis was taking place within us, and the old legends of IF were being swallowed up by the new, hepped-up, Berry-built mythology.

	No longer the dry wit and superb punster that we knew and loved, Walter is a sneering, cruel-eyed hoodlum who spits words and reefers out of the corner of a perpetually twisted mouth. George, whose age might have been guessed as a rather worldly twenty-seven, no longer looks it. Under the intensive brain-dirtying of Berry he has become an old man. Girls still give him their seats in the train, but no longer for the chance of sitting on his knee. Instead they smile reassuringly, telling him that they hope they look as healthy as he does when they're ninety. But they are just being kind. Such is the power of Berry's suggestion that we fully expect him to turn up in an ambulance any day now, instead of in his wheelchair.

	And take even Harris. (Yes, please do.) Harris, the vile pro and—according to White—sex-fiend, who is an honorary member of Irish Fandom and therefore a much too insipid character. Berry made him— through a cohort—a despoiler of virgin budgerigars. And myself, vile pro and—according to Harris—sex-fiend, who never bust a dam or wore a spat in my life, am fast becoming a cross between Sir Anthony Eden and Mickey Spillane.

	But Bob has been treated the worst of all. His fondness for an old green velvet jacket together with his gymnastics while playing Ghoodminton suggested something to the REVEILLE-soaked mind of Berry. Ballet! Now, wherever Bob goes, sneers and lispings and derisive shouts of "Pavlova!" follow in his wake. Even his health card says "Robert" on it.

	Berry, you see, is responsible for Bob leaving the country. Berry is responsible for everything that has happened to us during the past year, culminating in the horrible fake-saturnalia of the night that Heinlein didn't come—"reported" elsewhere in this issue ["What the Butler Saw or Twilight of the Ghods", by John Berry]—which has caused our names to stink throughout Fandom. Berry is also, I'm sure, responsible for the letter which Bob got recently from Canada. I only saw the letterhead before he whipped it out of sight ...

	Bob is currently undergoing vaccination. Thorough vaccination. Shots against smallpox, malaria, typhoid, beri-beri—a bit late for that now—heat-stroke, frost-bite and dandruff. Prominently displayed at the top of a trunk he showed us last week was a pair of snow-shoes and an outsize fur-trimmed romper suit. When he wasn't looking I peeked to see what else was under his Eskimo set, and found a pith helmet and khaki shorts. He says he's going to Canada, but sometimes I wonder, especially when I remember that letterhead. "The Calgary and District Glee, Light Opera and Moira Shearer Appreciation Club." Hmm.

	Berry must already have blanketed the whole Dominion with his lying propaganda, so that wherever Bob goes he will be greeted by longhaired men and short-haired women balletomanes—long, short, and ballet-length manes. Anyway, wherever he's going, we here all wish him and Sadie the best of luck, and a goodly dollop of the misery which is supposed to befall those whose affairs prosper and who become disgustingly rich.

	Yes, Bob is the only one of us who has tried to tear himself away from Berry's literary Iron Maiden. But I doubt if he'll succeed. Even should he lose himself in the trackless jungles of French Equatorial Africa—which I suspect is his plan. Who was it, after all, who first started the lying rumour that the Shaws were a race of pygmies? Yes, you've guessed it. Berry will get there first, probably with letters to the local missionary suggesting that the natives be taught more up-to-date and civilised forms of dancing. Like ballet.

THE LONG AFTERNOON
OF HARROGATE

	In many ways this column resembles a time machine, in that within it Time and even Reality become subject to change without notice. It is possible to go from the month after next right back to childhood and, as with physical time-travel, subtly alter the whole fabric of reality in the process. In the matter of Conventions, for instance, it is very easy to make like one of Leiber's Change War characters so that oneself or one's friends show to better advantage in certain questionable situations, or that certain people's capacity for beer is judiciously glossed over and that the juiciest bits of dialogue go to people who deserve them.

	Not that I would tamper with reality in such a fashion—anyone who knows me would tell you different with no hesitation at all. The foregoing philosophical jazz about Time is merely leading up to an apology and an excuse. Any inaccuracies in this short report on the Harrogate Convention are not due to me wilfully altering the facts so as to save, or at least salvage, someone's good name, they are due to my usually eidetic memory going on the blink. The apology is called for because of my jumping seven years in my memoirs after reaching the early evening of the first day of our honeymoon, and I don't like leaving people with their tongues hanging out.

	We got to Harrogate on two planes and a train. The first plane was crewed by three men and a girl, all of whom we had seen with our own eyes eating fish sandwiches, and to anyone who has read or seen "Flight Into Danger" I need say no more. The second aircraft had nothing wrong with it per se, or with its personnel, but it left without Walter and Ian's luggage. Nobly and with great personal bravery, Walt offered to stay behind in rain-swept Manchester for several hours until the missing luggage arrived—Manchester, several hours rain ...so that us young ones could get to the con without delay. We noticed that the train kept going slower the nearer we approached Harrogate, although this might have been a psychological thing.

	When Ian and I arrived eager and soaking wet at the West Park, we thought for an awful moment that we were witnessing the final scene of a fannish "On the Beach." All the usual appurtenances of a con were present—the advertising posters, the "Ethel for TAFF" notices, the fan and pro artwork and Ken Slater's bookstall—but no people. It was like the beginning of a Don A. Stuart story before he became John W. Campbell; some brooding menace had obviously taken them all away. The first brooding menace we thought of was Burgess, and we were examining this hypothesis in hushed tones when a voice, a human voice speaking English with a slight California accent, from behind us said, "Everyone is in the other hotel. You haven't been reading your programmes (pardon me, programs), gentlemen ..."

	It turned out that the voice belonged to Ron Ellik, who went on to display his high intelligence and literary perception by saying that he liked the "Sector General" series. Later we were to discover that a fine brain beat behind that high, bespectacled forehead, although this was to be the first and only time he referred to Ian and myself as gentlemen.

	By hearsay we learned that we had just missed the address by E.R. James. Previously I had heard of people doing everything but stand on their head to hold the attention of an audience, but it seemed that E.R. James had started by standing on his head and going on from there. Was his face red, we wondered.

	At the Clarendon, the Guest of Honour, Tom Boardman, was addressing a hot, airless, crowded room-full of con members, and as we were far too hot already we stayed outside, chatting with Ron, E.R. James and a German fan called Thomas Schluck, and some other German fans whose faces I can remember but whose names I am afraid to spell. Why is it, I wonder, that foreigners can't have nice, simple easy-to-pronounce names like Aloysious Xavier O'Herlihy instead of Tom Schluck? From what we could see, Tom Boardman's speech must have been very good, because everybody was looking at him and not at Brian Aldiss kneeling in the upper half of one of the windows with his face and hands pressed against the glass. It was said that he was trying to get the window open so as to let some air in, but my feeling was—judging by the odd, intent curvature of the spine and the juxtaposition of his various limbs—that he had been successful in gnawing away some putty and was breathing through the crack between glass and sash.

	Brian Aldiss is very resourceful and has ways of dealing with things like Ian MacAulay, Spanish restaurants, and criticism regarding cobwebs to the Moon which are peculiarly his own. Later, when Tom Boardman had finished, I was privileged to witness him in action against Ian. It went something like this ...

Ian:  "Aldiss, what d'you mean having men with diode valves in their heads?" 

Brian: "I know, I know. Totally implausible. Terrible story."

Ian:  "Absolutely no technical verisimilitude! How could the vacuum be maintained ...?" 

Brian: "Worst story I ever wrote. Got sent out by mistake. Thought I'd burned it." 

Ian:  "Full of scientific boners ...!" 

Brian: "I agree entirely. A horrible story. Lousy, should never have seen print. I feel terrible about it, Ian." 

Ian:  "It wasn't a bad story. As a matter of fact, it was pretty good idea-wise. Bur for the one small scientific inaccuracy ..." 

Brian: "Can I get you another beer, Ian?"

	I can't remember exactly what Ian's reply was and, not wishing to give a false impression regarding his drinking, I have chosen to omit it.

	As the first day of the con happened a longer time ago than the second, I seem to have forgotten most of the details. During the part of the programme when everyone was supposed to be out seeing Harrogate, everyone wisely stayed inside—it was raining buckets, and buckets are even more painful than cats and dogs when they fall from a great height. I met Ethel Lindsay again, one of the nicest people I know even when she isn't heaping me with egoboo. And Ella Parker, who is something with which my four-letter alien classification system is not equipped to deal.

	When Ethel introduced us I was particularly impressed by the way she said "I've heard about you ...!"and while still holding my hand twisted part-way up my back went to greet Ian with "You————stinking stinker!"—to which Ian replied "Aaargh!"

	There have been times in the past when I have thought that there might be something between Ian and Ella. I've seen him get suddenly flustered when her name came up in conversation, see his face redden and him generally act as if he was in the grip of some strong emotion. He had spoken of her in somewhat derogatory terms, of course, but we all know how love is akin to hate. Bearing in mind the fact of his approaching nuptials in July, I had come to Harrogate expecting to see Ian take a tender, noble farewell of Ella—like the lovers' parting in Prisoner of Zenda only more sloppy—but I must say that nothing like this happened at all.

	All during the afternoon the rain beat at the hotel windows, but inside, to me at any rate, the script was straight out of Kubla Khan— sweet words and soft music all the way. The music, dealing as it did with my many fine qualities as a writer and my extreme modesty as a person, was repetitious but never boring, and the libretto contained such thoughtful, perceptive passages as "The Sector General series is the greatest, man" and "You must continue the series, please, Mr. White" and "Are you a medical man yourself, Mr. White, the technical details ..." When I'd read the blurb on the advance copy of Ballantine's Hospital Station, where they had said that I could only be compared to Hal Clement, I'd thought that my cup had run over until it filled the saucer, but the way this egoboo was pouring in it looked like flooding the whole tea-tray. I was getting so much egoboo even I began to feel that it verged on the vulgarly ostentatious, and after one particularly pleasant chat with one of my public—a girl who just adored my stories, and her husband, who didn't read s-f at all but promised to try some now that he had met an author—Ian asked me in somewhat withering tones if I was enjoying the Con so far?

	I ignored the sarcasm, because I was feeling very good just then, and instead offered to buy him a drink.

	He refused it.

	There are many people, particularly those who may have been at or been influenced by reports from last year's Con, who will doubt the veracity of that statement. They will say that it is not only impossible for such an event to occur, it is completely ridiculous. But Ian Ross MacAulay did on the afternoon of Saturday 21st April, at approximately 1715 hours, refuse a drink. I can even recall the actual words in his refusal, which were, "I've only got two hands, mate!"

	Shortly after this Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison, Margaret Man-son, Walt, Ian and myself suddenly found ourselves in the same corner of the room thinking the same hungry thoughts. As it was still raining, Margaret offered to drive some of us to a restaurant for dinner in her two-seater car. The car is fairly roomy for a two-seater, and Brian insisted that everyone would fit in it. Everybody nearly did, too. Then Walter elected to walk to the restaurant so that the rest of us could ride. To me this proved the inherent nobility of the man, and also, I think, his instinct for survival. In his younger days Walt was once run over by a bus, and at one stage there had been some talk about breaking his and Harrison's legs to make them—Walt and Harry, that is, not their legs—fit into the boot.

	I was sitting in front beside Margaret Manson, who was driving, and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The only odd thing I noticed about it was the way our headlights seemed always to illuminate the base of the rain clouds rather than the street ahead. Brian, Ian and Harry, however, kept grumbling all the time about not having room to breathe and then proving that they could by going into long, grisly descriptions of their internal injuries.

	The moment we walked into that Spanish restaurant I had the feeling that we were not wanted. It was something about the way the patrons looked at us, I think—we were so obviously full of life and witty conversation, happy, well-adjusted, while they ... Well, they reminded me of a tin of biscuits I'd once seen after it had been dropped from a third-floor window—outwardly polished and shining but all twisted and broken up inside. They also ran heavily to green suits with red beards or dinner jackets with the obsolete DB lapels and lines of asceticism or maybe ulcers around their mouths. Our own party was dressed with casual elegance—Brian in a dark bronze shadow check number which made me feel envious, Ian in sober charcoal grey with a yellow sweater, which denotes that lie is ,i Physicist and not an advertising executive, Harry Harrison in a hand-woven Harris tweed jacket of excellent cut and possessing extremely long-wearing properties—I recognised it from the Worldcon in '57—and Walter and I (who patronise the same tailor, me) elegant in casual but well-cut tweeds. Margaret looked terrific, but as I don't touch Ladies I am unfamiliar with the terminology to describe her outfit. The patrons had, therefore, no right to raise eyebrows at our dress, nor could they object to our conversation, which was quite clean, and moreover scintillated as only can Con conversations between people who have been saving up their best and worst puns for years and don't want to waste a second of talking time. On reflection I think maybe it was the puns which made them not like us.

	The waiter who came forward also showed that we weren't wanted, although in a more polite way, by refusing to speak anything but Spanish at us. But by some strange coincidence we happened to have two Spanish speakers with us, Margaret and Harry, and he retreated towards the kitchen to further register his disapproval by making us wait a long time for our huevos revueltos. Considering the fact that I hadn't had anything except three potato crisps, given me by an admirer at three o'clock, to eat since leaving Manchester seven hours earlier, I thought my eating with just one knife and fork showed commendable restraint.

	Meanwhile back at the West Park a Fancy Dress party had been going on, and after severing diplomatic relations with the Spanish restaurant we joined it. Ethel Lindsay, bless her long white cotton socks, bestowed upon me the ultimate in egoboo by winning the Fancy Dress contest as one of my characters. I decided there and then that this was the best con I had ever been at. Nothing, even the smell of Harrogate water which John Roles, Horst Margeit and Brian Jordan were quaffing in an attempt to win death and/or glory in the spa-water drinking contest, made me change my mind.

	About the same time someone came up and started developing the argument that aliens in s-f weren't truly alien, that authors cheated by making them so very human when they should have been making them unhuman with completely alien motivations and thought processes. He said that Hal Clement and I were serious offenders in this respect. I thought that this was the second time I had been compared with Hal Clement, and what a really good Con this was. At the moment I can't remember this critic's name, only that he was an Oxford man, sensitive, intelligent and mean climber of drain-pipes.

	There was a certain amount of alcoholic think at Ethel's and Ella's party that evening. They had stocked up more than adequately and I had helped Ian bring in some beer each of us taking an end while bringing the crates from the van downstairs to the room. On entering the party Ian displayed no signs of inebriation, although I had seen him holding a glass in his hand for hours, or sometimes two glasses. However, as all glasses look similar—sort of shiny and transparent and with brown stuff slopping about inside—I would not like to say that he drank continuously all day. However, to scotch once and for all the rumour that Ian is a compulsive alcoholic, I decided to count the beer he took.

	Approximately three point two five seconds after entering the room he had his first beer, to be sociable, he said. This was at ten-thirty. At ten fifty-three I made it six beers. At eleven-five it was nine beers, and counting. Eleven-twenty came and it was thirteen, and holding ...

	Apparently somebody had pinched his glass when he had been in the process of re-distributing his mass on the bed to let Walter take his elbow out of Ella Parker's ear. A substitute receptacle had been discovered nearby, but Ian refused to use it on aesthetic grounds. Finally Ethel saved him by producing a plastic tooth-glass.

	The count resumed.

	At seventeen and counting, I made a pun, and Ella threw a whiskey bottle at me. It was an empty bottle—she knows I don't drink—and it missed. Then she kicked me out of bed, her reason being that I was giving her a cramp in the leg as well as a pain in the neck. So I moved to Ethel's bed, which just had Ethel, Ron Ellik, George Locke, Archie Mercer, and part of Brian Aldiss on it. Here Ethel gave me three whole, full bottles of tomato juice. All this caused me to lose count.

	I am very sorry about this, as I was and still am anxious that no exaggerated rumours should be noised abroad concerning Ian's drinking, but I must admit there is a fairly high probability that between the hours of twelve midnight and four o'clock when the party broke up he had another beer, maybe even two. However the facts as we know them, verified by a sober, unbiased observer name of myself, are that between ten-thirty and twelve he had a very moderate seventeen beers. Any count made after this time is sheerest conjecture and should be discounted as such.

	I can also state that, although the clarity of his speech left some-thing to be desired at times—this was due to southern Irish environmental influences rather than beer—the incisive clarity of his intellect remained at all times unimpaired.

	Ethel, Ian, Walt, Ron Ellik, George Locke and myself were on Ethel's bed—the party had begun to thin out by that time-—discussing the existence or non-existence of the square root of minus one, and Ian was with it. For all of three minutes he had me seeing the square root of minus one as a living, breathing thing instead of a piece of mathematical sleight-of-hand. (Other people in the room were no doubt seeing things, too, but the square root of minus one isn't pink.) From there I steered the conversation into less esoteric channels by asking a question which had been bothering me for some time, namely how, if Space is curved, even negatively, in the fourth dimension, is it not possible for a person travelling far enough to return to his starting point?

	There was silence in our bed for a few minutes after this. Ron, who is very clean-cut and intelligent, looked slightly fuzzy—nine cans of root beer by two-thirty—and pensive. Then suddenly his eyes lit up. Obviously he had the answer, or at least an out. With throbbing voice and flashing spectacles he demanded, "What is Space, what is curvature, what is a person? Define your terms!"

	Next morning we attended the BSFA AGM. Ian said that he wouldn't drink that day but save his small capacity for the party that night. He looked like Death warmed up, and from my First Aid and Nursing lectures I decided that his symptoms could be ascribed to one or all of a number of conditions which included malaria, morning sickness, jaundice, alcohol poisoning or rigor mortis. In the interests of fairness and because he is a friend of mine, I would not wish to state the one I thought most likely.

	After the serious constructive business was out of the way—Peterborough having won the 1963 Con to the surprise of everyone including the people who had voted for it—came the Professionals Panel. This was something which I had been dreading because I don't speak well and prefer to write my spontaneous witticisms using approximately twenty minutes polishing on each one. Somehow I don't think the panel could wait that long for a lousy White-type pun. I prepared to take my place feeling scared and not a little envious of people like Brian and Harry and Tom Boardman who could talk off the tops of their heads as if they had never used the tops of their heads for doing anything else. But the Professionals Panel wasn't too bad after all, I didn't have to say very much, and what I did say I said too softly for anyone to hear or object to it; and there were certain undercurrents of intrigue which very few people suspected which kept my mind off my tied tongue.

	Sometimes I wish I lived in the probability world where that Professionals Panel went exactly the way we professionals had planned it ...

	Harry Harrison possesses, among his many other fine characteristics, a diabolical brain. Brian Aldiss's brain is such that it can contemplate mile-long spiders wirhout qualms—spiders have six feet but no qualms anyway—and they both remembered that my brain, together with its necessary locomotive appendages, had taken part in an unscheduled gun-battle during the '57 con. Tom Boardman joined in the plot immediately it was mentioned, being a person with boundless enthusiasm for practically everything. I don't know if Steve Hall was in on it or not—it was a last-minute thing and there might not have been time to tell him. E.R. James certainly wasn't in on it, he being the person indirectly responsible for the whole thing.

	E.R. James, a quiet-spoken, likeable and shy individual, had, despite these characteristics, aroused feelings of envy within the breasts of certain pro authors by lecturing the convention membership on Yogi while standing on his head. In an effort to reassert themselves in the public eye, the diabolical, peculiar, enthusiastic, and big brains of Harrison, Aldiss, Boardman and White respectively devised a little treat for the convention, which, they hoped, would be rather more spectacular.

	The way it was supposed to go was forlorn Boardman to keep filling the water carafe with water from a large gin bottle. He was to do this surreptitiously, but in such a manner that the audience would see him. It was a very warm afternoon, and the other members of the panel had courageously agreed to drink water for the hour given over to the panel. As an added touch I, who everyone knew was a confirmed water and tomato juice thinker, was to grimace slightly every time I knocked back a glass. The idea being that I thought the water tasted peculiar, but not knowing what gin tasted like was drinking it anyway. Then gradually the polite answers to questions from the Chair and audience were to take on a more caustic edge. We would become less than polite about each other's stones and graduate to criticisms of personal habits. Not knowing much about each other's personal habits, we planned to invent some as we went along. Some of these were to be a trifle on the bizarre side, but as vile pros used to engendering the suspension of disbelief we thought we could make them sound plausible.

	At this stage we expected E.R. James to step in to try to calm us down, or at least aid Ron Bennett in the chair in doing so. This would be the signal for us to start coaxing E.R. James to show us how to stand on our heads, and the Chairman would be politely but firmly restrained if he tried to stop us. We did not foresee any trouble in this, as Ron Bennett without his elephant is at a disadvantage. We would start to stand on our heads ourselves, singly and in unison. Naturally we would topple and fall against one another, and say "Sorry" to each other in loud drunken voices, or phrases like "Who d'ye think you're shovin', mate?" And Harry Harrison would start using horrible language on all and sundry—actually it would be quite clean language, out of deference to the ladies present, but he would speak loudly and with feeling in Danish. Various refinements were expected to suggest themselves as we went along, such as asking the people who asked questions from the audience to come out and fight, but the main idea was for it to end with a grand old drunken brawl all over and around Ron Bennett ...

	What actually happened was that, just as Harry Harrison was becoming impassioned in his replies to questions, and Brian Aldiss was waving his arms more than usual and I was breaking in on him—and the audience had gone quiet, possibly because they suspected something but more likely because they were beginning to hear us properly for the first time—Ron Bennett wound us up. Looking at his watch he said it was time for the auction and thank you gentlemen for a most interesting discussion.

	All I can say is he should have waited a bit. It would have been much more interesting.

	Up in Brian's room later, we sympathised with each other and wondered how we had all had the idea that the panel was to last a full hour. When the half hour had finished we had just been warming up. It was during this meeting that Tom Boardman launched his idea for an s-f authors' choice anthology which would not pay the authors anything but would finance a British and/or International Hugo, the rest of the proceeds going to the BSFA. When I think now of how we all promised to donate stories to this anthology for free, hardened pro that I am I get a certain sense of unreality. And it was also during this meeting that I saw Ian drinking whiskey out of a cut-glass vase. In all fairness, however, I must add that the vase was eighteen inches high, and there wasn't very much whiskey in it.

	Because we had been talking about something or other during the time everyone else had been out to lunch, we missed the auction and TAFF address by Ron Ellik through having been overtaken with a strange alien craving for food. But everywhere in Harrogate seemed to be closed, it being Sunday, except a dank, noisome, first-floor cellar whose air was solid with the smell of very old fried fish. We wasted nearly an hour before we finally discovered a Chinese restaurant which was open. I think it is a very odd thing that people who we once considered dirty foreigners are the only people capable of serving clean food.

	It was late afternoon when we returned to the hotel. The rain had stopped and the street and park outside were drenched with warm sunshine instead of cold water. It really was a fine afternoon, and we went into the hotel feeling happy and eager to meet anybody we hadn't met yet and talk until it was time for the film, which was one I had wanted to see for about ten years and still want to see again.

	There were other film shows not mentioned in the programme. Ron Ellik displayed some stills of a warm-blooded oxygen-breather called Joni Cornell, and after "A Matter of Life & Death" the Cheltenham Group showed old con movies and Tarzans. The only other things I can remember about this party are that everyone seemed to be enjoying himself, that at one point there was a loud splintering crash from somewhere, and that everyone watching the movies had either to sit or lie on the floor because the screen rested on a chair little more than a foot above floor level. This horizontal rather than vertical distribution of bodies made walking and talking remarkably difficult.

	Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison were in the lounge feeding meat pies to a crowd of emaciated fans. Brian had been charged 2/6 the previous night for one sandwich, so tonight he had imported his own food. I heard later that he had grilled them in a metal wastepaper basket, but when they arrived they were going like—dare I say it—like hot cakes. I managed to get one just before Brian Burgess took off with the last dozen with some idea of auctioning them at the other parry. Hearing that there was another party, in Ethel and Ella's room, I went looking for it and met Walt and Ian doing the same.

	This was a very quiet party at first. Until people began breaking away from the other one, there was only a handful there. We talked seriously about a great number of things fannish, and listened with awe to the sound of a typer coming from the next room, where some fan was already bashing out a con report. Then gradually more people came in and it became impossible to sit less than eight to a bed. About five o'clock people had begun to drift away again until just Walt, Ian, and myself were there and Ethel stated her intention of going to bed. Ella also said she needed her sleep, otherwise she'd be a sight in the morning. I had a choice of replies to this, but refrained from making them and merely said that in my opinion anyone who went to bed at all on the second night of a convention was sissy and effeminate. Oddly enough, neither of the girls objected to being called effeminate.

	We were all hungry again and went down to the kitchen on the off-chance that the staff had forgotten to throw out some crusts. I don't know how the others felt, but I was hungry in italics. In the kitchen we found the walls, ceiling, floor and fittings streaming with water, and clouds of steam hanging in the air. Obviously there had been a recent catastrophe with the hot water boiler. We waded out carefully and went to the small lounge, where a group containing Ron Ellik and Ron Bennett were playing cards. Ron Bennett stopped long enough to reassure us that the slight dampness in the kitchen was nothing to worry about, and that the boiler had been uncooperative the first few times he had handled it, but now it knew who was boss. He also said he knew where there was some instant coffee, and offered us boiling water prepared personally by the hands of the Convention Chairman.

	While we were drinking this glorious warm stuff, Ron Ellik gave us the details of how the other Ron had tamed the boiler. Not wanting to steal his thunder—boilers make an explosive hissing noise when they blow up in any case—and in an effort to avoid puns with "highest steam" in them, I will not repeat them.

	Ron went back to his brag, and we began debating whether or not we should go to bed, deciding finally that we were all too hungry to sleep. Walt, Ian, the fan who climbs drain-pipes and compares me with Hal Clement, and myself were beginning to brood about the injustices of the world and society in general, our thoughts being strictly from hunger. Then Ian, Walt, and the drain-pipe climber from Oxford left me in a last desperate attempt to find food ...and stumbled on an unlocked refrigerator.

	After we had made a large dent in the contents of the refrigerator and left some conscience money behind to cover the cost, we all felt more like ourselves. But still we were not completely happy. Possibly it was a sense of loneliness ailed us, because we had been used to large crowds of people and now we were only four. The fans playing brag at the table a few yards away were in another world, and didn't count. It didn't feel right being able to talk without raising one's voice, or walk from one end of a room to the other without saying "Excuse me" six times. In any case someone, possibly me, suggested that we wake up Harry Harrison or Brian Aldiss, and somebody, me again, thought it was a good idea. We batted it about for a while, discovering that we weren't sure of Harry's room number, and that there would be an element of risk attached to waking the Harrison up, and that we had a rough idea of where Brian's room was and that he was the type that was invariably polite. It was 6.45 when we left for the other hotel to wake up Brian.

	His hotel was locked, but there was a drainpipe which led past a half-open window which, according to our calculations, opened into Brian's room. The fan who compared me with Hal Clement said that he climbed drainpipes all the time at Oxford, and started to scale this one. But drainpipes in Harrogate are made of softer stuff than in Oxford, and it began to wobble alarmingly, so he came down without accomplishing his mission. Which was perhaps as well, since we were told later that it had been Margaret Manson's room.

	Gradually we became resigned to the fact that we would be unable to wake anyone up to join our party, and we headed back to our own hotel to freshen up before breakfast. The sun was still shining down warmly, and the sky, trees, and grass had a newly-minted look. I think we were all feeling a little poetic and philosophical about things, because it was suddenly borne upon us that when we had gone into the West Park to see "A Matter of Life & Death" the local meteorological phenomena had been identical with the conditions around us now. It made us wonder where Sunday night had gone, even if there had been such a thing as Sunday night. We had all been so busy enjoying ourselves, and the time had passed so quickly, that we began seriously to doubt Sunday night's existence.

	After breakfast we returned to the two Con hotels and spent the morning waking people up and saying goodbye. Our rrain did not leave until mid-afternoon, and so I was able to watch the convention dissolving around me—the Gerfans piling into their station wagon and driving off; Ken Slater, his wife, portable book shop and lovely little daughter pulling away in their van; and the others who staggered away with suitcases so loaded with auction material that toothbrushes were carried in the breast pocket. There seemed to be a lot left unsaid to an awful lot of people, and I expected to feel sad at coming to the end of such a wonderful convention, but somehow I didn't.

	Then we all lunched with Ethel and Ella, who also left with us to the train, where we were joined by the Bentcliffes, and sat talking in the sunshine outside the station for a long time. Ethel said, "See you in Peterborough, James," and Ella was rude to us all again, but even I could see that her heart wasn't in it. All this time I was still half convinced that it was yesterday afternoon and wholly convinced that it had been the nicest afternoon I had ever known. And so it was, when the train entered one of the long tunnels on the other side of Leeds with a roar that woke me suddenly to pitch blackness, that I reached across to touch Ian and Walt and yell that Sunday night had caught up with us.

	Symbolically, and rather dramatically, the Long Afternoon of Harrogate had come to an end.

THE HISTORY OF IRISH FANDOM
Chapter 3

INTRODUCTION:
	Walter Himself has expressed a wish that the ensuing chapters of "The History" be given a different treatment to that of Chapters 1 and 2. Himself states that in the sections contributed by Madeleine and George the frame of reference of the work has been exceeded in that the few events mentioned have been completely swamped in a mass of extraneous autobiographical detail (I'll tell you what it means later, John). In the Charters contribution, for instance, we learn in the space of three thousand words or so the fact that GATWC did not as a youth suffer from any fatal diseases and lived to a ripe old age without suffering even from Old Age, a malady from which he still does not suffer. After this long and— clinically—interesting introduction comes the meat of the article, the statement that he met the members of Irish Fandom and that the next chapter would be written by Madeleine. Madeleine also spent some time swinging from her family tree before suddenly coming down to earth. After a five-year whirlwind romance she was married to Walter Alexander Himself, otherwise known as Willis, and this ends her introduction to Chapter 2. The chapter itself is such a model of brief succinct reporting that I will repeat it here in toto:—

	"Chapter 2. IT WAS ON THE 25TH AUGUST 1947, that the first meeting took place between the Willises and another science fiction fan. The stranger's name was James White."

	This is where I came in ...

	CHAPTER III

	When I first met, and immediately began regularly visiting, the Willises in late 1947, I felt sure that they must have thought about me with somewhat mixed emotions. On the credit side was my extreme height and interest in s-f, the fact that our political views were more or less in accord, and that religion-wise we couldn't be farther apart. However, there was a peculiar twist in my personality which tended to outweigh all these good points. At a time when it was not yet fashionable to be a little crazy mixed-up, I was just a wee bit queer.

	Consider, please, the sort of person I was at that time.

	At the age of nineteen, and having contracted an incurable but quite harmless disease some months previously, I was inclined to view the world with a somewhat jaundiced eye. (The disease was diabetes, not jaundice.) I was inclined to scream shrilly and froth at the mouth if anyone came within a yard of my teacup with a sugar-bowl. With easy tolerance the Willises smiled at this little idiosyncrasy of mine, but they could not, however hard they tried, conceal their shock and horror at my continued and slighting reference to food as being merely Fuel—being on a strict sugar-free diet had soured me, you understand. As a result of this they tended to regard me as something .of a pervert. There would be awkward silences when the tea-tray arrived, and frantic talking about Courtney and his boat or rain on Venus, or some such. Finally, Madeleine could stand it no longer; she initiated curative therapy.

	You will know of Madeleine's cooking even if you haven't experienced it first-hand. It is pernicious, indescribable and intensely habit-forming. People who have been exposed to it for any length of time, such as Harris and the Bulmers, are forced to return for more again and again. There's a gingerbread monkey riding their backs, with Coffee Kisses for eyes and a brain made of a steaming colcannon. They're addicts, all of them, you can tell by the way they slurp and dribble at the chin, and the way they make it so difficult to tell the clean from the dirty dishes after they finish eating. But I'm digressing.

	Understated simply, Madeleine began experimenting with sugarless pastry. Shortly afterwards I found that I was smiling when I referred to food being just fuel—both with my mouth and mypurty brown eyes. A little later I was calling food food outright and the cure was complete. My wife Peggy, who is famed throughout Irish Fandom for her way with sausage rolls among other things, is in daily attendance nowadays to see that the patient does not suffer a relapse.

	But it was not only as a psychologist-cook that Madeleine proved invaluable in the early days. Many a time and oft, as Walter and I set type for Slant—a job which required deep concentration and no chit-chat between us for hours at a time—Madeleine would be downstairs nursing the then baby Carol with one hand and acting as an unpaid but proficient disc-jockey with the other. The music was relayed to us in the fan room, and no matter what records she chose to play, they were always frequently interspersed with Doris Day numbers. I was very fond of Doris Day at the time—extremely fond, even to the extent of buying seven of her records without having a gramophone to play them on—despite having discovered that her real name was Kappelehoff. I'm pretty cosmopolitan, I guess. Later, when she married her agent without telling me, I was terribly, terribly hurt and my composing speed suffered for several weeks.

	It's hard to remember for certain just when George Charters arrived among us; he was the original Quiet Man. He would come up from Bangor on Sunday afternoons and say "Hello" and "Goodbye." In between he would spend three or four hours browsing among Walter's magazines or silently watching us set type. He never helped us, nor did he speak much in those early days, but later, when he came up three times instead of once a week, he began doing odd stencilling jobs and became more loquacious. We were exposed to the first Charters-type pun. We wished for the silent, unhelpful days again.

	Ten years is a long time, and it is hard to recall incidents in their chronological order. Walter hopes to do a definitive history which will treat the trends and influences over the years as well as our own peculiar reactions to them—if enough people twist his arm, that is. But the things that come to my mind seem relatively unimportant: like the Willises' Bern, for instance.

	Bern was a big, lazy and very friendly cat which haunted the Oblique House fan-room, and we were childishly pleased at being able to tell visitors that we had a copy-cat instead of a copy-boy. When he was run over we all felt very bad about it, and it wasn't until some years later that Walter took to himself another. This one was, and is, called Lucifer. He is a mean, black, quarrelsome creature with permanently shredded ears who treats us all like dirt. Lucifer won't even slip-sheet.

	Then there was the time Lyell Crane visited us and found Walter and I designing a bridge with Carol's plastic building blocks. Lyell Crane was a real, honest-to-goodness engineer but, we suspected, not a true fan. Instead of joining in and contributing a little valuable know-how, he insisted on talking about politics, dianetics and Lyell Crane.

	And then there was the incident of the Douglas Woman, a nice but rather gushing widow who wrote "whimsical tales about leprechauns and the Wee Folk, most of them too good to be published." One night, in a twitting mood, Mrs. Douglas mentioned matrimony to George. George's face still shows blench marks around the edges. Nobody mentions matrimony to George any more.

	There were not many visitors to Oblique House in the early days. Forry Ackerman was perhaps the most important, but there was Evelyn Smith—a contributor to Slant and later an editor of Galaxy—remembered chiefly for being accused of being a Russian spy in the London Underground, and Clive Jackson, our first columnist, who should have been a really good professional photographer, but isn't. Later, of course, there was Bea Mahaffey, whose visit has been treated at length in HYPHEN No. 4, and Chuch Harris, and the Bulmers. Then there was Chuch Harris and the Bulmers. And the Bulmers and Harris ...well, as I said earlier, they're addicts.

	The arrival of Bob Shaw marked the beginning of the True-fannish period that has stayed until the present day. A relatively small man—5' 11 1/2—Bob possessed a dehydrated but very pure and exacting sense of humour and an intense appreciation of food in all its forms. Bob's mind fitted the fan-room like his stomach fitted Madeleine's cooking, and all of a sudden we found that we were not doing so much work on Slant but were enjoying ourselves just talking. The talking moved out onto the lawn in the summer and was interspersed with pitched water pistol battles or sharp-shooting against butterflies and bees.

	Gradually Slant went from irregular to sporadic, and Hyphen replaced it in order that we could spend more time on these fannish pursuits. We were so busy enjoying ourselves that Hyphen began to go sporadic too.

	Events culminated in Walter being big-ponded. On his return, after having written and travelled himself to a frazzle, Walter took a ten week rest using pneumonia as his excuse. George, Bob and myself continued to talk, throw paper aeroplanes and enjoy ourselves around Walter's Sick Bed—it had caught pneumonia too—while Himself lay propped up on pillows grinning feebly and groaning. The groans were for George's puns, not Bob's. Eventually he was driven from his sick bed, and a few months later introduced Ghoodminton to get his own back. Hyphen went from sporadic to infrequent.

	Ghoodminton, like the art of the duello, is a game which demands cool, scientific appraisal of chances—the back of your opponent's neck not quite within reach without climbing the table and the referee temporarily unsighted—and complete co-ordination between eye, muscle, shoulder and boots. But with the arrival of the Berry Phenomenon on the scene, the game lost its delicacy. Berry, with his "Everyone on my side is expendable, even me" school of playing, dragged the noble art down to the level of simple, bloody massacre—a level from which it has not risen to the present day.

	I need not mention Berry's effect on Fandom, Irish or otherwise. I can't, on account of I don't use that sort of language.

	At a time when the unspeakable Harris was loudly reviling me as a filthy pro and sex-fiend, and Bob was cartooning me with a halo because I wouldn't, as Art Editor, allow nudes to supplant spaceships in our zine, I met a girl called Peggy Martin. Tired of hearing me talk about her and not believing that she could be that good, Walter ordered me to bring her along to the Oblique House Christmas party. She was nervous, shy, and reluctant to come, because, like a fool, I'd told her something about the people she was going to meet before bringing her. Everybody was there, Madeleine, Walter, George, Bob, and Sadie ...the lot. But things were working out fine, a great time was being had by all, until Walter announced that he had a present for me.

	From Chuch Harris.

	Immediately I screamed "NO!" I knew Harris, I knew that beastly little mind that sloshes about inside that large pointed head like a gob of primeval ooze, and I feared the worst. But Walter reached the present— a large manila envelope—and passed it to Peggy instead of me. She opened it, she cried out, she had hysterics ...

	For some reason she didn't throw me over on the spot, nor did her father horse-whip me, nor did I ignominiously end it all in a Milk Bar by ordering a cup of sweetened tea. Instead, she laughed. She laughed at the four pages of typing couched in pseudo-paternal phraseology to her by a well-meaning, double-meaning, treacherous lecher called Harris which described the things which did not happen to me on my visit to Paris the previous year and which accompanied the present.

	She laughed at the present, too—a large, technicolored pose of one Marilyn Monroe to which was clipped a note apologising for the fact that the picture was retouched, but explaining that they were inclined to be prudish in the Charing Cross Road, not like in Montmartre ...

	All that remains to be said is that for some reason she agreed to marry me and we lived happily ever after, and that Bob Shaw will be doing Chapter 4, though he doesn't know it yet.

THE QUINZE-Y REPORT

	Things have changed since the days Irish fandom wended its way conventionwards by rickety cattleboat, and watched the lights of Donaghadee fade from Assembly Deck B—so called after the Mahaffey of the same name—and punned about the ship's equipment in a manner that became a ritual. Now we look down on cattleboats—way down. In my own case, from a height of some 18000 feet.

	Walter & Madeleine could not aspire to such eminence, however. I was flying direct to London by Viscount; they were merely flying to Liverpool and taking a train the rest of the way—the poor, poverty-stricken non-professionals. Their aircraft, a re-christened war surplus Dakota, could admittedly put-put along at a cool 200 mph, and its operational ceiling was well above most factory chimneys. As we waited at Nutt's Corner airport for the Liverpool plane to be readied, I pointed out that as the flight-path lay chiefly across the Irish Sea the chimney hazard could be discounted unless they passed over one of the larger cattleboats.

	Anxious not to lull them into a false sense of security, however, I also pointed out that the 200 mph airspeed was possible only if the aircraft did not blunder into too many clouds and the engines did not fall off like in Ken Bulmer's van. They were due to leave five minutes before me, and just before they moved out to their aircraft past the gleaming four-engined giant that was mine, I told them of some of the funny things which could happen to Dakotas when they entered the to them alien world of the air: how wheels fell off, and tail-planes ...though not usually both wings. How in times of head winds the pilot only reached home by squeezing out the wadding in his cigarette lighter, not to mention the laughable tendency for the passengers' seats to fall through the floor ...

	As the little plane carrying Madeleine & Walter roared off the runway dead on schedule, the public address system announced that my superior type Viscount would be delayed for 65 minutes because of technical trouble.

	Finally we were allowed on board the aircraft and it took off. I discovered that the technical fault had been a blown valve—tube to the colonials—in the night flying equipment. The time was then 10:30 am; the Viscount would be making two more round trips before dusk, but still they would not let us take off before this piffling valve was replaced. (*Come now, there might have been an eclipse of the sun ...WAW)

	Four hours later I was scanning the biggest lounge of the King's Court Hotel for sensitive fannish and/or voracious pro-type faces.

	I spotted Ackerman at once, talking to a small group in a tight circle of armchairs—the armchairs were tight, not the occupants; it was only 3:30 in the afternoon—so I went over and said, "You probably don't remember me ..."

	But he did; he said, "Why, Bob Shaw ...!" and shook hands warmly. After disillusioning him tactfully, I told him he was looking much better than the last time I had seen him, in 1951, when he had been somewhat under the weather due to a double-barreled ailment comprising travel sickness and non-Asiatic flu. I also noticed there was a considerable speeding-up in the well remembered Ackerman drawl; now he jabbered along almost as fast as Gary Cooper. The musical "Hmmmmmmm-mmm-mm?" was gone too, but it was nice seeing even this streamlined, healthy and vigorous Ackerman again.

	He introduced me to a young German fan called Rainer Elsfeld, who was later to distinguish himself as an after-dinner speaker, and to Bob & Barbara Silverberg. I said excitedly, "Not the Robert Silverberg whose story was printed upside down behind mine in the latest Ace pocketbook?" just before he got in a similar question. Barbara Silverberg I found to be a very nice girl with a lively sense of humour who possessed the good taste to laugh at most of my jokes. She does not look like one of the three specialists in an abstruse section of electronics. Bob Silverberg is young, intelligent, black-haired and good-looking in a vaguely Neanderthal sort of way, and his face seems to fall naturally into a scowl. This, he explained carefully, is because his face muscles are constructed that way, and it is acutely painful for him to lift the corners of his mouth. He was destined to go through the convention in constant agony. When someone—usually me—made a pun, the scowl would become a sneer, and the Silverberg Sneer is a devastating thing. Humbly I asked if he could teach me to sneer like that, and he said he'd try.

	We did not guess then at the awful consequences this simple request was to have, the mind-shattering weapon it was to unloose. We said good-by, having still not decided who was upside down with regard to which, promising to meet about 7:30 in the Globe ...it being Thursday night. I left to search Gamages for accessories for my train set.

	The Globe that night remains for me a noisy, smoky blur. I can remember Ted Carnell and I plying each other with drinks, one each. I met Bobbie Wild, the Convention Secretary, an efficient, overworked, and slightly harassed girl who said she had insured herself so that she could wrap a certain person's blank guitar around his blank-blank neck with impunity. I wished her luck. Then there were Joy Clarke and Ken & Pamela Bulmer, all looking as pretty and vivacious as ever, except Ken. But Vint Clarke was a shock. Gone was the distinguished toffee-apple of yesteryear; in its place was this soft-spoken young patriarch with "sane straight-ened-out kid" written all over him.

	Then there was Mr. Wansborough and Mr. Reaney.

	The place became quickly smoke-filled, and the fans overflowed into side bars, then the billiard room, finally spilling out into the street. There I vaguely remember a gutter brawl between the Silverbergs and Boyd Raeburn on the proper method of making coffee, which Bob left to test his American-English vocabulary on me. We talked about lifts and elevators, then the Underground, the Tube, and the Metro in Paris. When he suggested that the Underground in Ireland was called the Mother Maquis, I used one of his own sneers on him and left for the purer air inside.

	Suddenly it was "Time, Gentlemen, Please" time and we were driven onto the streets again. A party of predominantly London fans formed and began trekking away in a direction opposite to that in which lay the Underground station they were making for. I managed to convince them of their error and eventually we were being borne hotel-wards. An argument developed then as to which station—Lancaster Gate or Queens-way—was nearest to the King's Court. Half the fans got out at Lancaster Gate and booed derisively at those still on the train, who booed back.

	Then the weaker-willed types on the train had second thoughts and got off hurriedly, while those of a similar disposition on the platform made a quick dash back onto the train. An interesting situation developed with the guard yelling "Mind the doors!" repeatedly and the said doors—rubber-covered, luckily—opening and closing with musical thunks on fannish arms, legs and torsos. Finally we all, counting halves and quarters, that is, found ourselves on the Lancaster Gate platform. It turned out that the nearest station to the hotel was Bayswater.

	It was about 2:30 when I went up to my room to find a still, emaciated figure occupying one of the three beds. I went through its luggage quickly; it consisted of four snazzy suits, twenty-three ties, a camera and one hundred and fifty two-coloured printed cards bearing the GDA legend and stating that the holder was one Stephen F. Schultheis. After a few minutes deep cogitation I decided that the figure on the bed was Steve Schultheis. It bothered me somewhat that it did not appear to breathe, but I went to bed reassuring myself with the well-known fact that Arch-Goon John Berry is dead from the neck up, and it was therefore conceivable that the Cleveland Op was extinct from the cervical vertebrae on down.

	Next morning the figure did not move or breathe during the time I dressed, washed, or shaved. It did, however, make a slight snurkling sound when I inadvertently spilled some of my shaving water on its head. Greatly relieved at this sign of life, I went down to breakfast.

	The few occupants of the dining room ran heavily to bloodshot eyes and slow, thick speech, with the exception of Mary Dziechewski ...uh, yes ... who came down looking trim and smart in a ski-suit and cap. I concluded she had a room on the top floor. I left, making a mental note to say "Gesundheit!" the next time I heard her name mentioned.

	After breakfast the Silverbergs and I went to Les Floods shop. He hadn't got a copy of the latest Ace Double, but insisted on taking our pictures in a semi-stiff, back-to-back pose. It took him a long time to get us arranged just right, but finally we got away just before the crowd began throwing pennies. We headed for the British Museum.

	I spent two hours wading through ancient pottery, mummies and postage stamps before discovering the awful fact that this was not the museum which contained a whole floor devoted to Aeronautics. But I concealed my disappointment well, I thought, being content merely to make sneering remarks about completist pebble collectors in the Geology Section and trying to decide, in the Egyptian Room, which of the occupants most resembled George Charters. It was hard to tell with those bandages.

	Bob Silverberg, in an attempt to distill in me the rudiments of archaeology and stuff like that, began giving me the history of a collection of sculpture which he was keen to examine, called the Elgin Marbles. These, it seemed, had been purloined while the Greeks were away fighting some war or other. "Ah," I observed, "so the Greeks are missing some of their marbles." They did not speak to me after that except for suggesting that surely I had presents to buy for my family, and that they could recommend some good shops at the other end of London.

	The hotel was undergoing structural redecoration, and it was not until 5:30 on Friday night, when the painters knocked off for the day and the weekend, that the convention members were able to permeate among each other satisfactorily. Groups formed, broke up, and re-formed all over the place, and there was an atmosphere building up that I had never encountered at any convention before ...exuding, I think, from the fact that there were now no non-fans in the hotel to scoff or raise eyebrows or otherwise apply wet blankets to the proceedings.

	Around six o'clock the law of randomness governing such things selected four people who were hungry and arranged them to occupy the same square yard of space at the same time. Thus I found myself in company with the fabulous Rory Faulkner, a small quiet girl called Ruth O'Rourke, and my other (*Peggy: he means other than Steve Schultheis, honest ...WAW) room-mate Mal Ashworth, in an Italian restaurant for tea. Rory is a charming 69-year-old ex-bulldozer hostess who fairly radiated excitement at being able to attend the convention. Her hair is white, but it is impossible to think of her as being so many years old. Ruth O'Rourke was an unobtrusive person during the convention until on the third day she created a fannish precedent by going on a pilgrimage to the Shrine at Walsingham, causing some anxiety to Rory, Bobbie Wild and others who thought she had been spirited away to Buenos Aires or Rainham, and notified the police. But all these things were still in the future that Friday night, and the only clod on our horizon was Mal, who insisted on punning continuously during the gaps in the conversation when I wasn't punning continuously. Despite this it was a most enjoyable meal, though in my case a little delayed ...

	While the others guzzled and slurped over weird-sounding dishes like ravioli and pistachio, I had been impatiently waiting for a lettuce and tomato sandwich. As time wore on and I began to nibble at the salt cellar, Mal suggested that perhaps the management were hand-picking the ingredients on account of who I was. Rather tartly I replied that they were obviously growing a lettuce and a tomato for me special. Mal considered this for a few minutes and agreed that while the hypothesis was essentially correct, I had neglected to include in my theory the fact that the management came of a warm-blooded and kindhearted Mediterranean race and were obviously waiting until the lettuce and the tomato died of old age before tearing them from their earthy home and parent plant, respectively. I told him I sat corrected.

	When the sandwich did arrive, it was cheese and onion, and I had to rush to get back in time for the press conference.

	The only incidents I can remember were hearing Rory talk fan slang to a bewildered journalist, and John W. Campbell under fire from four reporters at the same time who were trying to get him rattled. The way he had them on the defensive within two minutes was masterly. I was interviewed about this time by a drawling, patronising journalist who irked me somewhat. Using my 14 years experience of dealing with irate customers whose suits don't fit, I deftly switched roles until I was getting such details as the school he attended and his publication's official and unofficial circulation figures, (*Remind me to tell you about the time when James, at home with a cold, sold a suit to the vacuum cleaner salesman. ...WAW) After this I ate pretzels with a nonchalant air and sneered out at Chuck Harris through the glass door of the lounge where the press conference was being held. Harris, as a fake pro who has refused to cash the seven-and-tenpenny cheque he received for his one and only professional sale, was excluded from such august company as me and John W. Campbell.

	The press conference turned out to be wasted effort because no publicity whatever came of it. Probably the reporters had been plied with so many drinks that they could not remember the answers to the questions they had asked—or even the questions.

	Round about nine o'clock—the program already showed signs of running late though we couldn't prove it because it hadn't been issued yet—we were shooed by members of the committee into the hall. Here the ceremonial gavel and clonker thing were handed over by Dave Kyle to Ted Carnell, after which the new Chairman told us there would be no further official sessions until tomorrow and we were free to mix and talk and make friends. Feeling a little guilty because we had jumped the gun and been doing just that for the last day-and-a-half, we slunk out and began permeating again, Mal and I having decided that these extra-legal and unofficial friendships would have to be ratified as quickly as possible. We are essentially ethical types, and, speaking as a man with a married wife and child, I don't hold with that sort of thing.	

	Suddenly it was one o'clock in the morning and people were actually going to bed! I rushed to find Walter to have this terrible thing explained to me. I found Walter & Madeleine thinking about going to bed, and Ken and Pamela, and Chuck and Arthur and practically everybody. Apparently it was customary to go to bed on the first night of a convention to have strength for the succeeding nights. Mal and I hung around to see if anyone else subscribed to this heresy and found that they did. Sorrowfully we retired to our room, where we found Steve Schultheis already asleep ...I use the word loosely. I took Mal on a conducted tour of the sleeping Schultheis, pointing out the cavernous cheeks, the sunken eyes and yellow shrunken skin. Mal was impressed. We discussed the advisability of driving a varnished chair leg through its heart, but decided against it because of the likelihood of our being billed for the chair. We waited until 2:30, watching to see if Steve would breathe—either in or out, we weren't hard to please—then went to bed, breathless.

	The next day, Saturday, there was another fine battery of bloodshot eyes at breakfast. Mal had gone to meet his wife, Sheila, who was to join him that morning, but the Schultheis thing was still making like the undead. I ran down Walter, Madeleine, Chuck & Arthur Thomson in the upstairs lounge, and Arthur introduced me to a foully corrosive drink comprised of tonic water and Disprin, which tasted like a mixture of ammonia and quinine. After a bit I left to nose about the other lounges, figuring that as I was supposed to be doing a report I ought to know what was going on.

	In the lobby I was introduced to Wally Weber again. I had had this particular person introduced to me several times before, but had not yet seen what he looked like—in fact I never expected to see Weber. The first few times we had met I had tried, how I had tried, but the introducer had only got as far as "This is Wally Web—" when the Seattle fan's flash camera would explode in a blaze of searing radiation which immediately bleached the visual purple in the eyeballs of everyone within fifty yards. Everybody had met Weber, but nobody had actually seen him, so this time I automatically closed my eyes when we met and noted with grim amusement the way my eyeballs turned bright pink as his flash tried vainly to blind me again. I had decided that the only defence against Weber was a white stick and black spectacles. I blundered on into the lounge.

	The place was fairly crowded, and I caught sight of the Silverbergs talking to someone whose broad back was towards me. I sneered a greeting and suddenly found myself confronted by the equally broad-shouldered front of no less a personage than John W. Campbell himself. I got the sneer wiped off just in time, shook hands and fought an overwhelming urge ro bump my forehead three times against the floor. But our Guest of Honour turned out to be a pleasant and quite uncondescending type of person, a great amiable bear of a man whose conversation and mind processes were either stimulating or over-stimulating, but never dull. I remember an incident which occurred on the last day of the convention when Mr. Campbell was giving a talk on Psionics. A certain femfan with a camera had been moving up and down the aisle and to and fro along lines of seats, jockeying for position to get a good shot of him up on the stage. He must have been noticing this, although it had no effect on his delivery, for just as the girl demon photographer was about to snap her shutter, he broke off to point out that she would obtain a better picture without that metal cap over her lens. The remark was delivered casually and without sarcasm, and the incident passed almost unnoticed, without embarrassment to the girl.

	Mr. Campbell also remembered and complimented me on the one and only story I sold him, three years ago. This means that he can have three wishes, one eighth of my literary estate, and my daughter's hand when she grows up, and if anyone says an unkind word about him in my presence it will mean plonkers at 6 paces.

	I engaged in desultory shouted conversation with Mr. Campbell and the Silverbergs for a few minutes—the shouting being necessary because of the background jazz music blaring from loudspeakers scattered around the place—then left to rest my ear percussion section. The only people who were chattering comfortably in that lounge were two other loud speakers, Moskowitz and Duncombe.

	At 1:15 the luncheon was supposed to start, but it was considerably later than this before anyone had found his seat—so much so that there was a suggestion going round our table about the advisability of going out for something to eat. I discovered on taking my seat that the empty space next to me was reserved for no less a person (?) than Wally Flash Weber. I shut my eyes out of sheet reflex, then thought that at last I might get to see this Weber because it was fairly likely that he could not use his flash camera while wielding a knife and fork. Then somebody nudged me and said, "Weber's coming!"

	Through the door of the dining hall came Weber's camera, Weber's Adam's apple and Weber himself in that order. In the flesh, what there was of it, he turned out to be a boney, blonde-haired drawling thing with a devastating but economical sense of humour, tall enough to qualify for Irish Fandom. On the other side of Wally were H. Beam Piper and his wife. I asked him if he was H.B. Fyfe ... Or maybe, on second thought, it was H.B. Fyfe and his wife, and I asked him if he were H. Beam Piper. Anyway, he said no.

	According to the menu, the Queen was to be proposed by Mr. Wyndham, and seeing the shocked look beginning to form on Wally Weber's face, I reminded him quickly that the Queen was married to some friend of Chuck Harris's and that it was merely Her Health that was being proposed. Weber nodded slowly, saying, "Yah, I was worried ..." We rose, bellowed "The Queen!" and sat down. From somewhere a slightly awed American voice observed that this was the first time a science fiction convention had opened with a serious honest-to-goodness toast to Her Majesty!	

	I don't remember much about the speeches except that they were good—I was busy most of the time trying to attract waitresses' attention in an effort to get some food for the faint, emaciated and starving Weber Weber's place had been set on the corner of our table, the exact corner. It looked such an improbable position to eat at that the serving staff must have concluded that he was a gatecrasher who had brought along his own cutlery. When he had eventually been served, however, I told him—in strictest confidence—that that place had really been mine, but that I had changed positions before he came in. I le thanked me for telling him and assured me gravely that my confidence would be respected, for he could well understand that if word of this should get to Weber there might be a certain amount of unpleasantness.

	Sometime during the course ...or five courses ...someone pinched the official gavel and cionker.

	All the talking had made us hungry again, so a party comprising the Bulmers, the Kyles, Forry, Bert Campbell, Brian Aldiss, Steve Schultheis, and myself went to the Italian restaurant again. Bert was in rare form, setting himself the task of making the lady members of the party blush and keeping them blushing indefinitely, all without making a single improper suggestion. He did it, too, his dialogue going something like: "...Look, she's blushing! Pam's blushing. Aren't you blushing, Pam? That's right, don't fight this thing, blush!" Then, in a smooth seductive voice,	

	"There's such a lovely blush conies to your damask cheek when you blush. Damn you, woman, blush!" Very soon Pamela Bulmer and Ruth Kyle were both blushing furiously, then Bert astounded ...or authenticated ...even himself by making Dave Kyle blush! I can't remember what I had for tea on that occasion.(*There was a red Miss in front of your eyes? ...WAW)

	When I got back to the hotel Steven Schultheis accosted me on the stairs. His mouth held a lopsided leer, the brim of his hat was yanked down, and over his beautiful grey and silver speckled suit there hung a ghostly image of a Goon-type dirty raincoat. He said, "Lissen, White ..."— the GDA never pronounces the "t"— "...Arthur and me has cooked somethin' up, see. We want ya, up in the room in ten minutes, huh?" I shrugged and said "Oui." He said, "Yeah, just me and Art and you." I said, "O.K." You have to translate everything for some people.(** It was James who, on his return from Paris, uttered the famous baquote: "What's the good of speaking French if everyone knows what you're saying?" ...WAW)

	Ten minutes later I walked into Room 43 to find Steve and Arthur putting the missing gavel and clonker into an empty Kleenex box. I said, "Hah, so it was the GDA who stole the gavel ...!" Arthur Thomson sprang to his feet, denying it hotly. Steve Schultheis poked tissue paper into the box to keep the contents from rattling, and denied it coldly. Hissing in traditional Goon fashion, he began to fill me in on the background.

	The way Schultheis told it, he had seen the gavel and clonker disappear, and seized this opportunity to solve the case by offering Dave Kyle the services of the Goon Defective Agency to retrieve the missing articles. Kyle, in a weak moment, accepted and handed over a cash retainer totaling one halfpenny, in sterling. Steve now wanted to make a production number out of the return of the gavel, and, thinking of Yours Truly and his weakness for guns, knew just how to do it.

	When I heard him out, I stated that I would participate in his plan on two conditions. One was that Antigoon, as the fearless champion of right and the scourge of the GDA, would never stoop to gavel-pinching, so it would have to be a pseudo-Antigoon who was blamed. Secondly, I must get the gun that fired seven shots, not one of the six-shooters. The GDA operatives agreed, and we got down to details.

	Thus it was that at 8:30 I was seated in the main hall with a briefcase containing the missing gavel balanced on my knee. The place was crowded and the crowd restive at the delay in the program. Carnell, who had already been briefed on the operation, mounted the rostrum. He delivered his lines well, announcing that the delay had been caused by the theft of the official gavel. The convention could not proceed without it, he went on in a voice throbbing with suppressed emotion, but the services of a well-known detective agency ... not the FBI but one of similar repute ... had been engaged to recover it. The organisation was the Goon Defective Agency, and a report was expected at any moment.

	At that instant a report rang out from the back of the hall, where Goon Arthur Thomson, dressed in Mal Ashworth's military raincoat, fired a shot from a blank cartridge pistol borrowed from Shel Deretchin. Mal's raincoat was six sizes too big for Arthur, and all I could see of him was his shoes and the tip of his nose, plus a little hair. The first shot was the cue for me to jump to my feet. Immediately Arthur shouted, "Stop, James White, vile pro and agent of Antigoon!" I snarled, pulled out the pistol lent me by Boyd Raeburn, and returned fire, retreating down the centre aisle with the brief-case hugged to my side. In the confined space of the hall the firing was incredibly loud and dramatic. There was an instant's shocked silence, then mingled cheers and boos arose as those present chose sides in the battle.

	I retreated slowly to the foot of the stage, then Steve Schultheis came blasting out from a side door. Caught in the deadly crossfire, I snarled, sneered, and spat (I was out of ammunition by this time), then staggered, reeled, and collapsed dramatically on the floor ...after having dusted a section with my handkerchief ...with my head resting on the brief-case. Arthur Thomson clashed up, made a phoney little speech about the GDA always winning, and plonkered me on the forehead to finish me off. Steve snatched away the brief-case so quickly that my head bounced on the floor, and I heard him handing the gavel to Carnell with a spiel about the glorious GDA. It was at this point that the carefully planned operation began to get all fouled up.

	Ethel Lindsay, a nurse and a very nice person who has unfortunately been led astray by John Berry, was supposed to appear then, take my pulse and temperature, and help me stagger off the stage. Instead Unethical Lindsay was standing on a chair with a GDA badge stating that she was Stephen F. Schultheis pinned to her chest, hooting and screaming "Down with the Antigoon!" And Shel Deretchin, who had no part to play whatever except lending pistols, became overcome with excitement and dashed out and began dragging me off by the feet. At this point Arthur Thomson, out of respect for my suit if not for me, grabbed my other end and lifted me clear of the ground. I didn't think it was possible for the relatively diminutive Arthur Thomson to carry the heavy end of a fourteen stone weakling like myself, but he did it. For half an hour afterwards, however, he looked as if he had been shot 17 times instead of me.

	The GDA-Antigoon gun battle was supposed to be a surprise item and it was.(* Even to the Program Committee, alas. ...WAW) So much so that quite a lot of people in the lounge missed it. These, I found out later, had heard the gunfire reverberating through the hotel and had put it down to Sam Moskowitz having an attack of the hiccups.

	A talk on a new planetarium followed, then an auction. I missed both because Mal and I, commissioned to write conreports, had gone out permeating again in an effort to discover something dramatic or scandalous. Everyone was enjoying himself hugely, but somehow contrived to be well behaved. Out of sheer boredom I plucked a small bloom from one of the many floral decorations and stuck it in my lapel. Carefully then I reminded Mal that I had been shot and that the James White he knew and loved was dead, but this, I ended triumphantly as I pushed the flower in my lapel towards him, was my rein-carnation!

	I left Ashworth suffering from a sudden malaise as I spotted Peter Phillips. I went up to him respectfully, steadied him, and tried the same pun on him. Mr. Phillips staggered back against the wall, then he straightened up, threw back his shoulders, and for the first time in my knowledge of him he went clear around the edges. He said distinctly, "My Ghod, man, you've shocked me sober! I hate you!"Then he grabbed for the shoulder of a passing waitress and began to sob.	

	An hour or so later the BBC TV unit routed a skiffle group from the back lounge as cameras and equipment began moving in. The fancy dress costumes were hurriedly donned, and the BBC began a long series of filmed interviews.(** **With the Kyles, Dietzes, J.W. Campbell, Rory Faulkner, John Brunner, Jean Bogert, and others. I made a sound tape of the broadcast, which Rory Faulkner now has. ... WAW) Meanwhile, a band of surprising brilliance had replaced the auctioneer in the hall, and dancing commenced—or maybe it would be more correct to say mixed wrestling or rhythmic mayhem; that band really dispatched those couples. I can't remember much of what happened after that except that I was enjoying myself. I do remember, however, one point where I tried to talk Bob Silverberg into strapping ourselves back to back and entering the masquerade party as our Ace Double. But Bob said he wanted to think it over, and as I left him I saw him talking earnestly with Barbara and some members of the Committee. Later he told me that it grieved him terribly, but he couldn't do it because his wife had been picked as one of the judges and it would be unethical. I hinted that maybe the real trouble was that he had never been taught at school to walk backwards on his hands, sneered politely, and withdrew.

	The band packed up at 2:30, and Mary Dziechowski, Mal and I, who had been listening to them close up, went back along into the curtained-off section used as a dining room. As we tromped along the carpeted floor, we noticed that already things had been set out for breakfast. Suddenly we were accosted by a night porter who told us politely but firmly not to come through this room again. He gravely gave the reason for this interdict: we were getting dust in the cornflakes.

	We three despoilers of pure and innocent cornflakes slunk away, trying not to raise a cloud that would increase the poisonous fallout.

	The small lounge, where we found ourselves next, was well filled ...most of Irish Fandom, the Bulmers, Boyd Raeburn, and Peter Phillips being some of the people present. Boyd Raeburn was apparently being introduced to the local sport of snogging by Pamela Bulmer, chaperoned by her fond husband, who was supplying the fog. Peter Phillips, once more fuzzy around the edges, was eyeing the process owlishly and pulling, or at least bending, Boyd's leg. There was no harm intended, of course, but Boyd's leg was not built to bend that way. I admired the way Boyd kept control of, and Chuck Harris terminated, what could have been an awkward incident. But immediately after this Phillips started playing a harmonica, quite brilliantly, with his left leg wrapped around his neck. Then he produced a sort of musical banister which he called a recorder, and began to play that as well, and at the same time. At this point he fell off the table. After tottering to his feet he stated gravely that the discord he had just produced had been due to the harmonica and the recorder having been in different keys; then he reeled away, bumping the doorway on both sides as he left.

	It is impossible to describe or to dislike Peter Phillips.

	Some heretics among those present began suggesting that we go to bed. Mal and I left for a patrol of the other lounges in an attempt to find something reportable for our promised conreports. The BBC and the mas-queraders were still occupying one lounge; another skiffle group had started in another, the ensemble including guitarists Dan Morgan and John (Hynan) Kippax. In the lobby John W. Campbell was deep in an apparently philosophical discussion with Rainer Elsfeld and another German fan who seemed to know no English. Rainer was translating both ways, and the result was sheer Marx Brothers. In another lounge a large group contained such people as Forry, the Dietzes, Bert Campbell, Steve Schultheis and Bob Madle. At the moment they seemed to be discussing cars. We left and came back full circle to our small lounge, where Walter was alone in front of a typer doing an airlettered report for Len Moffatt. We discussed the discovery by Chuck Harris and Walter of the fabulous Ray Nelson, who had been at the convention for two days without anyone recognizing him, then Madeleine appeared and lugged Walter off to bed.

	The BBC men had now spent several hours collecting material for what could be no more than a five minute spot on their "Tonight" program, and they were still at it. The skiffle group had exhausted themselves and gone, but there was a huddle of fans around the Ackerman-Dietz-Madle group in the corner of the large lounge, and George ATW Charters was benevolently overseeing a poker game between Ron Bennett, a very nice girl whose name I didn't get who was Ted Carnell's secretary at Nova, Peter Phillips, and some nameless others. Somehow Mal and I found ourselves in a party containing the Silverbergs, Arthur Thomson, Ellis Mills and at some distance Wally Weber. I remember at one point a curious Tower of Babel effect overtaking us. Arthur suddenly began speaking alternate sentences with a Cockney and a broad Scottish accent, Ellis's and Wally's voices were definitely doing peculiar things, I was breaking into Wally's Western drawl, and Bob Silverberg was speaking pure North Irish. I'm sure this was the first time anything like this happened, probably because there has never been a convention like this before. I could see the light of madness beginning to grow in Barbara Silverbergs eyes as she protested wildly, "Bob, stop it! Please stop it! You're putting question marks everywhere, like him! You're beginning to lilt ...!"

	A couple of hours later the Silverbergs, after nearly falling on their faces a couple of times, dragged themselves off to their room. I was beginning to feel tired, so was Mal, but nothing could have got us away from that conversation or those people then. Weber was not technically a member of this group, because he insisted on sitting three yards away from the rest of us so that he could pretend not to be with us when the level of punning got too low. He also kept reminding Mal and me of how nice it would feel to lie down in a lovely soft bed. The fiend. To counteract this, I suggested to Mal that we go up to our room and dunk our heads in the wash-basin. This we did, and as we were leaving we paused at the door and looked back at our beds lying there so seductively and smugly. We snapped our fingers at them, and sneered. They wilted, visibly.

	It was at this moment that we felt that history was being made, that what we had done was no empty gesture but an actual weapon of war. After a sneer like that, going to bed would be tantamount to fraternising with the enemy. It had been at that moment that the art and science of Psneeronics came into being, the foundation of an entire new field of knowledge. But just then we were too tired to foresee this; proudly and kind of humbly we returned to the lounge.

	George Charters, who had booked into a hotel 3 miles away so that he could be sure of getting his sleep, was still perched benignly on a table watching an extremely fuzzy Peter Phillips taking his cautious and sober fellow players to the cleaners. About this time, roughly 6 a.m., the BBC technicians began to evacuate the hotel. Friendly jeers followed them and somebody shouted, "Yah, weaklings!" Someone pulled the curtain aside to see them off, and daylight was revealed outside. A tired, ragged but triumphant cheer went up; we had done it!

	But there were those who had fought the great fight only to fall by the wayside. Not into bed had they gone, but instead had struggled to the last, finally to tumble unconscious across tables, onto chairs and into corners. One such was an indefatigable and somewhat mercenary photographer, a naturalised Czech with the fine old Bohemian name of Peter West. Somebody put forward the idea of taking his picture with his own camera, then waiting to see how much he would charge himself for it when it was developed. But as he was cradling his apparatus like a baby as he slept, we hadn't the heart.

	Near us, Rainer Elsfeld was stretched out on the floor, snoring gently. Arthur rose, took a long lily-like flower from a nearby vase and advanced on the sleeper with the intention of laying it on his chest. But the vase had held water and the stem was wet, with the result that Rainer was abruptly faced with the choice between waking up or drowning in his sleep. He chose the former, and as he spluttered Arthur nipped over to the wall beside him and stood in a tense, dramatic pose, pressed flat against the wall with this flower held aloft like a Roman eagle or something, while Rainer looked around him with a sleepy look and went back to sleep with a puzzled expression on his face. After this Arthur contented himself with putting the lily in Peter West's hair.

	At 6:45 a.m. the card game broke up. Peter Phillips staggered off to bed and George Charters, with gentle olde worlde charm, stated his intention of walking back to his hotel, adding that as he had paid for bread and beckfast he considered it his bounden duty to go back and muss up the bread. George does not usually get his words mixed up, but this was the latest he had been up since the time he gave his mother trouble with his teeth. Somebody found a trumpet and let go a couple of hideous blats on it. The sleepers on chairs, tables and the floor jerked feebly at the call of this pseudo-Gabriel, woke, and went to bed. Then the manager appeared with a polite and reasonable request for the trumpet-player to cease on account of the earliness of the hour, the people sleeping in the next hotel, and the obvious lack of ability of the player. Somebody asked if it would be possible to obtain sandwiches, and the manager said no, but breakfast would be served in an hour. There was an immediate movement towards the dining room, but the door was locked, and through its glass panels we could see the rows of tables laid for breakfast. The cornflakes seemed to mock us. (*A dusty answer, if ever there was one. ...WAW)

	The sun was shining brightly through the big windows on the wan, bristly and red-eyed faces of the dozen or so diehards who had not gone to bed. I saw Arthur and Mal staring at me and I found myself staring back at them, and we came to identical conclusions simultaneously—we must look as horrible and haggard-looking as the others! We decided to have a wash and shave before breakfast, despite it meaning the loss of our places in the queue.

	We went to Arthur and Chuck's room. Arthur, who had a devil in him since about 3 a.m., immediately shook Chuck awake and told him the time. Chuck misunderstood, bounced out of bed and began dressing madly, shouting, "Eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock! I've missed breakfast again ...!" When Arthur explained that it was only seven, we had to rescue him and take him to our room. While Mal and I freshened up, Arthur, who had never seen a Schultheis asleep before, was completely fascinated. He disappeared suddenly into his own room and returned with Chuck and a lemonade bottle full of vodka and lime juice. Apparently he wanted to hold a wake.

	The events of that Sunday morning and afternoon have gone muzzy. Not that I was tired, mind you. Far from it. My mind was clear and alert and I was in fine physical shape but for a tendency for my legs not to do what they were told. People were wont to remark on the number of times I ran into door jambs or went upstairs on my knees. I do remember, however, noting with sorrow the number of fans with whom I had shared the night's vigil who had gone to sleep in easy chairs despite the deafening background music of the taped jazz concert. Ellis Mills was unashamedly snoring with his mouth open, but Wily Weber was pretending to be awake while sneaking a sleep behind a propped-up newspaper. We woke him up, informed him that we were on to his little game, and let him go back to sleep. It seemed that Mal, Arthur and I were the only ones who were holding out. It is a proud and dozy thing ...

	I can remember the Silverbergs coming in, and Bob sneering and waving a copy of The Times, stating that he was Top People and above walking on his hands. He then lifted a Kleenex which had been left lying on the table, folded it carefully and put it in his pocket, remarking casually, "I'm a completist." Then there was the time Arthur Thomson got lost looking for a milk bar and I had to turn Kensington Gardens around the other way before he found himself again. After lunch there was the ceremony of St. Fantony, a truly imposing piece of fannish pageantry, followed by a selection of fan-made films that ranged from 

	very good to brilliant. The Tea Drinking Contest was canceled and a really amazing demonstration of hypnotism followed, all of which deserved description in detail, but Sunday was a rather telescoped day for me. George and I went out for tea and met Mr. and Mrs. Harry Harrison. Harry, who wrote "Rock Diver," looks as if he might have come from a long line of German generals, and his voice is strictly from broken glass, but he is one of the nicest people I've met. His wife is a small, delicately beautiful woman who to my mind fits exactly the expression "A perfect doll." They have a 3-year-old little boy, well-mannered and by American movie standards atypical, who was with them at the convention. We talked mostly about men's fashions and the IRA.

	Arthur had to start work in the morning and was taking leave of us—Mal, Sheila, Steve and I, that was. He had brought the vodka and lemon juice to give to us, stating that he was afraid Chuck might run amok on it. Mal immediately started pouring out farewell drinks into tooth glasses, and had two half-tumblers filled before we could convince him that we weren't drinking that stuff. When even Sheila declined, he knocked back both shots himself, stating that he didn't want to throw it away in case it ate a hole in the sewer pipes. Arthur left, and we went down to see the film "Mr. Wonderbird."

	At one point during the showing Mal remarked that he was feeling woozy. I replied that this was understandable. He was, after all, fighting a bottle: the vodka was winning and he was woozing. Sheila kicked me and asked Mal to take her back to her hostel.

	After the film, events took a hectic turn when Ellis Mills invited practically everybody (*including Mr. & Mrs. John W. Campbell. JWC didn't come, of course, but was I heard delighted to have been asked. In America it seems fans don't invite him to parties. ...WAW) up to Room 64 for a party. When I arrived the place was packed shoulder-to-shoulder and two deep, and intoxicating-type beverages were being passed out, including a ranged and taloned liquid—some of the Polish 140-proof white spirit which had been used in the St. Fantony investiture, I believe—which made all other drinks seem soft. The room was so smoke-filled that Weber was using an infrared flash—or maybe that was his nose.(**Wally did so much walking on beds I suggested next day the Convention Committee were going to dispense with admission tickets and merely examine peoples faces for his footprints. Madeleine pointed out he was wearing shoes. "Yes," said Wally, "I didn't want to get my feet dirty." ...WAW) A skiffle group had got itself organised on a bed, the ensemble comprising three guitars, a hat box, and an enameled thingummy found under a bed.(*Roscoe has given me strength to resist this temptation. ...WAW) The noise, especially after the singing started, was hideous. Shortly after it had driven Mal and myself down to the lounge, along with another few fans interested in retaining their sense of hearing, the noise-makers were evicted. Apparently Ellis had had the bad luck to get a room next to that of the hotel receptionist, who had not had any sleep for nearly as long as Mal and me. There was no unpleasantness over the incident, because the receptionist was a nice girl and nobody wanted to make her miss her sleep.(**Not that way, anyway. ...WAW)

	It had been a very successful party until things had got out of hand, and we all assured Ellis of that. The main thing I remember from it was Mal and I and Silverberg demonstrating the art of the duello using the Psneer weapon: we made the momentous discovery that (a) the only defense against the Psneer was to cross one's eyes, and (b) the only person present who could psneer with his eyes crossed was Silverberg. Also at that party, an intelligent discerning young American called Whyte—with a "y"—asked for my autograph and called me "Sir." I became suddenly aware of my three brownish-grey hairs, but it was nice egoboo even so.(***It doesn't seem to have occurred to James that he might have been getting documentary evidence that he spelled his name differently ...WAW) Later in the lounge we found ourselves in a group composed of Ethel Lindsay, Walter, Madeleine, Ellis Mills and a few hazy other people. We were carrying ourselves with the conscious superiority of persons who have shunned sleep for some 40 hours or more. We psneered a little, practicing our technique. At this point Wally Weber arrived complete with camera and asked what we were doing. We told him it was a new and subtle weapon we were developing for beds and things, and he said he would like to photograph it. We psneered at full strength, in unison, into his flash. Wally collapsed in a heap on the floor. Struggling weakly to his feet, he held his camera to his ear and shook it gently. "Hah," he said sadly, "Subtle? Rattle rattle. Subtle. Hah hah." It was about this time that the others took an interest in the sneer as a weapon and began to suggest developments: the long-range sneer, the shotgun sneer, the delayed-action sneer, the Inter-Continental Ballistic Sneer, the International Standard Sneer, preserved in perspex at the Smithsonian Institute and so on. The lowly sneer became the Psneer, and the science of Psneeronics came into being. We explained it all to Bob Silverberg later and he solemnly avowed his intention of selling it to Campbell.

	Round about 4 a.m. on Monday morning, I began to feel definitely tired. I could tell because of the way I kept missing words—whole sentences sometimes—out of the conversation, by the increasing frequency with which my eyelids thudded shut, and by the greater feats of physical strength necessary to get them open again. Except for Arthur Thomson it was the same group who had talked through the previous night and morning, though I think Mal and I were the only ones who had not been to sleep since Friday night. It was Wally Weber and Ellis Mills who, with 45 minutes and 2 hours sleep under their belts respectively and thus bright-eyed and alert, were making with the sparkling conversation, Mal and I being content merely to nod now and then. Fortunately we managed to stiffen up again before our faces hit the table. I tried everything to stay awake, even going as far as mixing a double Tonic and Disprin. A couple times Mal and I dragged ourselves up to our room to psneer at the beds, but we stopped doing it about 4:30 because the beds were beginning to sneer back. Schultheis was smugly dead in bed again.

	Round about 5 o'clock, so the bleary-eyed witnesses tell us, Messrs. Ashworth and White were really having it tough. Apparently Mal would collapse forward and I would nudge him awake, then I would succumb and he would do the same for me ... rather like those little Swiss figures that bow in and out of fancy barometers. Mal just couldn't go to bed, because he had to catch a bus at 8 a.m. and he knew that if he once went to bed nothing or nobody would shift him out of it. I merely wanted to see another dawn breaking, which proves what a poetic soul I've got.

	At a quarter to six, they say, I was walking up and down the lounge, obviously with the idea that it was easier to pretend to be awake while moving. At ten to six I was observed to pull aside the window drapes to reveal a sky which was still dark—but a decided grey. I went upstairs.

	I'm told that a few minutes later Mal rolled out ... of his chair into a heap on the floor. Somebody pinned a notice to him reading "FAKEFAN" and left word at the desk to wake him up for his bus.

	I awoke four hours later with a note from Mal pinned to my chest denouncing me for having taken the room key to bed with me so that he had had to go to all sorts of trouble to break in. He added some stuff about how nice it was meeting me and the other members of Irish Fandom, and maybe at Kettering next year ...

	That was the tone of the rest of the day. Through the business session that morning, the question panel and the Psionics talk—handled interestingly by John W. Campbell with occasional witty interjections by the redoubtable Eric Frank Russell—there was a feeling of breaking up. People had left and were leaving constantly. It was a sorry time. Some people were different, of course. Arthur Thomson had found that the convention had made him unfit for work and had rejoined the proceedings early on Monday morning.

	At about 7 p.m. the Bulmers, the Willises and myself left the hotel to visit Brockham House, Arthur & Olive having invited us there for supper. We had a very good time, but as I found myself nodding constantly when I forgot to keep pinching myself, I pleaded fatigue and left, planning to be back at the hotel in bed about 11:30.

	Hah! Frank & Belle Dietz had invited me to their party, and I thought it only polite to tell them I was sorry I couldn't go. But to apologise I had to join the party, and after I'd done that I found I most definitely did not want to leave again. There were some films of American conventions shown, then Ted Carnell's movies taken while he was over there last year. He also showed an unfinished travel-type film he was working on featuring the sights of London, which displayed a photographing and editing ability which shook me. After this he produced his movie camera, and nothing would satisfy him but a long lingering shot of Barbara Silverbergs kneecaps. Bob Silverberg, unwilling, I suppose, to offend a source of revenue, agreed to her displaying the lower half of her legs. However, so that Carnell in later years should not extract too much lascivious delight from this shot, Bob and I, who were sitting on either side of Barbara, also displayed kneecaps. Then Bob went one better by rolling up his sleeves.

	Robert Silverberg, you may or may not know, is the only person known to grow a long straggly beard on each forearm. In his case forearm is warmed, not warned.

	After all my good resolutions it was 4:30 when I went to my room. Steve Schultheis, who had also been at the party, was just going to sleep. I kept him half awake until 5:30 telling me what had happened during my absence at the Thomsons'. I must have been very tired because I can't read my notes now, but apparently a lot of people said nice things about the Committee, there was a little presentation to Frank & Belle Dietz, and Harry Harrison appeared with some sort of petition involving the payment of Dave & Ruth Kyle's fare home as a wedding present. Ted Tubb conducted his one and only auction of the Convention. I'm really sorry I missed that.

	On second thought, I'm not sure the Convention did end on Monday night. The time Wally Weber and I lost ourselves in Oxford Circus station and searched in vain for Hither Green (a surface station) in the Underground system, even going so far as to try to buy a ticket there, was of a piece with the happenings at the Con. When we returned from the Bulmers' that Tuesday there were still groups of fans in the hotel lounge, talking and laughing far into the night, and on Wednesday morning, an hour before I was due to fly home, I met some fans for the very first time. A week later, as I was starting to write this, Rory Faulkner, Boyd Raeburn, and Steve Schultheis were in Belfast. There were parties in Oblique House, the Berrysidence and the White House. At ours Rory shocked and delighted us by sneering with her eyes crossed, the only pity being that Silverberg was not present to make a contest of it. Even now the spirit, the feeling, hangs on. One keeps expecting someone—a late returning American fan perhaps—to drop in on us suddenly; then the Fifteenth World Science Fiction Convention, the very best convention ever, will flare up again ...

	FINAL FOOTNOTE: Wilt Willis.That distant thumping sound you hear is me beating my breast in remorse. In case you don't know the remorse code, the message is that I'm sorry about the title I inflicted on James's conreport. For those of you who are happily innocent of the more sordid manifestations of abnormal psychology, I had better explain first that this World Convention was the Fifteenth, and the French for fifteen is "quinze." (I'm sure even Jean Linard knows of the Kinsey Report.) Also that, although James unfortunately omitted to mention it, an extraordinary number of people lost their voices after the Convention, and quinsy is a disease affecting the throat. So there: in the immortal words of James himself on a previous such occasion, "It's not good, but it's obscure."

FESTER ON THE FRINGE

Part I
(Hyphen 28, May 1961)

	My first hobby was feeding swans at the age of two—I was two years old, not the swans—and this is my earliest clear memory. I know this because we moved to Canada soon after and I have reliable testimony to the effect that I did not feed swans in that country, and when we returned to Ireland when I was seven I was taken to feed the same swans and remembered them, so my previous memory just had to be when I was two. I can remember this thirty-year-old incident perfectly and yet am unable to recollect the name or plot of a story published three years ago in Analog, which proves something or other about my phenomenal memory, or Analog. Anyway, when I fed the swans the second time a lot of the kick had gone out of it—they looked much smaller and my hands were so big I couldn't get them through the railing without skinning them. Besides, it was at the age of seven that I joined my first gang.

	This was not a gang in the Harlan Kllison tradition. We had secret signs, of course, and the Treasure which we buried in places the other gang was sure to find so's we'd have an excuse for a gang war. The Treasure usually comprised a few marbles—glassies, not stonies; our Treasure was valuable!—some odd cigarette cards and a hunk of stuff we had filched from the school chemistry lab which was supposed to explode when you did certain things to it, though we never found out what the things were. We being too junior to be taught chemistry at that time, our intelligence service took the form of a few crumbs of data handed down condescendingly by the Big Boys. The gang wars were fought with sods instead of stones because, unlike that Marine sergeant, we did want to live forever. An accurately thrown earthen sod was no mean weapon, but it was relatively harmless to the recipient and a man could sustain a number of hits from them and still remain operational. The casualties sustained in these wars were mostly of the delayed action type, caused by the reactions of our parents to our carrying topsoil into bed with us in our hair and underwear.

	After this warlike period I went into an introspective phase, brought about by my mother giving me a Meccano set for Christmas. One of the first models I built—for which there were no plans in the instruction book—was a spaceship as described in "The Last Rocket to Venus," a serial running in Hotspur at the time. I loved that Meccano set faithfully for three years, then divorced it for a model railway. Actually, I swapped it for the train set, the original owner being one Seamus Daly, who was to be embroiled in several hobbies with me later. After about a year of OO-guage megalomania, I got onto building flying model aircraft. This came about in a rather roundabout fashion.

	The secondary school to which I had won a scholarship was bombed a few weeks before I was due to start term, and the Education authorities made it a boarding school—which it normally wasn't—and evacuated everyone to Cushendun, a small fishing village on the North Antrim coast. (Their reason being to preserve highly intelligent young men like myself for posterity.) One day during a storm a ship tried to climb a headland on the other side of Cushendun Bay, and they had to dump most of the cargo to float it off again. Some of the stuff washed ashore was balsa wood, and practically the whole school went on a model aircraft building kick. It was at Cushendun that I learned to swim, too, and I was just getting confident at it when I had to go home to work.

	Swimming and model-building continued as my chief hobbies, with the accent on swimming. Seamus Daly was stewing for his university entrance exams, but came to the baths with me two or three times a week, "to get his head showered," as he so aptly put it. But it wasn't only the showers we used in those baths, we used the diving boards, slides, spectators' gallery, and all the other facilities thoroughly and enthusiastically, and often in ways nobody had ever used them before. About the water we were true fans and often waxed serious and constructive about those cloudy, yellow-green, chlorine-impregnated depths. At first we jumped in the water because we didn't know how to dive, leaping from higher and higher springboards. At this stage we learned that when entering the water from a great height—twenty to thirty feet—it is much less painful to hit the surface vertically rather than horizontally, and even the toes must be kept pointed downwards if the soles of the feet were to escape a slapping. Then even the craze for higher jumps and bigger splashes began to pall, and we decided that we could not realise our full aquatic potential unless we learned to dive.

	The process of diving, after the initial belly-flopping stage had been passed, was one of the first things to excite my sense of wonder. It was a terrific sensation, cutting the surface with arms straight out and seeing the blue-and-white tiled bottom sliding up through a clearing fog of bubbles and self-created turbulence. Inclining the palms upward turned the dive into a slow climb surfacewards, or with experience came the ability to shoot along the bottom in exhilarating level flight, until the kinetic energy generated during the above-the-surface component of the dive was dissipated by water-drag effects. It was even possible to do banking turns and slow rolls, though the latter usually ended by me bumping the back of my head gently along the tiles. From this we progressed to diving together and "flying" in formation, and then to a little game called "Sink the Submarine" which involved us diving from adjoining corners of the pool and trying to ram each other amidships. Altogether we had a hilarious time in that pool, and, it being the November to February slack time in the baths, the Man didn't say anything when we spent two or three hours there when the time allowed us was only thirty minutes. But Spring came, the baths began to draw crowds, and the Man started going by the book. We took up landscape painting.

	It was madness to even consider going out to a draughty field to paint, so we usually went on a painting expedition to one or the other of our houses and just thought up or remembered a scene and went to work on it. Most of my stuff was trim, park-like expanses with pale blue, heatwave weather skies—I was hopeless with cloud effects. But Seamus went in for wild, mountainous subjects in screaming purple and yellow and red—he had been to Donegal and swore that that was what Donegal looked like, both sombre and colourful. I didn't believe him, but later, when I had been through the place with Bea Mahaffey, I apologised. For a while Seamus continued to paint Donegal red and yellow and purple and I switched gradually to portraits and s-f subjects. I'd been reading s-f occasionally since before going to Cushendun, but now it had got a hold. Painting was dropped for photography and we began taking pictures of steam-rollers and electric pylons at arty angles. Seamus took to sneaking into Harland and Wolff's to photograph launchings— something that, it being wartime, he could easily have been shot for.

	Then all at once Seamus was gone into his attic for an intensive period of swottting and I was all alone. My paintings were flat and uninspired, my collection of seven BRE ASFs and three BRE Unknowns had been re-read at least five times, and photography was impossible without Seamus outside the darkroom with our alarm in his hands calling out the minutes. I felt restless, lonely, browned off. I had a yen for romantic adventure. Being too shy at that time to take up with girls, I joined the A.T.C.

	Living as I did in a staunchly Nationalist area, nobody would have said a word to me if I'd joined the IRA, but when I began to march up the street twice a week in Air Training Corps uniform Eyebrows Were Raised, and once even A Stone Was Thrown—which missed by yards, incidentally, proving that it had been heaved on principle rather than in anger. Funnily enough my friends did not stop talking to me—when I was out of uniform—and when I began telling them about the sort of things we did in the A.T.C. (signals, air navigation and monthly socials), and when the girls seemed completely unable to resist my forage cap and shiny buttons, some of them got over their parents' prejudices sufficiently to show interest. When one of them actually joined up with me the Raised Eyebrows changed to Helpless Shrugs.

	Reminiscing about ones old regiment tends to bore outsiders. I loved every minute of the A.T.C. Well, nearly—there was the time I was on an unarmed combat and toughening course for cadet NCOs outside London, and one of von Braun's prototype spaceships landed. It didn't excite my sense of wonder one little bit, the only sense I had was one of relief that it had come down two miles away and in a field. It was also during this course that I was actually ordered to do something for which, as a child, I had been soundly walloped—jumping into the water with all my clothes on. This is an indescribable sensation the first time; the splash and first split-seconds in the water, when it hasn't yet had time to penetrate through the clothing, then the breakthrough in patches, and finally the stage—just before the clothing becomes completely waterlogged—when air bubbles are crawling about inside the trouser legs and sleeves. It was like experiencing some new sin. Later, of course, I became more blasé about it and even complained if there was too much mud on the bottom.

	It was during this toughening—or weakening—course that I first began to feel a bit off-colour. Apparently the stress had uncovered a hidden flaw in my tall, scrawny physique. When I got home I slept for two days and woke up still feeling tired, and began to eat lots of sweets to give me energy. Hah! A. few months later I went to see the doctor about it and he diagnosed diabetes, and that was the end of the A.T.C.

	With a lot of spare time on my hands I began building two- and three-valve radios—in the A.T.C. I'd picked up enough technical know-how to be able to make crystal sets and simple one-valvers, and now I was going to expand the whole field of electronics. At the same time, I joined the Red Cross to take lectures on first aid and nursing. My medical career ended one night two years later when I was practising bathing a simulated baby—a large doll, actually—and its head came off. A man can stand just so much ribbing without losing his self-respect. I took up ballroom dancing.

	It was during the combined radio-building, dancing, and s-f collecting stage—the last had been going on unobtrusively for several years— that I met Walter. Walter collected s-f and built radios, too, but while I had a lot more American Astoundings than he had, his radios made me feel that I was confronted with a member of a highly-advanced technological civilisation. Then the first issue of Slant was published and all other hobbies took a back seat.

	Running off blotchy pages of type with blotchier woodcuts by myself on them, and seeing the pages become clearer and more ambitiously illustrated with each succeeding issue, was the most rewarding hobby I'd had up to that time. For one thing, it was much more creative than dismantling sten guns while blindfold, or even jumping into the water fully dressed. Walter and I worked very hard on Slant—him a lot harder than me because I only went up to 170 three or four times a week while he lived there—but I cannot remember one single time when we stopped to ask ourselves if the trouble was really worth it. But for me, helping to produce Slant was just another hobby, and while I enjoyed reading the letters which came in, and Walter's replies to them, I had no inclination to become part of the fandom they represented. All I wanted to do was set type and occasionally bring up a linocut, then wait anxiously while Walter mounted it on a block, rolled on the ink, and peeled off the first impression. If it turned out anyway good we would prop it up against his superhet and talk about its atmosphere and impact and its subtle quality of other-worldliness—all these effects being due, usually, to faulty inking. Sometimes when I surpassed myself, Walter would say "Exquasut, James, exquasut!" in a pseudo-Ballymena accent which has to be heard to be appreciated.

	George Charters began frequenting Oblique House, though he was so quiet and unassuming in those days—still is, as a matter of fact—that he had been coming for a couple of months before I noticed him. Then Bob Shaw, Ghoodminton and Fannish Good Cheer shattered the hard working calm of 170 like triple thunderbolts, and suddenly we were a fan group. We still spent a lot of time type-setting, but now we stopped oftener to talk. Letters praising what Manly Banister called my impossible linocuts had begun to swell my head, and I took up painting again. Bob painted too, and I remember nights when we just sat at opposite sides of the Slant typesetting table, Walter with his feet up on the mantelpiece talking and coordinating between us, just painting our hearts out. They were always s-f subjects, of course, and we would vie to excel each other with special effects. There was a time when my distant galaxies and starclouds ranked second to none—the technique involving Chinese White and an old tooth-brush—and I can still hear Walter asking if I'd Macleaned my galaxy today.

	I had the feeling that Fate had something extra special in store for me. My whole spare-time life—the structural and inventive experience of Meccano, my brief excursion into electronics, my anatomical studies with the British Red Cross and my developing artistic bent—was obviously a preparation for entry into the professional publishing field. James White, I was sure, was going to be a name that would rank with those of Hubert Rogers and Gerard Quinn in s-f magazine circles.

	Sometimes I wonder whatever became of that James White, and if there is a probability world wherein I sold my first cover painting to Ted Carnell ...

	What actually happened on this time track was that I started getting severe headaches and attacks of nose-bleeding which forced me to give up lino-cutting and similar forms of artistic eyestrain. However, for some time I'd been writing long, detailed letters to Seamus Daly, who was a B.Sc. now working as a research chemist in Stockton-on-Tees, and I had shown part of one to Walter wherein I'd described some of the things which happened on the way to the Festival Convention in 1951. Walter liked it and published an extract, titled "I Rode With Bulmer," in Inclinations. At the time I wasn't very keen on being a writer, but when I inherited Walter's 1912 typer on his acquisition of a later (1923) model, I felt that the machine was being wasted if I didn't use it. So in between copying hymns for Seamus Daly's brother Sean—who was assistant director of the parish choir—I did a few pieces of fan fiction for SFN, Quandry and Hyphen, including the Harris-White Feud. Oh, yes, and I was responsible for introducing the zap-gun into British fandom—something of which I felt extremely proud, at the time.

	The fact that I was being given BNF status was rather embarrassing to me because I did not consider myself a fan at all. I was simply a hobbyist who, because he was a member of a by-now world famous fan group, had to keep his end up. The letters and stories I wrote were to and about friends I had made, and although all the friends and incidents written about were connected with fandom, I felt that I shouldn't involve myself too deeply in it. At the same time, I enjoyed conventions, and meeting visiting fans, and corresponding, immensely. People who treated the fannish way of life like a religion made me uncomfortable, fandom to me is about fifty or sixty people, eight or nine of which I meet at least once a week. I look on it as a fantasy or fairy story to which a lot of intelligent—and a few unintelligent—people subscribe, adding details, discussing, recording, and expanding this warm, friendly, but essentially unreal world which they have created. As a group fans are the nicest people I know, but fandom should not be considered more important than comfortable homes, happy wives and well-fed children, and anyone who does think it more important is a fanatic and not a fan. If anybody wants to know how a BNF can subscribe to such heresy, the answer is I'm not a BNF, so yaaaah! I'm just a hobbyist who was on a type-setting kick with a fan genius eleven years ago and somehow became embroiled. Fandom is a Good thing, but it's not for real.

	That is why, when I started another hobby by selling my first story to Ted Carnell in 1952, the cries of "Vile Pro" that went up did not bother me unduly. And when my friend and (in print) bitterest enemy Chuck Harris, writing about "The Scavengers" in his usual thoughtful, scholarly style, said:

"James White! the modern Iscariot who, for two hundred and eighty-five bucks, renounced his immortal heritage, and gave his intrepid spacemen American accents.

"James White! pseudo-scientist, plagiarist, unspeakable foulness festering on the fringes of fandom. Fakefan! Betrayer! Sex-fiend! Jackal!

"James White! Vilest pro!

"His shocking, lurid hodgepodge of evil frustration is completely permeated with the odour of garbage. Written in what is popularly known as the 'Amazing' style, the vague glimmerings of the hackneyed 'Might Is Right' plot do nothing to cover up the butcherings of all the laws of decency, humanity, grammar, and syntax ..."

 ...I frothed gently at the mouth but did not feel insulted. So I was a vile pro and a fake-fan, and a lot of other obnoxious things—so what, it was the truth, wasn't it? Terms like white slaver and lecher I passed off as mere literary license on the part of my critic, his enthusiasm for purple passages running away with him. The only phrase I could point to as being blatantly incorrect was the one which runs "...foulness festering on the fringes of fandom ..." A fannish historian and commentator of the standing of Charles Randolph Harris should know that this foulness doesn't fester on the fringe, but more in the middle like.

PART II
(HYPHEN 29, September 1961)

	Last issue I dealt briefly with my rather humdrum early life—feeding swans, teenage gang warfare, ballroom dancing, commando training, landscape painting and science fiction fandom—and ended with me selling my very first story to Good Ole Ted Carnell. Maybe I appeared a bit blasé about that first acceptance, but I didn't mean to. Any vile pro knows that indescribable feeling of joy and pride—and kinda humility, natch—and that sort of reverent feeling you get when your head lifts proudly, your chest swells, and you remark quietly "Ye-e-e-e-hoo-o-o!'' When the second story is also accepted the effect is only slightly less intense, and the third time ...

	I opened the letter at teatime on 26th February 1953 and the letter had an American stamp and began by warning me about all sorts of legal complications, mentioned hitherto unknown authors and notary publics, witnessed affidavits and so on, which had me sorely perplexed. But the punch line at the bottom of the para explained everything. It said "I liked your story and plan to take it at our usual rate of 3 ¢'s a word or $285 for the manuscript, signed John W. Campbell, Jr ..."

	After a ritual "Ye-e-e-e-hoo-o-o!" I hopped on my bike and scorched rubber for Walt's house during the odd moments when the bike was in contact with the road. It wasn't that I was going fast, you understand, it was just that I was practically floating with joy, and the bike, being loosely attached to myself, had to float, too. When I got to 170, Walter said "Hoo-boy!"and Madeleine said "Whee-e-ee!'' It occurs to me now that in those days out dialogue was a trifle on the cryptic side.

	There followed a mad search through the dark, wet streets of Belfast for the private residence of a Notary Public. I don't remember just why we, or I, was so impatient, but it seemed vitally important that we rouse a Notary Public from his fireside or bed to witness my form—maybe we were afraid of ASF going broke or an atomic war starting. But even though we rode our bicycles into the ground and were red-eyed from squinting at unlighted brass plates, all we turned up were three Commissioners for Oaths. About eleven-thirty we went back to 170 where Madeleine had supper waiting—she didn't have a bike of her own, so couldn't help in the search—and I gave the ten-and-sixpence— pardon me, the half-guinea—I borrowed back to Walter and went home.

	Next morning, remembering to bring my own half-guinea, I located a sure-enough Notary Public. He was a tall, aged, incredibly thin gentleman who looked like a lawyer straight out of Charles Dickens—he was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, exuded kindliness like those people from highly-advanced civilisations, and was slightly deaf. After proving to him that I was me, not as easy a job as you might think, he gave me a lecture on economics and the adverse trading balance between the Sterling and the Dollar currency areas. He ended by shaking hands gravely and stating that it was dollar-earners such as myself that would enable Britain to survive this ghastly post-war chaos.

	The next convention I went to as a real live honest-to-goodness vile pro—hadn't I sold to Campbell, after all? Such famous people as H. Ken Bulmer, Ted Carnell, William F. Temple (who affects a great hatred of me because of a basic disagreement over E.E. Smith, or maybe it was that business with the water pistol), John Wyndham and Arthur C. Clarke. They all welcomed me warmly, put me immediately at my ease, and discoursed brilliantly together and with me as their friend and equal. During previous conventions, when I hadn't been anybody, they had all done exactly the same thing, which proves something about them, I think.

	But just before this particular convention I had spent five days, and nights, in Paris, looking at museums and monuments (which all had "Ridgeway Go Home!" painted on them) seeing the Bal Tabarin (where they didn't have anything on them) and filling my water pistol in the river so that when I squirted Chuch later Bob Shaw could make his "wringing in the Seine" pun. I also created somewhat of a furore in Victoria Station on my return, while being met by Walter and Vin¢, by embracing Vin¢ and kissing him on both cheeks in the manner of De Gaulle decorating a freedom fighter with the Croix de Guerre. They should have known by my navy shirt, black beret, and white canvas shoes that I was under the Gallic influence, rather than being a Sturgeon-type character misplaced in Time.

	It was during this convention also that I was credited with introducing the water-firing zap-gun to British fandom in general, an achievement which has taken five years to live down.

	During the fifty-one week period of anticlimax between conventions, I wrote some more stories. The first four sold and the fifth one bounced. It was a delightfully wacky fantasy in the Unknown tradition called "A Shade Technical," and Horrible Ole Ted Carnell said it was too untechnical and suggested where I might place it (with Gold for Beyond, actually, but it bounced from there, too.) Again I hopped on my bike and headed for 170, Horrible Ole Ted's letter gritted between my teeth—I couldn't ride a bike with one hand at that early age—in a seriously disturbed state of mind. Fellow professionals will know and sympathise with my feelings then. This was my first rejection, my whole world was shattered, ashes about my feet—sheer writing that, what?—and I wanted to spit and rend and tear somebody. I felt that either I must End It All or become a raging maniac liable to batter insensible the first person or persons I met. Fortunately for posterity I chose the latter course and played seven games of Ghoodminton, beating Bob Shaw in singles for the first and only time in my life.

	Story number six—entitled "Suicide Mission," strangely enough— was accepted, with egoboo, by Good Ole Ted, but for a long time after this I didn't hear from him. Unknown to me, Nova's fate was in the balance, all sorts of dramatic but hush-hush things were going on, which culminated in the London fans and fannish professionals floating a company to publish New Worlds themselves. This kept the mag going, but only just. Printing and distribution difficulties constantly threatened to send it under again, and fannish rumour from reasonably reliable sources had it that Nova was a dead duck.

	While I was still writing under this misapprehension and trying to Slant my stories towards the US markets, another con rolled around. This was the one which Miss Beatrice May Mahaffey, the whistle-worthy editress of Other Worlds, prepared for by touring Ireland with the Willises and me. This tour was reported fully in Hyphen No. 4 as "The BeaCon Report," and, solely for the purpose of plugging last month's Digit pocketbook entitled The Secret Visitors, I can say, quite truthfully, that the idea for this story came during a stay in a very peculiar hotel while we were on that trip, where a maid walked on me while I was passing a note under a door, and so on. But to keep this on a professional, commercial level, Walter had told Bea several times (an hour) that I'd sold to ASF, and Miss Mahaffey was being quite charming to me in her efforts to extract an ms of ASF quality for her own publication.

	Maybe one of those thingummies on Easter Island could have remained unaffected by Bea Mahaffey's charm for six or seven days on end, but I began to feel funny. I mean, well ...you know ...Funny. It got so bad that Walter and Madeleine, while were on the way to London on the train, began a serious discussion as the possibility of the engine-driver being able to marry people. And during the con there was a party—I can't remember who gave it, only that at one stage our hostess came into the kitchen, where Ken Slater, Irish Fandom and the Epicentrics had formed a splinter group, to tell us that she had received complaints that there was no drinking going on in this room—in the course of which I even became jealous.

	Bea had been dancing with another vile pro called Bryan Berry— who seems to have dropped out of sight these days—in their stocking feet. This display of decadence did not shock me unduly, I'd been to Paris, after all, but I felt that I could dance better than Berry could and had a bronze medal to prove it. The only thing was that I was travelling light and my only pair of socks had a hole in the right, or maybe it was the left, toe. I had to sit and watch them, eaten up with helpless anger, jealousy and frustration. Of course there were some neutral (and somewhat sozzled) observers of this incident who claimed that Bryan Berry was dancing in his bare feet, and, my astigmatism being what it is, I wouldn't like to argue. However, I left that party a greatly changed man; hardened, a little more cynical, older somehow. I had to accept the fact that this girl was not for me. But it hurts the first time you lose a girl to another man, even one with green and red striped feet.

	The next story I did I submitted to Bea Mahaffey, and it bounced. It went on bouncing for five and a half years before it was taken.

	Peter Hamilton, the editor of the newly started Nebula had been pressing me for material at the con and I sent him two short stories. He bounced the first and enthused over the second. Peter Hamilton is a nice person to speak to, but extremely onesided as a correspondent—I remember sending a story in December, writing several times asking for a report and then being told personally at a convention the following Whitsun that it was a great story, and he was hoping to send me a cheque and a complimentary copy of the mag in which it was printed next Tuesday week. However, when Ted Carnell saw my first Nebula-published story he wrote asking me whuffo. I told him that I was sorry but reliable London sources were noising it abroad that he was defunct, and that I considered this a great pity after all the trouble he'd had. Ted replied saying "defunct, hell!" for two and a half pages, explaining exactly what was happening at Nova, stating that it was agents of Nebula or Authentic that were spreading these slanders about, also promising that the two stories he was holding of mine would be published as soon as possible—and paid for before that—and would I consider writing something for him again. I said yes and started work on a story called "The Conspirators."

	It was during the writing of this story that I met and began dating a girl called Peggy Martin. I began to feel funny again ...you know ...and the dates went from irregular to frequent. The fact that her father shouted "Spaceship, Awa-a-ay ...!" and referred to me as Dan Dare every time I called for her didn't seem to matter greatly. She was nearly as tall as myself, had medals for dancing, too, and worked as a receptionist in a classy photographer's. And intelligent as well as good-looking—when I began slipping some science fiction into the books I sometimes loaned her, she was particularly enthusiastic about "Scanners Live In Vain." She has a slightly off-beat sense of humour, too. Much later, when we were just a few days back from our honeymoon sin-whacked me in the face with a string of raw pork sausages. This doesn't hurt at all, but gives one a peculiar squishy sensation. She said that sin-had always wanted to do that, and this seemed the right time.

	But to struggle back into chronological order, I introduced Peggy Martin to Irish Fandom, Chuck Harris began sending letters to Peggy detailing the things I was supposed to have done in Paris which she really ought to ask me about before coming to any decision about me, and work on "The Conspirators" became slightly delayed. I finished it a few weeks before Easter of that year, the date on which Peggy and I planned to gel engaged, and bunged it off to Good OleTed. Three days later I was stricken with food poisoning, complicated—but definitely—by my diabetes, and brushed off to hospital (I know I should say "whisked off," but every body says that) on the verge of going into a coma. My condition wasn't really serious, but just looked that way because of the equipment round the bed. Peggy got in to see me and hold my hand for a couple of hours, and later two night nurses told me what lovely white teeth I'd got and asked whether my eyes were brown or sort of greenish. About this time another nurse came in to ask how I was feeling. I told her I was having a smashing time. She said there was somebody phoning up about me, and maybe in the circumstances she'd better just tell them I was doing as well as could be expected.

	Next day at visiting time Peggy brought me a letter from Ted. I got her to open it and she read out in clear ringing tones the news that Good Ole Ted liked "The Conspirators," thought it the best thing he'd read in years, and was darned well going to break with tradirion—Nova tradition—and pay me a bonus of ten bob a thousand for it. And to heap egoboo on egoboo he wanted two hundred words of biographical detail to print on the inside front cover, together with a good quality studio portrait of myself, which he wanted by return of post ...

	I instructed Peggy, who had been thereupon co-opted as my acting, unpaid secretary, to reply to Mr. Carnell describing my current plight forced to lie motionless in bed with one arm freezing due to the saline drip apparatus and the other so enfeebled I could just barely manage to hold up the current Astounding—and that I didn't have any good studio portraits of myself, only snaps showing me squirting Bob Shaw with a water-pistol. I also said that, with luck, I'd be out of hospital in a week.

	Haha.

	Ted's next letter went direct to Peggy, saying that he was sorry about me but he needed a photo urgently, and suggested that she explain nil plight to the hospital authorities. He said that if they couldn't spare an ambulance to take me to a studio for a few minutes, maybe someone could modify the x-ray equipment to show my outside ...

	As that sardonic little laugh two paras back implies, I was not out in a week. Weird complications set in. I knew this primarily because every time a doctor went past my bed his forehead developed a little vertical crease—that's a bad sign, you know—and secondarily because I was having them. The trouble seemed to be the new, one-injection-per-day type of insulin they were trying to re-stabilise me on. Sometimes I would feel half-dead and too tired even to re-re-read Ted Carnell s letter, and at others I'd feel like charging about the ward jumping from bed to bed. Quite a few doctors from the other end of the hospital were called in and made vertically creased foreheads at me—I would have suggested sending for Dr. Conway, only I hadn't thought of him yet—for nearly a week before the great light dawned.

	Sometimes I would go down the ward to meet the nurse who brought the pills round, to save her the trip. It seems there was another Mr. White in the ward, and it appeared that I occasionally I got the wrong medication. This other Mr. White had recently undergone an operation and was eighty-two years old, so that the doctors were intent on building up his strength and vitality as quickly as possible. One thing I did learn from this incident was the name of the pills I'm going to ask my doctor for when I'm eighty-two ...

	Two days before Easter I got out and had my picture taken. Peggy's boss went to considerable trouble with lights and camera angles and out of focus effects in order to make me' not look like a recent inmate of Belsen. The picture was published on the inside front cover of New Worlds, and eight years later Ted is still using the same one. I'd like to take this opportunity, however, to say that it is even now not a true likeness. I look much younger than that.

PART III
(HYPHEN 30, Dec. 1961)

	This time I would like to give my memoirs a rest and deal with events which happened last week, instead of rummaging around in my untidy past. The truth is I can't remember, accurately, what happened between the time we got engaged and the day on our honeymoon a year later when Ted Carnell plied Peggy with cream buns and me with water biscuits in the Nova offices, which were then off the Strand. That year included me learning to play tennis, writing five stories, the Supermancon, and getting married, but until I can recall them in greater detail—or until, Peggy says, I can recall them in the proper order of importance—I'd better watch myself. So this time I shall be topical and detail the history of me as it actually unfolds, discussing the events which are even now moulding the warm, human, vital, sensitive, intelligent, likeable and essentially modest personality that is myself. Particularly I would like to talk about fur-lined flying boots. But before the flying boots actually appear, a certain amount of background has to be filled in.

	From a very early age, cold feet and a yearning for space—both Interplanetary and Living—had been major problems with me. The Interplanetary aspect was solved, so far as was possible, by me starting to read s-f and eventually joining the British Interplanetary Society, but the second and more mundane part of the problem was more difficult of solution. Possibly this was because my requirements increased constantly as I grew older and bigger. To become philosophical for a moment, I suppose it is in the Nature of Things that as my fine, creative mind and long, skinny body grow they both need more space. Certainly a chunk of the space-time continuum big enough to swing a Manx cat in at the age of fifteen—me, not the cat—would simply give me claustrophobia now and make the cat dizzy. In those days I worked, slept, and otherwise had my being in a room seven feet by nine which contained a six-foot double bed—in which I had to lie cross-wise to stretch—and a narrow T of floor-space filled with s-f magazines, home-made radios and covered dishes of developer and hypo. There was also a bad draught under the door.

	Later on, when we moved to Riverdale, I had the box-room to work in. This was, and is, a great, fat, opulent 'L which is more like a six by nine foot rectangle with a square yard bite out of one corner. There is no bed in this room, just a table, chair and book-shelves. There is room to swing two Manx cats, one in each hand. But in case some of my gentle readers are on the point of phoning the RSPCA, let me assure them categorically that I speak only metaphorically. Even if I was the sort of insensitive lout who would swing two Manx cats at a time there are strong reasons for not doing so. Manx cats are without tails, as you know, so that to swing them at all would necessitate holding them by a leg which is formidably armed with claws to scratch me with. I dislike being scratched by cats, it is a phobia with me. But then, I already mentioned my claustrophobia ... Anyway, this lovely room has a draught under the door, too.

	When little Whites began to arrive, a cot was moved into this fine room and me and my book-shelves and typer were moved out to the garden shed. This is an eight by six wooden affair. Working here gave me solitude but no peace—in summer it stank of hot tar, in winter the timber made eerie creaking sounds, and all the year round there seemed to be a constant drizzle of insects hilling from the roof. Inevitably there was a draught under the door, in addition to a couple of knot-holes with hyper-spatial link-ups with one of Bob Shaw's wind tunnels. Now that the kids are sleeping in one bedroom I have moved back into the box-room temporarily. I say temporarily because I am at present constructing a room in the roof space which will not have any draughts. Meanwhile I've bought fur-lined flying boots.

	Two, in case you were wondering.

	Maybe it sounds a bit sissy for me to be so concerned about my cold feet, and that I am pampering myself shamelessly by indulging in such luxuries. Bur for me, and I'm sure for many other vile pros in similar circumstances, fur-lined flying boots are a necessity. In an enlightened society they would be tax-deductible. From my own experience I would even say that many marriages are in danger of going on the rocks because the husband does not have them, or refuses to wear them because of silly pride or in rhe mistaken assumption that they make him less masculine. This isn't so, and the only way to prove that flying boots are good survival characteristics seems to be to tell you what happened to me.

	Being a very slow writer, I hate to break off when a story is beginning to go well and so frequently work late at night. Peggy is very understanding about this and usually goes to bed with a gentle reminder about not being late for breakfast. This isn't a complete exaggeration because two or three times a year I work right through the night, to keep in training for conventions, mostly. But usually I just work to two or three in the morning and then go to bed. The trouble is, however, the draught under the door. The room is stifling with the heater in it, and without it a gentle, frigid breeze plays around the ankles. While concentrating on a story such purely subjective phenomena as petrified feet and ice-jammed ankle joints just fail to register. It is not until both patellas have glaciated and the goose-bumps are marching inexorably up the thighs that the realisation dawns that you are cold, cold. With stiffening fingers you make a few notes for what you want to start with tomorrow night—which you won't be able to read tomorrow night, the writing is so bad—and stagger into bed to get warm.

	Normally I don't go in much for writing about warm, seductive bodies, and Hyphen isn't that kind of magazine anyway. I mention them this time simply to state that Peggy does not like being awakened in the middle of the night with two freezing feet and knee-caps being pushed against hers. She gives a little scream and gets peevish and sometimes makes improper suggestions like if I'm so blankety-blank cold why don't I bring a hot water bottle to bed with me? Firmly, through chattering teeth, I tell her yet again that hot water bottles are an insult to my manhood, and the argument often lasts for hours. But now, like I said, I bought these flying boots a couple of weeks ago and brought them home on a night I intended to work late ...

	They are shiny black, and come up to the calf. The leather is sort of grained and pliable, with the sheepskin lining so thick that it tufts out over the tops when they are being worn. A small leather loop at each heel helps with pulling them on, and when they are on the feet seem to sink into a warm, bottomless softness. For the first half hour I paced up and down the room, getting the feel of them, admiring them, then I sat down to write. Occasionally I broke off to wriggle my toes and flex my ankles, luxuriating in the warmth and surprised and delighted by the fact that it was a cold night and I could actually feel my feet. Then about eleven-thirty Peggy stopped in to say good-night, during which she observed that I looked more like Farmer Dale than one of the star-begotten. I told her that under those bulky boots lay feet that were as warm as toast, and she said thank goodness.

	The story went well that night and I knocked off at two-thirty to go to bed. I hot-footed it into the bedroom and began to undress quietly in the dark so's not to waken Peggy. This is something I've done lots of times, but on this occasion I had to switch on the light because the boots were tight-fitting and I couldn't pull one off while standing on one leg. With the light on I found the chair and tried to take one off while sitting down. No dice. I tried to take the other one off while sitting down. Uh-uh. I was beginning to feel ridiculous. Despite my grunts of exertion and the creak of the chair Peggy was still asleep, so I lay down on the floor and adopted various contorted attitudes in my efforts to get them off, but in vain—they continued to grip my feet like a couple of black leather Puppet Masters. I tried cunning, slowly wriggling my feet and ankles, then tugging suddenly when I thought I had them lulled into a false sense of security, and sometimes I lost all control and heaved, and strained, and made animal sounds deep in my throat, but nothing was any good. I got to my feet shaking, sweating and spent from my struggles. Switching mentally to upper case I thought @@'&/@)(::!

	My pants were cut to the latest slim-line styling and were too narrow to be taken off over the flying boots, and while I would not have felt completely outraged at going to bed in my trousers, I was not going to get under the sheets wearing flying boots. A man has a certain code he must live by or he is nothing. He must be true to it and true to himself. Perhaps my code leaves something to be desired in many ways, but I have never gone to bed wearing fur-lined flying boots nor do I ever intend to. With a sad look at my warm, trapped feet I made the only other decision possible to me. I called softly, "Uh, waken up, dear ..."

PART IV
(HYPHEN 31, Mar. 1962)

	This last while back, to use a colourless local idiom, increasing amounts of Romance and gooey sentiment have been emanating from certain members of Irish Fandom, which has caused all the femme fans in the area to go all dreamy-eyed and drooly. I refer to the odd coincidence that at the end of July the Shaws are expecting a little stranger, rhat at the end of July Peggy and I are expecting a little stranger, and, also at the end of July, Dr. Ian R. McAulay is getting married. All this when taken in conjunction with the recent marriage of that prominent ex-fan and one-time sex-fiend Charles Randolph Harris—well, maybe not so one-time; in a recent letter he stated that Sue and he were both working in order to furnish their house, and that they intend to carry on—is having an effect on our sensitive fannish souls. The fact that Ian intends taking over Trinity College, Dublin, and a sub-assembly line of Guinness's Brewery for the reception—Ian is an old boy of both establishments—is making certain of the male members drool, too. And on Saturday nights, while Ian is slurping up Peggy's lemon meringue pie, his eyes get a soft, distant look-like two badly fried eggs—and he gives us little snippets of information about his Olivia. His Olivia is a smasher. We knew this, having met her once. His Olivia knits him jerseys, knits his car seat covers, can cook, even likes beer ...

	All this romance in the air is beginning to affect even my hardened professional soul, and it seems fitting that at this point I should return to my memoirs and the romantic sloppy episodes of my life. After all, I can get those flying boots both off and on now without having to get through 2,000 words worth of conflict.

	We left our hero having just become engaged to the heroine after surviving food poisoning, diabetes and the publication of his photo in New Worlds. To anyone who has been engaged I need not describe the joy of the months which followed, and to those who have not been engaged I'm afraid I'm not allowed to. It was a very warm summer and Peggy taught me to play tennis. But trained as I was in the vicious school of Ghoodminton, it was pure reflex with me that when I hit the ball at all I whacked it completely out of the court. Me being blessed, in this instance, with astigmatism, Peggy had to go looking for the lost balls. After a couple of weeks of this she developed green thumbs, fingers and knee-caps together with an aversion to playing tennis with me. We didn't quarrel about it, of course, it was simply the conflict of two mutually alien and incomprehensible ideologies, best illustrated perhaps by my habit of butting the ball with my head when she served and claiming the point as a "Face."

	It was during this glorious summer that I attended the first and only convention, the Supermancon, which I did not enjoy. I'm not quite sure why this was so. All the necessary ingredients for a successful con were there: the people I liked, the smoke-filled rooms, the uncooperative night manager to give that heady sense of urgency and danger to the parties. There was even the ship canal for throwing beer bottles into. But somehow that con never got off the ground for me. There seemed to be an air of tension overhanging everything. "Operation Armageddon," the widespread, cruelly funny and not very secret plot of the London Circle to wreck the Manchester convention, was part of the reason. Everybody thought that the London fans were too sportsmanlike ever to actually put "Armageddon" into operation, but nobody was sure that they wouldn't, or that a rowdy element might not go ahead with it in the face of general disapproval. Looking back on it, I think the trouble was that I went through that convention feeling like a policeman on a beat where rioting was likely to break out at any minute.

	During these months I was doing very well professionally, selling everything I wrote and churning out stories at the fantastic rate of one every three or four months. "Outrider" was the high-spot, it being the first story of mine which Good Ole Ted flogged to Sweden for me— egoboo I couldn't even read..).—and at practically the same time used the topicality of the first Sputnik going up to sell it as a seven-parr serial to the Glasgow Daily Record. The low spot was "Dynasty of One," a short-short which I was convinced was a perfect little gem. Horrible Ole Ted said it was vague and incomprehensible and not the slightest bit memorable—at least in the way I meant—and the only reason he was accepting it was because Science-Fantasy was desperately short of material and the next issue had a 2,500 word hole that he had to plug somehow. Sometimes Good/Horrible Ole Ted can accept a story in such a way that one would much rather it had bounced, especially stories which he thinks are not quite up to standard. This acceptance of what I had thought to be my greatest work might have wrecked my writing career, or warped my sense of wonder, at least, if he hadn't softened the blow by devoting a couple paras to gentle, fatherly advice regarding my approaching nuptials in which he used the word "mug" three times and "don't" at the beginning of every sentence.

	On the night before the wedding itself I felt strangely disturbed. I was a couple of thousand words into a story called "Question of Cruelty" and really should have been working on that, me being shortly to be married and all and having the responsibilities of a breadwinner to shoulder. But somehow I couldn't concentrate on being a breadwinner without thinking of being married first, and so after a couple of hours of getting up and sitting down again I took the May 1955 ASF to bed and tried to read myself to sleep.

	I didn't remember what a single story was about after finishing the magazine, which was very unusual for ASF in 1955 ...

	The morning of the wedding dawned bright and sunny, although with certain cloud formations present which indicated that it wouldn't stay that way for more than a few hours. I arrived at the church early and drove slowly round the district five times before getting out, so as not to seem impatient. All of Irish Fandom was there with the exception of poor old George, who had taken ill just before I arrived and had had to go home. His heart, we all thought, and his poor, aged, enfeebled body— maybe it was just as well, the excitement might have been too much for him. Walter was looking very smart in a suit I'd flogged him one day when he'd been silly enough to come into the shop with money on him, and I almost didn't recognise Bob without his green velvet smoking jacket. The girls looked stunning. It's funny how girls seem to look more beautiful than you've ever seen them before at weddings, even when the wedding isn't theirs. Seeing the direction of my gaze, my best man reminded me that this was the last chance I had of whistling at pretty girls in earnest and I'd better make the most of it. But I don't hold with people whistling in church, and anyway these were my friends' best wives and I wouldn't whistle at them in earnest in any case.

	Then somehow I was kneeling in the front left-hand pew with the best man, and Irish Fandom was filling the second and warming the back of my neck with its collective breath. But not enough, because I was shaking and at any moment my teeth threatened to chatter out loud. There was a little flurry of activity on the right side of the aisle, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of pale blue, pink and black as Peggy, her bridesmaid and her father arrived—they were blurs because the people who make spectacles do not make provision for their users looking out of the corners of their eyes. I did try to look at Peggy directly, but my best man kicked my ankle to remind me that this was unlucky. Then the pew behind Peggy began to fill with her friends and relatives and her mother began whispering last-minute misdirections, the altar bell rang, and the priest, looking stern and benign, was motioning us to come forward.

	Getting married is a sacred and solemn thing, and even the Wheels of IF admit that it is serious constructivism in the best possible sense of the word. At the time I couldn't think of anything other than what was going on in front of me, of course, but later I wondered what the gang had really thought of it. They were all Protestants of varying shades of black—not that this ever made any difference with us—and I wondered if perhaps they did not think a nuptial Mass a little on the vulgar osten-tatious side, even for a vile pro who had sold to Astounding. I'm sure there were lots of cracks in that pewload of fans, and considering the people who were there they must have been good ones, but at no time since then have any of them told me what they were.

	By some miraculous feat of logistics everybody was transferred from the church to the reception, where Peggy and I took the places of honour before a cake which had enough icing sugar on it to lay out every diabetic in the province. There was also a plastic model spaceship containing two space-suited figures occupying the space between the conventional figures of the bride and groom. The model had come from Rick Sneary, and I've still got it. Among the greetings telegrams and a demand for water rates belonging to the best man was a unique and utterly priceless ATom portfolio, with libretto by that arch-libertine Chuch Harris, which had as its theme Arthur and Chuck's ideas of how my wedding and honeymoon should go. This, as befitted my new marital status, was strictly X-certificate stuff and I had great difficulty getting it off the best man, who wanted to read out and show the juicy bits to the assemblage. I've still got that, too, and Peggy and I look over it occasionally in artificial light so that there will be no danger of the drawings fading. Bob Shaw made a speech. He hadn't been given any prior notification about this, which was very unfair, I realise now, but he made a very fine speech anyway— dry, insulting, and chock-full of egoboo for me. There were other speeches, too, including a short one by me. This was the only part of the reception which I did not enjoy. Then people began to break up and percolate, and Peggy and I went around to say a quick good-by to everyone, us having a plane to catch.

	This took about an hour and a half and I can't remember what anyone said or was doing, except that the piano was being abused constantly, that the hard stuff was flowing in a satisfactory manner and that the cases of beer were being shamelessly ignored. But then, just before we went to change and clear the coal and empty cans from our suitcases, we noticed John Berry keeping the beer cases company, assisted by Peggy's father. When we left for the plane half an hour later they were sitting on an empty case, which between them they had rendered that way, discussing their respective capacities for holding beer. It gave me a little lump in my throat to see the way these two fine people, the fan and the normal denizen of the mundane world, were united in the common cause of making those three cases of beer feel wanted.

	As a meteorologist in those days I was pretty good, and sure enough a storm blew up just as the plane for London was taking off. All during the trip we kept blundering in and out of thunderheads, and the plane travelled up and down more than it did sideways, and hardly seemed to move forward at all. But we had a very nice, understanding hostess. When the bumps and shaking grew so bad that the deeper layers of confetti were dislodged from Peggy's hair, she smiled knowingly and insisted that we didn't need the paper bags she was distributing, that we weren't airsick at all and that it was just the excitement of the day that tended to unsettle us. She was very persuasive and we believed her, because we were able to return the bags in mint condition.

	A lot of other people on the plane must have been more sceptical, however, or maybe they had much more exciting weddings than we did.

THE EXORCISTS OF IF
by James White

	A large and vulgarly ostentatious station wagon with the name of a local estate agent emblazoned on its flanks pulled in and parked outside the garden gate of 170 Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast. Within a few minutes the Willis MG, the Charters Morris Minor and the White Fiat, which happened to be red, pulled in behind him. The estate agent introduced himself to the three drivers, then paused while four Saracen armoured cars whined past in low gear.

	"It was very good of you to come," he went on quickly, when they could hear themselves think again. "I know there should be five of you, but Mr Shaw has moved with his family to England and Mr Berry recently retired from the police fingerprint department to do the same. But I hope that you three, Mr Willis as a former tenant of 170, and Mr Charters and Mr White as frequent visitors to the place, will be able to help me. You're my last hope, in fact."

	"You weren't very informative on the phone," said Walter. "What exactly is your problem?"

	"And if we're your last hope," said James, "who or what did you try first?"

	"I ...I couldn't go into details on the 'phone," the estate agent replied nervously. "And the first person I tried was Father Mallon from the chapel down the road."

	"I know of him!" James broke in. "He's a member of the British Interplanetary Society and he's got a private pilot's licence and a 12-inch reflector on the presbytery roof which the Army thought at first was a SAM 7 missile system and, although he doesn't read sf, he's a very—"

	"Well," said George, "nobody's perfect."

	The agent gestured towards the three-story red-brick building which was 170, then went on, "I told him about the voices and ...other manifestations, and he agreed to visit the house for a preliminary reconnaissance prior to briefing himself on exorcism procedures. But he couldn't do anything. Apparently the bell, book and candle bit works only against manifestations of evil, and these particulars were noisy, hyperactive and almost palpable, but not, so far as he could ascertain, evil.

	"When he left he was talking theology, I think," the agent went on, "and he said something about the questionable efficacy of a Holy Water sprinkler against an Opponent armed with a spectral water pistol."

	Walter and George looked at James, who tried to look innocent.

	"Anyway," said the agent, "he agreed that there was something there all right, but he said he just couldn't get into the spirit of the thing."

	"A priest," said James solemnly, "could get himself excommunicated for a pun like that."

	"Please be serious, gentlemen," the agent went on. "People, potential tenants or buyers, even I myself, have heard the laughing and shouting and thumping noises. But I have never been able to make out what the voices are saying or shouting. There has always been something strange about that house since you left it, Mr Willis, and since the Troubles started it has become steadily worse. It's a good, well-built house, but nobody will live in it for more than a week. That is why I contacted you, gentlemen. I hoped that you could do or suggest something that will rid me of these awful ghosts."

	Walter inclined his head, but he was looking at the well-remembered house as he said, "We'll do what we can, of course. May I have the keys?"

	They left the agent pacing the pavement alongside their cars, where he would be able to reassure the Army patrols who might otherwise decide that their vehicles were possible car bombs and blow them up, and went through the garden gate and up three steps to the lawn. The gate still creaked and the lawn was covered with the same irregular patches of clover and/or shamrock, and the distant clattering of an observation helicopter merged with the buzzing of insects both actual and spectral.

	"It all comes back, doesn't it?" said Walter.

	The voices from the past were saying things like "Let's not collate today—we can discuss broad matters of policy and get sunburned" and "I'd rather lie on shamrock than real rock, which is why I like champagne too" and "Nonsense, George, shamrock only grows on Catholic lawns" and "Well, I'm not one to worry over trefoils."

	Walter said, "Let's go round the back."

	It was much quieter in the backyard. A ghostly Bonestell-type spaceship towered all of 8 1/2 inches above the tiles while the misty figures of an impossibly young Walter, Bob and James and a slightly less elderly George Charters crouched over it, discussing a technical problem.

	According to the youthful, ghostly James, who even then had been a lapsed member of the British Interplanetary Society, the trouble lay in the fact that his balsa wood spaceship weighed 3/4 ounce while its motor developed a maximum pre-Brennschluss thrust of only half an ounce, which caused the thing to just sit there hissing and straining upwards. The answer which had been worked out was one of breathtaking simplicity. A length of thread had been attached to the vehicle's nose cone, and passed over the Willis clothesline; a small bunch of keys—weighing just under 3/4 ounce—was tied to the other end. Phrases like "It's an old trick but it might just work" and "It beats the Dean Drive" hung in the air.

	"Pity," said the contemporary James, "there weren't more clotheslines in the lunar insertion orbit."

	They passed through the oblivious figures and into the kitchen before the phantom spaceship took off and set fire to the spectral clothesline.

	"Surely," said Walter, "you were never that skinny, James. But you, George, haven't changed a bit. You must have been born old and venerable."

	"Not true," said George, "I got like this in primary school, from carrying little girls' tablets of stone home for them. That's why I had to give up work on the pyramids."

	The remembered smell as they entered the kitchen was a culinary effluvium describable only by Ray Bradbury in his homespun period, and the air was made even thicker by conversation like ... "I hate to see you slaving over hot dishes, Madeleine, can I give you a hand?" and "Go sit in the front room, Harris, you're not going to slaver over my dish." and "Farmhouse soup clogs water pistols" and "It happens to be a diabetic apple tart riddled with visually loathsome masses of undissolved saccharin" and "Sorry, we're fresh out of eyes of newt" and "No newts are good newts."

	They shuddered in unison and moved into the dining room, where a ghostly double-dished light fixture—which Peggy White had once called a candle-bra—shed a warm effulgence (light having already been used in this sentence) on a dining table groaning with good things and bad puns provided, respectively, by Madeleine and all the fans who had visited Oblique House over the years—Lee Hoffman, Vince Clarke, Ken Bulmer, Chuck Harris, Mal Ashworth, both Ian McAulays and dozens of others.

	The noisiest spectre of the lot was Chuck, who at that time had recently gone completely deaf and had not yet learned to modulate his voice properly. He kept shouting for everyone to write it down because he couldn't lipread Irish accents, then surreptitiously pocketing the scraps of paper for use in his monumental fan work Through Darkest Ireland With Knife, Fork and Spoon. The leanest and hungriest ghost was that of Bob Shaw, who complained of having hollow bones and a fifth-dimensional gut.

	"Yes, I did try the gingerbread; and found it not guilty," they were saying, and "Nobody asked me if I wanted a seventh cup of tea" and "Why do English people speak English with that terrible English accent?" and "White lions running down the middle of the road mean it's a mane road" and "We're using grief-proof paper next issue" and "We'll assemble the mag on the dining room table and invite people to a small collation" and "People laugh at the funniest things."

	In the front room a ghostly John Berry, on tiptoe and with his arms flapping up and down like a pterodactyl, was describing the preliminaries to lovemaking in his house. The idea was to display one's ardour, physical fitness and aerodynamic control by launching oneself off the top of the wardrobe to make a semi-crash landing into the eager arms of one's mate. All that was required was a flat-topped wardrobe, a solidly sprung bed and a steady diet of water-cress.

	In a series of temporal overlays the other fannish conversations and incidents proceeded over and around the flapping figure of John, including one involving George surrounded by exploding fireworks, a box of which he had inadvertently ignited with the ash from his cigarette. The other occupants of the room had hurriedly evacuated the area and were watching from the lawn, but George had been trapped by the Willis settee, whose upholstery was as soft and yielding as quicksand ...

	"Surrounded by all those sparks and glowing balls," said Walter, "you looked like a Virgil Finlay illo, George."

	"And if it happened now," George replied, "we would probably be 	interned for running a bomb factory." A slow, clanking sound—which mundane folk might well have mistaken for the rattling of chains—grew louder as they mounted the stairs towards the box-room. Apart from the noise made by the Manly Banister printing press turning out one of the later editions of Slant the room was quiet; except when one of the fan compositors accidentally dropped a stick of type on the floor and felt the need to relieve his feelings verbally; or when Bob and James were trying to decide whether an illo was crude or stark; or when Madeleine arrived with the tea tray; or when a ghostly Walter dashed into the room, immaculate in tennis whites, to set a few lines of type before the next match in his club's tournament, to dash out again looking like a less immaculate Dalmatian.

	Respectfully and almost ashamedly they backed out of that tiny room and its ghosts, the scene of so much energy and enthusiasm, to climb slowly and thoughtfully to the front attic.

	There, the ghosts of people and things were almost palpable. Ranged around the bare plaster walls were the spectral shapes of bookshelves bulging with promags and fanzines; the Banister press which had been moved up when the box-room became a nursery; the big wall mirror with the transverse crack which Bob had painted over with a rocket-ship trailing a long tail of fire; the Marilyn Monroe Calendar; the ATom illos, in colour; the St. Fantony statuette; the Berrycade, which was a strong wooden frame covering the inside of the window to prevent John from pushing his posterior through it, as had been his wont during games of ghoodminton. And across the table and the net in the centre of the room raged the game of ghoodminton itself: a game which was part badminton, part all-in wrestling and part commando assault course.

	"Face! Face! You hit my face, our point!" the players were shouting, and "Take the shuttlecock out of your mouth then—you'll warp the feathers" and "It went into the bookcase, out, our point!" and "It's not in the bookcase. It must have gone into hyperspace" and the attempted promulgation of a new rule, "Hyperspace is out."

	But it was the other voices which sounded stronger and more insistent. There was the southern brogue of Ian McAulay, who often motorbiked the hundred-plus miles from Dublin on Thursday nights, to play ghoodminton and talk before leaving early to get back across the border before, as Bob put it, the Irish Republic was closed for the night. And there were the ghostly faces and voices of Big Name and small name fans from the US and the UK who had come and been so affected by the ghoodminton or Madeleines cooking or the unique fannish atmosphere of the place that they, too, had left something of themselves behind to take part in the haunting.

	"We can remember," said Walter quietly, as the three of them stood in the middle of the attic with the conversation and the laughter beating insistently at them from all sides. "But why should it affect ordinary non-fannish people who don't even—"

	Suddenly a savage, crashing detonation rattled the windows and a misshapen finger of smoke poked slowly into the night sky. Very faintly came the chatter of automatic weapons, the snap of a high-velocity rifle and the distant braying of an ambulance. But the voices from the past were there too, and louder than ever.

	"Sounds like your side of town, James," said Walter in a worried voice. "It will be dark in an hour, and you would be safer back across the Peace Line before—"

	"The fuggheads," said George, still watching the ascending column of smoke.

	"Yes," said James absently. He gestured, the jerky movement of his hand taking in the room, the house around them and the scene outside, then went on quietly, "I think I know what is going on here. Think for a minute about a haunted house. It is a place where something so terrible and evil has happened in the past that the very structure is imbued with it, and it lingers and frightens the ordinary people who come into contact with it.

	"But now," he went on, pointing towards the window, "it is the city and the country that have become so terrible and evil that they frighten the ordinary people, with bombings, ambushes, sectarian murders, widespread intimidation. It is the outside that is haunted, and in here ...well, remember the people and the kind of place this used to be. It wasn't just the fan group or the awful puns or the fanzines we put out. No, we were fanatics too, in a quiet way, about other things too. Like toleration, racial equality, lots of things. But now we are scattered. Even we three can't meet very often, things being as they are, and the people we used to be are reacting to this present ghastly situation all around us by haunting the place."

	"I think you're right," said Walter. Very seriously, he went on, "But remember, James, despite our religious and other differences and everything that has happened, we three haven't changed."

	"No," said George, "we haven't changed."

	"That's right," said James, "we haven't."

	They stood together for a long moment looking out over the city, then they left the bare and utterly silent attic and walked slowly downstairs past the box room, where the ghostly clanking of the Banister press was stilled, past the kitchen, dining room and lounge which were likewise silent, and across the lawn which buzzed only with this evening's insects.

	The estate agent hurried forward to meet them, then he saw the expressions on their faces and went past without speaking. For several minutes they could hear his feet clumping about on the floorboards and stairs of the now empty house; then he returned.

	"You've done it!" he said excitedly. "It, they, whatever it was, has gone. Thank you gentlemen, very much ..." He paused, studying their faces for a moment, trying to analyse the expressions; they were not sad, exactly, and not exactly triumphant, but seemed to reflect a peculiar mixture of both those feelings. Hesitantly he went on, "If you can tell me, how ...how did you get rid of those ghosts?"

	The three old-time fans looked at one another, and nodded. James cleared his throat. "We were able to convince them," he said quietly, "that they weren't dead yet."

THE UNREAL GEORGE AFFAIR
by James White

	Except in moments of great surprise, sudden pain, severe emotional stress or all three together, I try to avoid using exclamation marks, italics or profane language. But this was the first time anything like this had happened to me.

	"George!" I said. "What the hell are you doing here?"

	He looked at me uncertainly, tilted his head slightly to one side and gave one of his shy smiles, just the way he used to do when somebody had said or done something stupid and his innate politeness forbade him reminding them of it. Then suddenly he turned, smiled again and walked away. Some people coming out of the supermarket behind me got between us and I lost sight of him.

	After I had recovered, I directed some more profane words and exclamation marks at myself, under my breath this time, which doesn't count. No one would ever dream of speaking in such uncouth fashion to a person as gentle and mild-mannered as George Charters—except when he would make a very bad pun, which doesn't count either—and up until then I had never even spoken sharply to him. I was very ashamed of myself.

	Ghosts, I thought, must have feelings, too.

	It was pretty certain that he was a ghost because he was George exactly as I remembered him in the fifties and sixties, not as he had been towards the end, when his hair had been white and tinnitus, one of the results of his car accident that had caused a hairline cranial fracture, had made it difficult for him to sleep, as well as dulling the fine mind that could solve the Times crossword as quickly, it seemed, as the rest of us took to write a grocery list. This had been the George we liked to remember, the editor of THE Scarr, contributor to Slant's "The Corn Is Green" column, and the man who by his gentle, old world charm had so captivated Bea Mahaffey during her visit in 1954 that she had unknowingly christened him with the fannish name that has remained to this day.

	It had been after he had left us to catch the last train home to Bangor that we asked Bea what she thought of him. "He's George," she had said enthusiastically, using a form of Cincinnati slang we had not heard until then. "He's Real George. No, he's George All The Way!" Later we discovered that there were very few things that she considered Real George at that time—the movie "Shane," the Empire State Building, the Stewart novel Earth Abides—and even fewer that were George All The Way. And so it was that the fan George Charters became from that time on the redoubtable GATWC.

	And now he had come back.

	It had to be more of an enchantment than a haunting, I thought, because George's ghost was not a thing (oops, sorry) that anyone could possibly be afraid of, and I was sorely puzzled rather than sore afraid. If I was given a second chance to talk to him, my opening words would be more circumspect and certainly more polite, but my question would remain the same.

	George, what are you doing here?

	As a confirmed hard (sf) case, ghosts were outside my area of expertise. But there had been a recent program on BBC-2 called, I think, "The Haunts of Britain," which had given valuable if sometimes confusing information on the subject.

	It had stated that one person in every ten saw a ghost sometime in his or her lifetime, but of that number only three in ten knew that they were actually seeing ghosts. Interesting, I had thought, but where on Earth, or wherever, had they gathered those statistics? But then the program had gone on to discuss information that was more commonly accepted.

	For example, ghosts only came back if they were unquiet and unhappy spirits whose work on Earth had been unfinished. They wanted something done, or they had left something undone but, being immaterial on this plane of existence, they needed the help of a material pair of hands to do it for them. Still, none of this fitted the George who had been waiting for me outside the supermarket. He had been quiet, as he always had been in life, rather than unquiet, and his smile had not looked the slightest bit unhappy. But my rude and intemperate manner had caused him to leave without speaking, or, if he was not allowed to speak down here, of making any other signal.

	What could he possibly want me to do?

	In the past the only things he had ever asked me for were contributions to The Scarr. Much to our surprise and admiration, he had become a fanzine editor late in life and the title was an anagram of the name "Charters." Despite us being close friends, his requests for material from the group were more like gentle hints to the effect that if there were too many blank pages between the ATom cover and the letters of comment at the back, the letters would become fewer and the comments more hostile. And then he would smile shyly and incline his head in exactly the same way as he had done a few minutes ago. He understood that in my case the mundane responsibilities of a wife, a growing family and a mortgage necessitated most of my spare time being devoted to writing pro rather than fan stuff, and the others had similar worldly pressures. But in spite of his ultra-soft approach, he got material from all of us.

	And now, knowing from intelligence sources not available to people down here that our children are grown up and away or married and that I have now retired to Portstewart with its scenery, sunsets, storms and, it seems, a haunted supermarket entrance, he must also know that there is nothing, except for a possible age-expired brain, to stop me writing for him.

	But there are serious metaphysical and financial problems in sending material to an immaterial fanzine.

	Back in the days of Slant we used to listen to Walter's home-made, all-wave super-superhet as a means of relieving the tedium of typesetting and in the hope of improving our minds, and once there was a very metaphysical play on by C.S. Lewis, the title of which I have forgotten, which had some sense of wondery things to say about Heaven. One of them was that, to accommodate all the people who had died and moved there since the dawn of mankind, Heaven would have to cover an area of many light years squared. Even if I was to find out his exact address and post code, and the local Post Office was willing to accept it for delivery without consigning the consignor ro the nearest mental hospital, sending anything to a place that size would cost the Earth in postage especially, as seemed logical, it would have to go airmail.

	It never entered my mind that George would go to the other place. A gentle easy-going Protestant and Orangeman so liberal in his views that he would allow a Catholic to try on his sash was nor, I felt sure, going to end up anywhere unpleasant. But that did not help me with the simple and seemingly insoluble problem of submitting material to him.

	On the way home I went, as is my wont, by way of the cliff walk, but spared scarcely a glance for the sunlit beauty of the Innishowen Peninsula or the whitecaps on the deep blue of Lough Foyle, because my mind was a prey to wild surmises and crazy thoughts, mostly having to do with Dave Langford.

	Four winters ago, when the computer and I were living together but were not even good friends, Dave had brought about a reconciliation that has lasted to this day. One of my problems had been to do with a weeks-long winter storm that was interfering with the power supply and causing me to lose anything from thirty-six and a half up to, on one catastrophic occasion, five hundred words of uniquely fine pieces of sheer writing—in rough draft, of course. When I told him that those words had been the product of much mental labor, that for many hours they had existed in this space-time continuum in my computer's memory and on rhe monitor screen and that they had been, well, there, and I asked him if in his expert opinion there was any way of getting them back again, he said no.

	No, he had elaborated, because when your computer loses power it also loses its memory and your words are gone, lost and forever inaccessible in a hyperdimension of philosophical quasi-unreality or, in layman's terms, like consigned to Limbo. He also said that henceforth I should save on disk after every thirty-six and a quarter words and that, owing to my evident emotional distress and me being a fellow Celt and all, he would waive the consultation fee.

	That was it! I thought, knowing that I was using far too many italics and exclamation marks for a short article but not caring anymore. In the immaterial environmental sense, and bearing in mind the laws governing such places, Limbo could only be a metaphysical stone's throw from Heaven. Now I knew what must be done.

	The piece I wrote for George was not long, but it was revised and polished on-screen until it was as good as I could make it. Even the puns were pretty good, for me. One's friends deserve one's best shot, and besides, I had no idea who or how tough the competition would be from his other contributors up there. The temptation was very strong to save it on disk or take a hard copy. But if I had done that the piece would have existed Here instead of There, and someday it might have found its way into an ordinary fanzine, which might have precluded its appearance in an immaterial one, and besides, none of us would dream of sending George a simultaneous submission. When it was finished I switched off the disk drive and the printer and read it over again on-screen, changing the odd phrase here and there and then changing them back again. Then, without giving myself any more time to think, I switched off the computet and the piece was gone, wiped out of existence and, hopefully, on its way.

	That was three months ago. Since then I have been looking for George wherever I go, without success, and thinking about the whole affair. It is possible that, my eyesight being what it is, I saw someone who only looked and smiled like the old, younger George we knew, and who left quickly because my first words to him lacked politeness. If that is the case, then I would father not see him again to have the error confirmed. But it is also possible that the one appearance was all that was necessary because I got and understood his message, which leaves me waiting and wondering about something else.

	George always sends contributor's copies.

MORE ABOUT SECTOR GENERAL

SECTOR GENERAL TIMELINE
by Gary Louie

	James White's Sector General stories follow an internal sequence which can be discerned by careful reading of the stories. Since dates are rarely given, only the order—and occasionally the timing—of stories can be derived. In this section, Gary Louie presents the timeline of Sector General, including (with the cooperation of Tor Books) two novels which have not yet been published.

Custom Fitting	The tailor Hewlitt accepts a commission to design, cut, and build a suit for His Excellency the Lord Scrennagle of Dutha.

Tableau	After a bad first contact, Earth and Orligia are at war for three years.

Tableau	Earth-human MacEwan and Orligian Grawlya-Ki are stopped.

Tableau	After 236 years, Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan are brought out of stasis.

Accident	Orligian Grawlya-Ki and Earth-human Mac	Ewan conceive the idea of Sector General.

Occupation: Warrior 	Major Dermod (Seventeenth Earth Expeditionary Force) wages war on a Normal Kelgian military force.

Star Healer	The young Conway is orphaned on Braemar and raised by his Grandmother.

Medic	Mr. O'Mara cares for a Hudlar infant during the construction of Sector General.

	(Major O'Mara is made Chief of Psychology at Sector General.)

	(Junior Intern Conway arrives at Sector General.)

Sector General	Junior Intern Conway takes his first Educator Tape while treating a Telfi gestalt.

Sector General	Junior Intern Conway is forced to kill an AACP life form to prevent further loss of life and damage to Sector General.

Trouble with Emily 	Doctor Arretapec visits Sector General to work with Junior Intern Conway on Emily.

Visitor at Large	Doctor Prilicla arrives at Sector General.

Visitor at Large	SRTT Visitor gets loose in Sector General, causing havoc.

Out-Patient	Doctor Conway is promoted to Senior Physician.

Out-Patient	The Federation makes contact with the Ians.

Countercharm	Senior Physician Conway takes his first long-term Educator Tape.

	(Doctor Conway gets married to Nurse Murchison.)

	(Senior Physician Mannen's dog dies.)

Invader	Thought Controlled Tool appears at Sector General.

Vertigo	The Federation makes contact with the Drambon Rollers.

Blood Brother	Senior Physician Conway finds a Drambon Physician.

Meatball	The Drambon Physician cures an injured Kelgian in Sector General.

Major Operation	Senior Physician Conway directs an operation on the Drambon Strata Creature.

Spacebird	The Spacebird is found by the Monitor Corps Scoutship Torrance in Sector 9.

Contagion	The Sector General Ambulance Ship Rhabwar commissioned.

Contagion	The Earth Generation Ship Einstein is found and abandoned again.

Quarantine	Senior Physician Conway declares Contamination One alert in Sector General.

Quarantine	The Federation makes contact with Dwerla.

Recovery	The Ambulance Ship Rhabwar rescues a Protector of the Unborn aboard a Blind One's ship.

Survivor	An EGCL transmitting empath is admitted to Sector General.

Investigation	Casualties near a wreck lead Major Fletcher to think a serious crime had been committed.

Combined Operation The massive CRLT Gestalt is settled on a new world after surgery.

Star Surgeon	An ELPH Patient, Lonvellin, is suspected of committing murder on its companion and physician.

Star Surgeon	Senior Physician Conway visits Etla the Sick.

Star Surgeon	Lonvellin is killed by a nuclear warhead on Etla the Sick.

Star Surgeon	The Etlan Empire is at war with the Federation and attacks Sector General.

Star Surgeon	Senior Physician Conway takes seven Educator Tapes and acts as a walking translator on Sector General.

Final Diagnosis	As a child, the patient Hewlitt is exposed to a virus and is orphaned in a flyer crash.

Star Healer	The Trainee Danalta arrives at Sector General.

Star Healer	Senior Physician Conway is relieved of duty on Rhabwar while he considers a promotion to Diagnostician.

Star Healer	Senior Physician Prilicla is promoted to Senior Medical Officer aboard the Ambulance Ship Rhabwar.

Star Healer	Senior Physician Conway meets the Healer Khone on Goglesk.

Star Healer	Acting Diagnostician Conway adjusts to carrying several Educator Tapes.

Star Healer	The Gogleskan Healer Khone requests to visit Sector General.

Star Healer	A sentient Protector of the Unborn is born.

Star Healer	Doctor Conway is confirmed as Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery. 

Code Blue—Emergency The Sommaradvan Cha Thrat arrives at Sector General.

Code Blue—Emergency The Chalder hypochondriac patient Muro-meshomon leaves Sector General.

Code Blue—Emergency The Gogleskan Khone arrives at Sector General with its child.
	(The Cromsaggar Incident.)

Genocidal Healer	Surgeon-Captain Lioren is court-martialed for the Cromsaggar Incident.

Genocidal Healer	Ex-Diagnostician Mannen is a terminal patient.

The Galactic Gourmet Chief Dietician Gurronsevas arrives at Sector General.

The Galactic Gourmet The Federation makes contact with the Wem. 

The Galactic Gourmet Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery Conway's first name is revealed.

Final Diagnosis	Patient Hewlitt arrives at Sector General with a non-specific ailment.

Final Diagnosis	A intelligent collection of viruses infect a series of hosts, of different physiological classifications, raising the fear of inter-species contagion.

NOTES ON THE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

	Unless you are attached to a multi-environment hospital like this one, you normally meet extra-terrestrials one species at a time and refer to them by their planet of origin. But here in the hospital and in the wrecked ships we will encounter, rapid and accurate identification of incoming patients and rescued survivors is vital, because all too often the casualties are in no fit condition to furnish physiological information about themselves. For this reason we have evolved a four-letter physiological classification system which works like this.

	The first letter denotes the level of physical evolution. The second letter indicates the type and distribution of limbs and sensory equipment, which in turn gives us information regarding the positioning of the brain and other major organs. The remaining two letters refer to the combination of metabolism and gravity and/or atmospheric pressure requirements of the being, and this is tied in with the physical mass and the protective tegument, skin, fur, scales, osseous plating, and so on, represented by the relevant letter.

	It is at this point during the hospital lectures that we have to remind some of our e-t medical students that the initial letter of their classification should not be allowed to give them feelings of inferiority, and that the level of physical evolution, which is, of course, an adaptation to their planetary environment, has no relation to the level of intelligence. Species with the prefix A, B and C were water-breathers. On most worlds life had originated in the sea, and these beings had developed high intelligence without having to leave it. The letters D through F were warmblooded oxygen-breathers, into which group fell most of the intelligent races in the Galaxy, and the G to K types were also warm-blooded but insectile. The L's and M's were light-gravity, winged beings. Chlorine-breathing life-forms were contained in the O and P groups, and after that came the more exotic, the more highly evolved physically, and the downright weird types. These included the ultra-high-temperature and frigid-blooded or crystalline beings, and entities capable of modifying their physical structure at will. Those possessing extra-sensory powers sufficiently well-developed to make ambulatory or manipulatory appendages unnecessary were given the prefix V, regardless of physical size or shape.

	There are anomalies in the system, but these can be blamed on a lack of imagination by its originators. One of them was the AACP life-form, which is a vegetable metabolism. Normally the prefix A denotes water-breather, there being nothing lower in the system than the piscatorial life-forms. But then we discovered the AACP's, who were, without doubt, vegetable intelligences, and the plants came before fish.

THE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
by Gary Louie

Classification: AACL
Planet Unknown
Species: Crepellian Pet
No Individual Names Known
A non-intelligent pet kept by AMSOs. It has six python-like tentacles which poke though seals in the cloudy plastic of its suit. The tentacles are each at least twenty feet long and tipped with a horny substance which must be steel-hard.

Classification: AACP 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
A race whose remote ancestors were a species of mobile vegetable. They are slow moving, but the carbon dioxide tanks which they wear seem to be the only protection they need. AACPs do not eat in the normal manner but plant themselves in specially prepared soil during their sleep period, and absorb nutriment in that way.

Classification: AMSI, 
Planet Unknown
Species: Creppelian, Crepellian
Individuals: Nurse Towan, Diagnostician Vosan
A species of water breathing octopoids.

Classification: AMSO 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
A larger life-form, in the habit of keeping non-intelligent AACL-type creatures as pets.

Classification: AUGL 
Planet: Chalderescol II 
Species: Chaldor, Chalder
Individuals: Patient AUGL-113, Patient AUGL-116, Patient AUGL-122, Patient AUGL-126, Patient AUGL-187, Patient AUGL-193, Patient AUGL-211, Patient AUGL-218, Patient AUGL-221, Patient AUGL-233, Muromeshomon The denizens of Chalderescol, an armored fish-like species are water-breathers who can not live in any other medium for more than a few seconds. A heavily plated and scaled being, slightly resembling a forty-foot long armour-plated crocodile, except that instead of legs there is an apparently haphazard arrangement of stubby fins, and a heavy knife-edged tail. A fringe of ribbon-like tentacles encircles its middle, projecting through some of the only openings visible in its organic armor. Chaldors have six rows of teeth in an over-large mouth. The Chalders are one of the few intelligent species whose personal names are used only between mates, members of the immediate family, or very special friends.

Classification: BLSU
Planet: Groalter
Species: Groalterri
Individual: Hellishomar the Cutter
The Groalterri overall body configuration is that of a squat octopoid with short, thick tentacular limbs. Its central torso and head seem disproportionately large. The eight limbs terminate alternately in four sets of claws (that will with maturity evolve into manipulatory digits) and four flat, sharp-edged, osseous blades. The organ of speech and hearing is centered above the four heavily lidded eyes that are equally spaced around the cranium. A macrospecies, there is an element of risk involved to any life-form of more or less normal body mass which approaches it too closely.

Classification: BRLH 
Planet: Tarla 
Species: Tarlan
Individuals: Surgeon-Captain/Trainee/Padre Lioren, Sedith and Wrethrin the Healers
Tarlans are an erect quadrupedal life-form with its for short-legs supporting a tapering, cone-shaped body. Four long, multi-jointed, medial arms for heavy lifting and handling sprout from waist-level. Another four that are suited for more delicate work encircle the base of the neck. Equally spaced around the head are four eyes whose stalks are capable of independent motion. Tarlans have very large teeth. An adult Tarlan stands eight feet tall.

Classification: CLCH 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
Apparent typographical error for classification CLHG.

Classification: CLHG 
Planet: Drambo 
Species: Roller
Individuals: Camsaug, Surreshun
The Rollers resemble animated donuts rolling on their outer edge, with manipulatory appendages in the form of a fringe of short tentacles sprouting from the inner circumference between the series of gill mouths and eyes. Its visual equipment must operate like a coeleostat since the contents of its field of vision are constantly rotating. The Rollers must roll to stay alive—there is an ingenious method of shifting its center of gravity while keeping itself upright by partially inflating the section of its body which is on top at any given moment. The continual rolling causes blood to circulate—it uses a form of gravity feed system instead of a muscular pump. The species reproduce hermaphroditically. Each parent after mating grows twin offspring, one on each side of its bodies like continuous blisters encircling the side walls of a tire. Injury, disease or the mental confusion immediately following birth could cause the parent to lose balance, roll on to its side, stop and die. The points where the children eventually detach themselves from their parents remain very sensitive areas to both generations and their positions are governed by hereditary factors. The result is that any close blood relation trying to make mating contact causes itself and the other being considerable pain. The rollers really do hate their fathers and every other relative. The species is water-breathing with a warm-blooded oxygen-based metabolism. The life-support mechanism for the species is physically complicated, to allow the occupant to roll naturally within it. The concept of modesty is completely alien to this race. This species does not know the meaning of sleep. There is no such thing as sleeping, pretending to be dead or unconsciousness. A Roller is either moving and alive or still and dead.

Classification: CLSR 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
Apparent typographical error for classification CPSD.

Classification: CPSD 
Planet Unknown 
Species: The Blind Ones 
No Individual Names Known
These beings are roughly circular, just over a meter in diameter and, in cross section, a slim oval flattened slightly on the underside. In shape they very much resemble their ship, except that the ship does not have a long, thin horn or sting projecting aft or a wide, narrow slit on the opposite side which is obviously a mouth. The upper lip of the mouth is wider and thicker than the lower, and can be curled over the lower lip, apparently sealing the mouth shut. The beings are covered, on their upper and lower surfaces and around the rim, by some kind of organic stubble which varies in thickness from pin-size to the width of a small finger. The stubble on the underside is much coarser than that on the upper surface, and it is plain that parts of it are designed for ambulation. The Blind Ones evolved underground, and have no organs for sight. They formed an alliance with the Protectors of the Unborn, each species providing something that other lacked.

Classification: CRLT 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
Senior Physician Conway was unable to classify this life-form with complete certainty. The initial analysis was performed on a cadaver, an independent portion of a larger composite being. The composite is a warm-blooded oxygen breather with the type of basic metabolism associated with the physiological grouping CRLT. Even a segment is massive, measuring approximately twenty meters in length and three meters in diameter, excluding projecting appendages. Physically it resembles the DBLF Kclgian life-form, but it is many times larger and possesses a leathery tegument rather than the silver fur of the Kelgians. Like the DBLF's it is multipedal, but the manipulatory appendages are positioned in a single row along the back. There are twenty-one of these dorsal limbs, all showing evidence of early evolutionary specialization. Six of them are long, heavy, and claw-tipped and are obviously evolved for defense since the being is a herbivore. The other fifteen are in five groups of three, spaced between the six heavier tentacles, which terminate in four digits, two of which are opposable. These thinner limbs are manipulatory appendages originally evolved for gathering and transferring food to the mouths—three on each flank opening into three stomachs. Two additional orifices on each side open into a very large and complex lung. The structure inside these breathing orifices suggests that expelled air could be interrupted and modulated to produce intelligence-bearing sounds. On the underside are three openings used for the elimination of wastes. The mechanism of reproduction is unclear and the specimen shows evidence of possessing both male and female genitalia on the forward and rear extremities respectively. The brain, if it is a brain, takes the form of a cable of nerve ganglia with localized swellings in three places, running longitudinally through the cadaver like a central core. There is another and much thinner nerve cable running parallel to the thicker core, but below it and about twenty-five centimeters from the underside. Positioned close to each extremity are two sets of three eyes. Two are mounted dorsally and two on each of the forward and rear flanks. They are recessed but capable of limited extension; together they give the being complete and continuous vision vertically and horizontally. The type and positioning of the visual equipment and appendages suggest that it evolved on a very unfriendly world. The tentative classification is an incomplete CRLT.

Classification: DBDG
Planets: Earth, Gregory (Colony)
Species: Earth-human, Gregorian
Individuals: Theologian Augustine, Lieutenant Braithwaite, Surgeon-Lieutenant Brenner, Corpsman Briggs, Lieutenant Briggs, Captain Chaplain Bryson, Lieutenant Carrington, Lieutenant Chen, Major Chiang, Clarke, Lieutenant Clifton, Junior Intern/ Senior Physician/Diagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery Peter Conway, Sergeant Davis, Major/Colonel Jonathan Dermod, Fleet Commander Dermod, Lieutenant Dodds, Lieutenant Dowling, Major-Captain Fletcher, Fox, Trainee Hadley, Harmon, Lieutenant Haslam, Patient Hewlitt, Tailor George L Hewlitt, Mrs. George L Hewlitt, Captain Hokasuri, Major Holyrod, OR Nurse Hudson, Lieutenant-General Lister, MacEwan, Major Madden, Captain Mallon, Senior Physician/Diagnostician/Patient Mannen/Mannon, Nurse/Pathologist Murchison, Major Nelson, Mister/Major/Chief Psychologist O'Mara, Captain Sigvard Nyberg, Doctor Pelling, General Prentiss, Reviora, Lieutenant-Colonel Simmons, Colonel Skempton, Surgeon-Lieutenant/Major Stillman, Lieutenant-Surgeon Sutherland, Corpsman Tinimins, Lieutenant Wainright, Waring, Corpsman/Colonel-Captain Williamson 
Probable Individuals: Lieutenant Carmody, Lieutenant Carson, Section Chief Caxton, Major Colinson, Major Craythorne, Major Edwards, Doctor Hamilton, Dietician-in-Chief KW Hardin, Lieutenant Harrison, Lieutenant Hendricks, Kellerman, Colonel Okaussie, Captain Stillson, Captain Summerfield,TrooperTeirnan, Surgeon-Captain Telford
This species shows their teeth in a silent snarl when displaying amusement or friendship and make an unpleasant barking sound that denotes amusement. The sound, called laughing, in most cases a psychophysical mechanism for the release of minor degrees of tension. An Earth-human laughs because of sudden relief from worry or fear, or to express scorn or disbelief or sarcasm, or in response to words or a situation that is ridiculous, illogical or funny, or out of politeness when the situation or words are not funny but the person responsible is of high rank. The Earth-human voice is reputed to be one of the most versatile instruments in the Galaxy. The Earth-human DBDGs are the only race in the Galactic Federation with a nudity taboo, and one of the very few member species with an aversion to making love in public. The Earth-human DBDGs make up the majority of the Monitor Corps forces.

Classification: DBDG
Planets: Etlan Empire, Central World (Capital), Imperial Etla (Capital), Etla, Etla the Sick (Colony) 
Species: Etlan, Imperial
Individuals: Heraltnor, Imperial Representative Teltrenn The physiology of the citizens of the Empire is the same as the population of their colony Etla. The physiological resemblance is so close to Earth-human DBDGs that no other disguise other than native language and dress is needed. There are theories about a prehistoric colonization program by common, star-travelling ancestors. Attempts at procreation between Earth-human DBDGs and Etlans have been unsuccessful.

Classification: DBDG 
Planet: Nidia 
Species: Nidian
Individuals: Chief of Procurement Creon-Emesh, Senior Physician and Tutor Cresk-Sar, Surgeon-Lieutenant Dracht-Yur, Lieutenant-Colonel Dragh-Nin, Senior Physician Lesk-Murog, Senior Food Technician Sarnyagh-Sa, Yoragh-Kar 
Probable Individual: Surgeon-Lieutenant Krack-Yar The Nidians have seven-fingered hands, stand only four feet tall. They have a thick red fur coat, and look like a very cuddly teddy-bear.

Classification: DBDG 
Planet: Orligia 
Species: Orlig, Orligian
Individuals: Grawlya-Ki/Grulyaw-Ki, Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul, Major Sachan-Li, Colonel Shech-Rar, Surgeon-Lieutenant Turragh-Mar
Like the neighboring Nidians, Orligians resemble an Earth-human child's first non-adult friend—a teddy bear.

Classification: DBLF 
Planet: Ia
Species: Ian (pre-adolescent) 
No Individual Names Known
The being appears ring-shaped, rather like a large balloon tire. Overall diameter of the ring is about nine feet, with the thickness between two and three feet. The tegument is smooth, shiny and grey in color where it is not covered with a thick, brownish incrustation. The brown stuff, which covers more than half of the total skin area, looks cancerous, but may be some type of natural camouflage. There are five pairs of limbs, and no evidence of specialization. No visual organs or means of ingestion can be seen. The being isn't a doughnut, but possesses a fairly normal anatomy of the DBLF type—a cylindrical, lightly-boned body with heavy musculature. The being is not ring-shaped, but gives that impression because for some reason, known best to itself, it has been trying to swallow its tail. Senior Physician Conway, convinced all along that the patient is undergoing a natural metamorphosis, observes that the new patient, after the process is complete, is of classification GKNM.

Classification: DBLF 
Planet: Kelgia 
Species: Kelgian
Individuals: Patient Henredth, Senior Physician Karthad, Charge Nurse Kursedd, Diagnostician Kursedth, Patient Morrcdeth, Charge Nurse Naydrad, Fleet Commander Roonardth, Charge-Nurse Segroth, Diagnostician Suggrod, Student Nurse Tarscdth, Diagnostician Towan, Senior Physician Yarrence 
Probable Individual: Charge Nurse Kursenneth 
Kelgians are warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing, multipedal, and with a long, flexible cylindrical body covered overall by highly mobile, silvery fur. The Kelgian forelimbs have three digits. There are twenty sets of short, thin, and not heavily muscled walking limbs. The feet, which have no toe-nails or other terminations, are like small, hard sponges. The fur moves continually in slow ripples from the conical head right down to the tail. These are completely involuntary movements triggered by its emotional reactions to outside stimuli. The evolutionary reasons for this mechanism are not clearly understood, not even by the Kelgians themselves, but it is generally believed that the emotionally expressive fur complements the Kelgian vocal equipment, which lacks emotional flexibility of tone. The movements of the fur make it absolutely clear-to another Kelgian—what a Kelgian feels about the subject under discussion. As a result they always say exactly what they mean because what they think is plainly obvious—at least to another Kelgian. They cannot do otherwise. Kelgians have an intense aversion towards any surgical procedure which would damage or disfigure its most treasured possession, its furs. To a Kelgian the removal of a strip or patch of fur, which in their species represents a means of communication equal to the spoken word, is a personal tragedy which all too often results in permanent psychological damage. A Kelgians fur does not grow again and one whose pelt is damaged can rarely find a mate because it is unable to fully display its feelings. Kelgians are very close to Earth-humans in both basic metabolism and temperament. Except for the thin-walled, narrow casing which houses the brain, the DBLF species has no boney structure. Their bodies are composed of an outer cylinder of musculature which, in addition to be being its primary means of locomotion, serves to protect the vital organs within it. To the mind of a being more generously reinforced with bones, this protection is far from adequate. Another severe disadvantage in the event of injury is its complex and extremely vulnerable circulation system; the blood-supply network which has to feed the tremendous bands of muscle encircling its body runs close under the skin, as does the nerve network that controls the mobile fur. The thick fur of the pelt gives some protection here, but not against chunks of jagged-edged, flying metal. An injury which many other species would consider superficial could cause a DBLF to bleed to death in minutes. Kelgians are herbivorous.

Classification: DBPK
Planet: Dwerla
Species: Dwerlan
No Individual Names Known
A warm-blooded oxygen-breathing herbivore that does not walk upright. Judging by the shape of the spacesuits, the beings are flattened cylinders about six feet long with four sets of manipulatory appendages behind a conical section which is probably the head, and another four locomotor appendages. Apart from the smaller size and number of appendages, the beings physically resemble the Kelgian race. The pointed, fox-like head and the thick, broad-striped coat make it look like a furry, short-legged zebra with an enormous tail. These beings seem not to possess natural weapons of offence or defense, or any signs of having had any in the past. Even their limbs are not built for speed, so they cannot run from danger. The set used for walking are too short and are padded, while the forward set are more slender, less well-muscled and end in four highly flexible digits which don't possess so much as a fingernail among them. There are the fur markings, of course, but it is rare that a life-form rises to the top of its evolutionary tree by camouflage alone, or by being nice and cuddly. The species has two sexes, male and female, and the reproductive system seems relatively normal. Both sexes use a water soluble dye to enhance artificially the bands of color on their body fur—clearly the dyes are for cosmetic reasons. The immature do not use dyes, but use a brownish pigment on a bare patch above the tail.

Classification: DCNF 
Planet: Sommaradva 
Species: Sommaradvan 
Individual: Trainee Cha Thrat
Four Ambulatory limbs; Four waist-level heavy manipulators; and a set of manipulators for food provisions and fine work encircling the neck. This being has two stomachs. Sommaradvan society is stratified into three levels—serviles, warriors, and rulers—which strictly govern how an individual acts within the society.

Classification: DCSL
Planet: Cromsag
Species: Cromsaggar
No Individual Names Known
This species has three sets of limbs: two ambulators, two medial heavy manipulators, and two more at neck level for eating and to perform more delicate work. It has a cranium covered by thick, blue fur that continues in a narrow strip along the spine to the vestigial tail.

Classification: DHCG 
Planet: Wemar 
Species: Wcm
Individuals: First Hunter Creethar, Hunter Druuth, Youth Evemth, First Cook Remrath, First Teacher Tawsar
The Wem life-form is a warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing species with an adult body mass just under three times that of an Earth-human and, since Wermar's surface gravity is one point three eight standard Gs, a healthy specimen is proportionately well-muscled. It resembles the rare Earth beast called a kangaroo. The differences are that the head is larger and fitted with a really ferocious set of teeth; each of the two short forelimbs terminate in six-fingered hands possessing two opposable thumbs, and the tail is more massive and tapered to a wide, flat triangular tip composed of immobile osseous material enclosed by a thick, muscular sheath. The flattening at the end of tail serves a threefold purpose: as its principal natural weapon, as an emergency method of fast locomotion while hunting or being hunted, and as a means of transporting infant Wem who are too small to walk. The Wem hunt by adopting an awkward, almost ridiculous stance with their forelimbs tightly folded, their chins touching the ground, and their long legs spread so as to allow the tail to curve sharply downwards and forwards between the limbs so that the flat tip is at their center of balance. When the tail is straightened suddenly to full extension, it acts as a powerful third leg capable of hurling the Wem forward for a distance of five or six body lengths. If the hunter does not land on top of its prey, kicking the creature senseless with the feet before disabling it with a deep bite through the cervical vertebrae and underlying nerve trunks, it pivots rapidly on one leg so that the flattened edge of the tail strikes its victim like a blunt, organic axe. While the tail is highly flexible where downward and forward movement is concerned, it cannot be elevated above the horizontal line of the spinal column. The back and upper flanks are, therefore, the Wem's only body areas that are vulnerable to attack by natural enemies, who must also possess the element of surprise if they are not to become the victim.

Classification: DRVJ 
Species Name Unknown 
Planet Unknown
Individual: Doctor Yeppha 
A small, tripedal, fragile being. From the furry dome of its head there sprout singly and in small clusters, at least twenty eyes.

Classification: DTRC 
Species: Rhiim 
Planet Unknown 
Individual: Crelyarrel
Flat, roughly circular beings, dark gray and wrinkled on one surface, and with a paler, mottled appearance on the other, smooth, surface. The beings attach to their FGHJ hosts with thick tendrils growing from the edge of the disk. The tendrils penetrate into their FGHJ hosts' spinal columns and rear craniums. The DTRCs have their own special needs that in no way resemble those of their hosts, whose animal habits and undirected behavior are highly repugnant to them. It is vital to the DTRCs continued mental well-being that the masters escape periodically from their hosts to lead their own lives—usually during the hours of darkness when the tools are no longer in use and can be quartered where they can not harm themselves.

Classification: DTSB
Planet: Traltha
Species: Tralthan
No Individual Names Known
Apparent typographical error for classification OTSB.

Classification: EGCL
Planet: Duwetz
Species: Dewatti
No Individual Names Known
A warm-blooded, oyxgen-breathing life-form of approximately twice the body weight of an adult Earth-human. Visually it resembles an outsize snail with a high, conical shell which is pierced around the tip where its four extensible eyes are located. Equally spaced around the base of the shell are eight triangular slots from which project the manipulatory appendages. The carapace rests on a thick, circular pad of muscle which is the locomotor system. Around the circumference of the pad are a number of fleshy projections, hollows and slits associated with its systems of ingestion, respiration, elimination, reproduction, and nonvisual sensors. The EGCLs are organic empaths. They are organic transmitters, reflectors and focusers and magnifiers of their own feelings and those of the beings around them. The faculty has evolved to the stage where they have no conscious control over the process.

Classification: ELNT 
Planet: Melf Four 
Species: Melfan
Individuals: Maintenance Technician Dremon, Senior Physician Edanelt, Diagnostician Ergandhir, Patient Kennonalt, Patient Kletilt, Maintenance Technician Kledath, Nurse Lontallet, Senior Physician Medalont, Senreth
Melfans are large, low slung crab-like crustaceans. The six thin, bony, tubular, multi-jointed legs project from slits where the bony carapace and underside join. The legs and all of the body are ex-oskeletal. The head has large, protruding, vertically-lidded eyes, enormous mandibles, and pincers projecting forward from the place where ears should be. Two long, thin and fragile feelers grow from the sides of the mouth. The species is amphibious.

Classification: EPLA 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
Individual: Lonvellin
Apparent typographical error for classification EPLH.

Classification: EPLH 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
Individual: Lonvellin
The being is large, about one thousand pounds mass, and resembles a giant, upright pear. Five thick, tentacular appendages grow from the narrow head section and a heavy apron of muscle at its base-gives evidence of a snail-like, although not necessarily slow, method of locomotion. The being is warm-blooded and has fairly normal gravity requirements. Five large mouths are situated below the root of each tentacle, four being plentifully supplied with teeth and the fifth housing the vocal apparatus. The tentacles themselves show a high degree of specialization at their extremities: three of them arc-plainly manipulatory, one bears the patient's visual equipment, and the remaining member terminates in a horn-tipped, boney mace. The head is featureless, being simply an osseous dome housing the brain. The cranium is pierced at regular intervals for visual, aural and olfactory sensors. Their life-span, lengthy to begin with, is artificially extended. Because they have tremendous minds, they have plenty of time, but they constantly have to fight against boredom. Because part of the price of such longevity is an ever-growing fear of death, they need to have their own personal physicians—no doubt the most efficient practitioners of medicine known to them—constantly in attendance.

Classification: FGHJ 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
The being has six limbs, four legs and two arms, all very heavily muscled, and is hairless except for a narrow band of stiff bristles running from the top of the head along the spine to the tail, which seems to have been surgically shortened at an early age. The body configuration is a thick cylinder of uniform girth between the fore and rear legs, but the forward torso narrows towards the shoulders and is carried erect. The neck is very thick and the head small. There are two eyes, recessed and looking forward, a mouth with very large teeth, and other openings that are probably aural or olfactory sense organs. The legs terminate in large, reddish-brown hooves. Each hoof has four digits and does not appear particularly dexterous. This creature serves as a host to beings of classification DTRC. 

Classification: FGLI 
Planet: Traltha 
Species: Tralthan
Individuals: Patient Cossunallen, Crajarron, Chief Dietitian Gurronsevas, Patient Horrantor, Senior Physician Hossantir, Surriltor, Senior Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology Thornnastor
A massive entity with an osseous dome housing its brain, six elephantine feet connected to its triple massive shoulders, and four extensible eyes on an immobile head. Its six stubby legs normally give the Tralthan species such a stable base they frequently go to sleep standing up. Even healthy Tralthans have great difficulty getting up again if they fall onto their sides. Tralthans must not be rolled onto their backs under normal gravity conditions since this causes organic displacement which would increase their respiratory difficulties. Standard gravity at Sector General is just over half Tralthan normal. Tralthans are vegetarians. 

Classification: FOKT 
Planet: Goglesk 
Species: Gogleskan 
Individuals: Healer Khone and child
The Gogleskan FOKT resembles a large, dumpy cactuslike plant whose spikes and hair are richly colored in a pattern which seems less random the more you look at it. A faint smell comes from the entity, a combination of musk and peppermint. The mass of unruly hair and spikes covering its erect, ovoid body are less irregular in their size and placing than is at first apparent. The body hair has mobility, though not the high degree of flexibility and rapid mobility of the Kelgian fur, and the spikes, some of which are extremely flexible and grouped together to form a digital cluster, give evidence of specialization. The other spikes are longer and stiffer, and some of them seem to be partially atrophied, as if they were evolved for natural defense, but the reason for their presence has long since gone. There are also a number of long, pale tendrils lying amid the multicolored hair covering the cranial area, used for contact telepathy. Its voice seems to come from a number of small, vertical breathing orifices which encircles its waist. The being sits on a flat, muscular pad, and it has legs as well. These members arc stubby and concertina-like, and when the four of them are in use they increase the height of the being by several inches. The being also has two additional eyes at the back of its head—obviously this species has had to be very watchful in prehistoric times.

Classification: FROB
Planet: Hudlar
Species: Hudlar, Hudlarian
Individuals: Patient FROB-3, Patient FROB-10, Patient FROB-18, Patient FROB-43, Patient FROB-1132, Trainee FROB-61, Trainee FROB-73, Senior Physician Garoth, Infant Patient Metiglesh
Hudlars are blocky, pear-shaped beings whose home planet pulls four Earth gravities and has a high-density atmosphere so rich in suspended animal and vegetable nutrients that it resembles thick soup. Although the FROB life-form is warm-blooded and technically an oxygen-breather, it can go for long periods without air if its food supply, which it absorbs directly through its thick but highly porous tegument, is adequate. Hudlars are massive six legged beings. Each leg is an immensely strong tapering tentacle, which terminates in a cluster of flexible digits, curled inward so that the weight is born on heavy knuckles and the fingers remain clear of the floor. The two lidless, recessed eyes are protected by hard, transparent and featureless casings. Hudlars communicate using a speaking membrane, which grows like a cock's comb from the top of the head. The speaking membrane also serves as a sound sensor. The skin resembles a seamless covering of flexible armor in appearance and texture. Food is ingested through organs of absorption that cover both flanks and the wastes are eliminated by a similar mechanism on the underside. Both systems are under voluntary control. Because of the physiological necessity for avoiding further sexual contact with its life-mate, a gravid Hudlar female changes gradually into male mode and, concurrently, its life-mate slowly becomes female. A Hudlar year after partuition the changes to both are complete. The Hudlar FROBs are acknowledged to be, physically, strongest life-forms of the Galactic Federation and to have the least-pervious body tegument. Contact with chlorine is instantly lethal to them. Hudlar blood is yellow and circulates under great pressure and pulse rate. Hudlars consider their names to be their most private and personal possession, and do not give or use their names in the presence of anyone who is not a member of the family or a close friend.

Classification: FSOJ
Planet Unknown
Species: Protectors of the Unborn
No Individual Names Known
The Protector of the Unborn is a large, immensely strong life-form that resembles a Tralthan, but is less massive with stubbier legs projecting from a hemispherical carapace flared out slightly around the lower edges. The deployment of the legs and tentacles is similar to the Hudlar FROB life-form, but the carapace is a thicker ELNT Melfan shell without markings, and the FSOJ is plainly not herbivorous. From openings high on the carapace sprout four tentacles. Two different types of tentacles have been observed on different beings: long and particularly thin tentacles which terminate in flat, spear-like tips with serrated boney edges, and thick tentacles terminating in a cluster of sharp, bony projections which make them resemble spiked clubs. The four stubby legs also have osseous projections which enable them to be used as weapons as well. Midway between two of the tentacle openings there is a larger gap in the carapace from which protrudes a head, all mouth and teeth. The large upper and lower mandibles are capable of deforming all but the strongest metal alloys. A little space is reserved for two well-protected eyes at the bottom of deep, boney craters. A serrated tail also protrudes from the heavily slitted carapace. While the underside is not armored, as is the carapace, this area is rarely open to attack, and it is covered by a thick tegument which apparently gives sufficient protection. In the center of this area is a thin, longitudinal fissure which opens into the birth canal. It will not open, however, until a few minutes before giving birth. The FSOJ brain is not in its skull, but deep inside the torso with the rest of the other vital organs. It is positioned just under the womb and surrounding the beginning of the birth canal. As a result, the brain is compressed as the embryo grows. If it is a difficult birth, the parent's brain is destroyed and junior comes out fighting, with a convenient food supply available until it can kill something for itself. Senior Physicians Conway's first impression was that the entity was little more than an organic killing machine. Considering the fact that it is warm-blooded and oxygen-breathing, and its appendages show no evidence of the ability to manipulate tools or materials, Pathologist Murchison tentatively classified it as FSOJ and probably non-intelligent. The Unborn young of the bisexual FSOJ is retained in the womb until it is well-grown and fully equipped to survive. The Unborn is an intelligent and telepathic being, but loses these faculties at birth.

Classification: GKNM 
Planet: Ia 
Species: Ian (adult) 
Individual: Patient Makolli
The metamorphosed form of the adolescent DBLF life-form. The species created a colony in this galaxy, coming from an adjoining one. The race is oxygen-breathing and oviparous, having a long, rod-like but flexible body, and possessing four insectile legs, manipulators, the usual sense organs, and three tremendous sets of wings. The life-form looks something like a large dragonfly.

Classification: GLNO
Planet: Cinruss
Species: Cinrusskin
Individual: Senior Physician Prilicla
Cinrusskins are enormous, incredibly fragile flying insects, with a tubular exoskeletal body. Six sucker-tipped pencil-thin legs, four even more delicately fashioned, tiny, precise manipulators, and four sets of wide, iridescent, and almost transparent wings project form the body. The head is a convoluted eggshell, so finely structured that the sensory and manipulatory organs that it supports seem ready to fall off at the first sudden movement. The eyes are large and triple-lidded. The Cinrusskin are the Federation's only empathic race. Cinruss has a dense atmosphere and one-eighth gravity. Cinrusskins are sexless.

Classification: LSVO 
Planet: Nallaji 
Species: Nallajim
Individuals: Kytili, Senior Physician Seldal
The species has a birdlike, fragile, low-gravity physiology, with three legs, two not-quite-atrophicd wings, and no hands at all. When LSVOs eat, they are sickened by anything which doesn't look like bird seed.

Classification: MSVK 
Planet: Euril 
Species: Eurils
No Individual Names Known
Fragile, tri-pedal, stork-like beings from a low gravity world. The MSVK environment has dim lighting and a opaque fog for an atmosphere. The race is driven by an intense curiosity and hampered by extreme caution. They are the galaxy's prime observers, and are content to look and learn and record through their long-range probes and sensors without making their presence known. MSVKs have a low tolerance to radiation.

Classification: OTSB
Planet: Traltha
Species: Tralthan
No Individual Names Known
Tralthan Surgeons are really two beings instead of one, a combination of FGLI and OTSB.The OTSB is a nearly mindless symbiont which lives with its FGLI host. At first glance the OTSB looks like a furry ball sprouting a long ponytail, but a closer look shows that the ponytail is composed of scores of fine manipulators, most of which incorporate sensitive visual organs. A cluster of wire-thin, eye- and sucker-tipped tentacles sends infinitely detailed visual information to its giant host and receives instructions from the host. The Tralthan combinations are the best surgeons the Galaxy has ever known. Not all Tralthans choose to link up with a symbiotc, but FGLI medics wear them like a badge of office.

Classification: PVGJ
Planet Unknown
Species Name Unknown
Individual: Doctor Fremvessith
Apparent typographical error for classification PVSJ.

Classification: PVSJ
Planet: Illensa 
Species: Illensan
Individuals: Senior Physician Gilvesh, Charge Nurse Hredlichi, Diagnostician Lachlichi, Charge Nurse Leethveeschi 
Probable Individual: Charge Nurse Lentilatsar 
Illensans are chlorine breathers with shapeless spiny bodies and dry, rustling membranes joining the upper and lower appendages. The body resembles a haphazard collection of oily, yellow-green, unhealthy vegetation. The two stubby legs are covered by what look like oily blisters. Their loose protective suits are transparent except for the faint yellow fog of chlorine contained within. The Illensans are generally held to be the most visually repulsive beings in the Federation, as well as the most vain regarding their own physical appearance. Illensans suffer digestive upsets if they exercise after meals. Contact with water is instantly lethal to chlorine-breathers. PVSJs are not physiologically suited to the use of stairs and have very sensitive hearing.

Classification: QCQL 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
Apparent typographical error for classification QLCL. Senior Physician Mannen did not know there was any such beastie, but Major O'Mara had a tape. There were two casualties of this classification at Sector General.The operations were suit jobs, since the gunk that the QCQLs breath would kill anything that walks, crawls or flies, excluding them.

Classification: QLCL 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
Recent, and very enthusiastic, members of the Federation, this species had never been to Sector General until the war with the Empire. Then a small ward was prepared to receive possible QLCL casualties. The ward was filled with the horribly corrosive fog the QLCLs used for an atmosphere, and the lighting was stepped up to the harsh, actinic blue which the they consider restful.

Classification: SNLU 
Planet Unknown
Species Name: Vosan 
Individual: Diagnostician Semlic
The SNLU life form requires a refrigerated life-support system for its ultra-low-temperature environment while on the Chlorine and Oxygen levels. A frigid-blooded methane-breather, it is most comfortable in an environment only a few degrees above absolute zero. The SNLUs have a complex mineral and liquid crystalline structure. The species evolved on the perpetually dark worlds which detached from their original solar systems and now drift through the interstellar spaces. Physically they are quite small, averaging one-third the body mass of a being like a Kelgian. In order to allow contact with other, warmer, species, the SNLUs are required to wear a large, complex, highly refrigerated life-support and sensor translation system, which requires frequent power recharge. The scales covering the SNLU's eight-limbed, starfish-shaped body shine coldly through the methane mist like multihued diamonds, making it resemble some wondrous, heraldic beast. The SNLUs live and work in the almost total silence of beings with a hypersensitivity to audible vibrations. These fragile, crystalline, methane based life-forms would decompose at temperatures in excess of eighteen degrees above absolute zero and be instantly cremated if the temperature rose above minus one-twenty on the temperature scale in use in the Federation.

Classification: SRJH 
Planet: Drambo
Species: Healers or Physicians or Protectors 
No Individual Names Known
The Drambon Physicians are glorified leucocytes to the Drambon Strata Creatures, treating the many independent organisms living in and around those immense living carpets. The stupid, slow moving Drambon Physicians stay close to the most active and dangerous stretches of the Drambon shoreline. They resemble jellyfish, so transparent that only their internal organs are visible. A leech-like form of life, the SRJHs seem comfortable in either air or water. Their reactions in the presence of severe illness or injury are instinctive. Using their spines or stings, they practice their profession by withdrawing the blood of their patients and purifying it of any infection or toxic substances before returning it to the patients' bodies. (The process repairs simple physical damage as well.) However, not all the withdrawn blood is returned. It has not been established whether it is physiologically impossible for the SRJH to return it all or whether the Physician retains a few ounces as payment for services rendered. A Physicians can kill as well as cure. It can barely touch a beast, causing a predator to go into a muscular spasm so violent that parts of its skeleton pop through the skin. There is no evidence that they communicate verbally, visually, tac-tually, telepathically, by smell or by any other system known to Sector General. The quality of their emotional radiation suggests that they do not communicate at all in the accepted sense. The Physicians are simply aware of other beings and objects around them and, by using their eyes and a mechanism similar to the empathic faculty, they are able to identify friend and foe.

Classification: SRTT 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
This physiological type is amoebic, possessing the ability to extrude any limbs, sensory organs or protective tegument necessary to the environment in which it finds itself. It is so fantastically adaptable that it is difficult to imagine how one of these beings could ever fall sick in the first place.

Classification: TLTU 
Planet: Threcald 5 
Species Name Unknown 
Individual: TLTU Diagnostician
A TLTU doctor breathes superheated steam and has pressure and gravity requirements three times greater than the environment of the oxygen levels. The local protection needed by a TLTU doctor is a great, clanking juggernaut which hisses continually as if it is about to spring a leak. The large protective suit resembles a spherical pressure boiler bristling with remote handling devices and mounted on caterpillar treads, and has to be avoided at all costs. The large size is needed to allow for heaters to render the occupant comfortable, and surface insulation and refrigerators to keep the vicinity habitable by other life-forms. The small TLTU life-form inhabits a heavy-gravity, watery planet with edible minerals, which circles very close to its parent sun. The TLTU's blood consists of superheated liquid metal. TLTU patients are transported in their protective spheres anchored to stretcher carriers. These spheres emit a high-pitched, shuddering whine as their generators labor to maintain the internal temperature at a comfortable, for their occupants, five hundred degrees.

Classification: TOBS
Planet: Fotawn
Species Name Unknown
Individual: Trainee/Doctor Danalta
This being can extrude any limbs, sense organs, or protective tegument necessary to the environment or situation in which it finds itself. It evolved on a planet with a highly eccentric orbit, and with climatic changes so severe that an incredible degree of physical adapt-ability was necessary for survival. It became dominant on its world, and developed intelligence and a civilization, not by competing in the matter of natural weapons but by refining and perfecting its adaptive capability. When it is faced by natural enemies, the options are flight, protective mimicry, or the assumption of a shape frightening to the attacker. The speed and accuracy of the mimicry, particularly in the almost perfect reproduction of behavior patterns, suggests that the entity may be a receptive empath. The empathic faculty is under voluntary control, so that the level of emotional radiation reaching its receptors can be reduced, or even cut off at will, should it become too distressing. With such effective means of self-protection available, the species is impervious to physical damage other than by complete annihilation or application of ultrahigh temperatures. The concept of curative surgery would be a strange one indeed to members of that race. They do not require mechanisms for self-protection, so they are likely to be advanced in the philosophical sciences but backward in developing technology. When not trying to look like something else, TOBSs take the configuration of a large, dark-green, uneven ball.

Classification: TRLH 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
No Individual Names Known
The TRLH casualty was an ally of the Empire during that war. Classification was aided by the fact that the patient's spacesuit was transparent as well as flexible. The atmosphere the being breathes is as exotic as that of the QCQLs, but can be reproduced. The TRLH has a thin carapace which covers its back and curves down and inwards to protect the central area of its underside. Four thick, single-jointed legs project from the uncovered sections. It has a large but lightly boned head, four manipulatory appendages, two recessed but extensible eyes, and two mouths.

Classification: VTXM
Planet: Telf
Species: Telfi, Telphi
Individual: Astrogator-part Cherxic
A group-mind species whose small beetle-like bodies live by the direct conversion of various combinations and intensities of hard radiarion. Although individually the beings are quite stupid, the gestalt entities are highly intelligent. The Telfi operate in groups as contact telepaths to pool their mental and physical abilities. The Telfi have a spoken language as well as the telepathic faculty used between individuals, especially members of a family gestalt. Another variant of the species resembles a large, terrestrial lizard, just under five feet long from the bulbous head to vestigial tail, with an extra set of fore-limbs growing from the base of the neck. The only visible features are two tiny, lidless eyes and the mouth. The four stubby walking limbs can be bent double to lie flat against the body while the two, longer forward manipulators can stretch forward and cross so as to allow the chin to rest on the crossover point. The skin of a dead Telfi is pale gray with a mottled and veined effect that resembles unpolished marble. The color is a symptom of advanced radiation starvation and a lethal failure of the absorption mechanism. A healthy Telfi reflects no light at all, looking like lizard-shaped black holes. A healthy Telfi's temperature is below room temperature. Investigating their ultra-hot metabolism closely is to risk radiation poisoning. There is a fallacy among non-medics that the Telfi cannot be closely approached or touched without the use of remotely controlled manipulators. To live they must absorb the radiation normally provided by their natural environment but when, for clinical reasons, the radiation is withdrawn for several days and they are week from their equivalent of hunger, their radioactive emissions drop to a harmless level.

Classification: VUXG 
Planet Unknown 
Species Name Unknown 
Individual: Dr. Arretapec
The VUXG resembles nothing so much as a withered prune floating in a spherical gob of syrup. The species has telepathic, teleportive, and—sort of—precognitive abilities. The precognitive ability does not appear to be of much use because it does not work with individuals but only with populations, and so far in the future and in such a haphazard manner that it is practically useless.

ClassificationUnknown
Planet: Drambo
Species: Farmer Fish
No Individual Names Known
The large-headed Farmer Fish are responsible for cultivating and protecting benign growth and destroying all other growth in the Drambon Strata Creature. Farmer Fish have stubby arms sprouting from the base of their enlarged heads.

ClassificationUnknown 
Planet: Drambo
Species: Strata Creatures 
No Individual Names Known
The largest creature on the planet Drambo—so large that at a scoutship's suborbital velocity of six thousand plus miles per hour it takes just over nine minutes to travel from one side of the patient to the other. The creature is so vast that it has many independent parts performing specialized functions, such as the eye plants, air renewal plants, Farmer Fish, Thought Controlled Tools, and vegetable teeth. The parts can communicate via a mineral-rich sap. The creature uses water instead of blood as its working fluid. It is not clear if the entire creature is an animal or a plant, there being components of both in its immense expanse. There is only one intelligent Strata Creature on Drambo, and it is being treated for radiation poisoning.

ClassificationUnknown 
Planet: Drambo
Species: Thought Controlled Tools 
No Individual Names Known
Under the mental control of its user, a "tool" can assume any useful shape imagined. At Sector General, one appeared as a Hudlar type six scalpel, a medium-sized box spanner, a metallic sphere, a miniature bust of Beethoven, a set of Tralthan dentures, and a Hudlar food sprayer, among other things. The tools belong to the only sentient Strata Creature on Drambo, and were used to attack the medical and military forces attempting to treat the Strata Creature for radiation poisoning.

ClassificationUnknown 
Planet: Dutha 
Species: Duthan
Individuals: Patient Bowab, His Excellency the Lord Scrennagle of Dutha
Duthans have a centaur-like body. The torso from the waist up resembles that of an Earth-human, but the musculature of the arms, shoulders and chest are subtly different. The hands are five-digited, each comprised of three fingers and two opposable thumbs. The head is carried erect above a very thick neck, which seems disproportionately small. The face is dominated by two large, soft, brown eyes that somehow make the slits, protuberances, and fleshy petals which comprise the other features visually acceptable.

ClassificationUnknown
Planet: Keran
Species: Keranni
No Individual Names Known
No description given.

ClassificationUnknown 
Planet Unknown
Species: Kreglinni
No Individual Names Known
No description given.

Planet: Meatball
Species: CLCH/CLHG Drambon Rollers, Drambon Farmer Fish, Drambon Strata Creatures, Drambon Thought Controlled Tools, SRJH Drambon Healers or Physicians or Protectors
The planet was originally named by the crew of Descartes, but the name was considered derogatory by one of the native intelligent species. The planet is now referred to as Drambo.

The End

* * * * * *
Front cover

The White Papers
is published on behalf of
L.A.con III
the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention
for their
Guest of Honor
James White

The White Papers

edited by
Mark Olson and Bruce Pelz

The NESFA Press
Post Office Box 809
Framingham, MA 01701-0203
1996

Copyright 1996 by James White
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Copyright 1996 by Mike Resnick

Introduction
Copyright 1996 by Bruce Pelz

Introduction
Copyright 1992 by Walt Willis

Classification System and Timeline Copyright 1996 by Gary Louie

Illustrations Copyright ATom and Steve Stiles

Dust jacket illustration
Copyright 1979 by Vincent Di Fate

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MAGICAL, OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER, WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW

FIRST EDITION
Second printing, 1998

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-069493
International Standard Book Number:
Trade: 0-915368-71-4
Slipcased: 0-915368-72-2

Acknowledgments

"Introduction" by Mike Resnick appears here for the first time.
"James White" by Walt Willis appeared first in the Reinconation program book.
"Custom Fitting" appeared first in Stellar 2 edited by Judy Lynn del Rey.
"Commuter" appeared first in New Writing in SF21 ed. by John Carnell,
"House Sitter" appears here for the first time.
"Sanctuary" appeared first in Analog, Dccember 1988.
"Christmas Treason" appeared first in F&SF, January 1962.
"The Secret History of Sector General" has been newly revised for thisbook. A shorter version appeared in Ambulance Ship, Ballantine Books, 1979.
"Accident" appeared first in Sector General, Ballantine Books, I983.
"Medic" appeared first in New Worlds, January 1960, under the title "O'Mara's Orphan."
"Countercharm" appeared first in New Worlds, November 1960.
"Visitor at Large" appeared first in New Worlds, June 1959.
"An Introduction to Real Virtuality" by Bruce Pelz appears here for the first time.
"The Last Time I Saw Harris" appeared first in hyphen 2, September 1952.
"The Beacon" appeared first in Hyphen 4, October 1953.
"The Not-So-Hot Gospeller" appeared first in hyphen 16, August 1956.
"The Long Afternoon of Harrogate" appeared first in hyphen 32, March 1963.
"The History of IF #3" appeared first in hyphen 18, May 1957.
"The Quinze-y Report" appeared first in Hyphen 19, January 1958.
"Fester on the Fringe" appeared first in Hyphi en 28, 29, 30 and 31; May 1961-March 1962.
"The Exorcists of IF" appeared first in Hyphen 37, Autumn 1987.
"The Unreal George Affair" appeared first in trapdoor 9, January 1990.
"The Sector General Timeline" by Gary Louie appears here for the first time.
"The Classification System" by Gary Louie appears here for the first time.