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  “A marvel of lightweight ingenuity,” the economic officer said hastily. “I only meant . . .”

  “Chesters point was just that maybe some of us ought to wait here, Mr. Ambassador,” the military attaché said. “In case any, ah, late dispatches come in from Sector, or something. Much as I’ll hate to miss participating, I volunteer—”

  “Kindly rebuckle your harness, Colonel,” Oldtrick said through thinned lips. “I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to make the sacrifice.”

  “Good Lord, RetiefMagnan said in a hoarse whisper behind his hand. “Do you suppose these little tiny things will actually work? And does he mean . . .” Magnan’s voice trailed off as he stared up into the bottomless sky.

  “He really means,” Retief confirmed. “As for his Excellency’s invention, I suppose that given a large-diameter, low-density planet with a standard mass of 4.8 and a surface G of .72, plus an atmospheric pressure of 27.5 P. S. I. and super-light gas—it’s possible.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Magnan muttered. “I don’t suppose that if we all joined together and took a firm line . . .?”

  “Might be a savings at that,” Retief nodded judiciously. “The whole staff could be court-martialed as a group.”

  “ . . . and now,” Ambassador Oldtrick’s reedy voice paused impressively as he settled his beret firmly in place.

  “If you’re ready, gentlemen—inflate your gasbags!”

  A sharp hissing started up as a dozen petcocks opened as one. Bright-colored plastic bubbles inflated with sharp popping sounds above the shoulders of the Terran diplomats. The ambassador gave a little spring and bounded high above the heads of his staff, where he hung, supported by the balloon, assisted by a softly snorting battery of air jets buckled across his hips.

  Colonel Smartfinger, a large bony man, gave a halfhearted leap, fell back, his toes groping for contact as a gust of air bumbled him across the ground. Magnan, lighter than the rest, made a creditable spring and rose to dangle beside the chief of mission. Retief adjusted his buoyancy indicator carefully, jumped off as the rest of the staff scrambled to avoid the questionable distinction of being the last man airborne.

  “Capital, gentlemen!” Oldtrick beamed at the others as they drifted in a ragged row, roped together like alpinists, five yards above the surface. “I trust each of you is ready to savor the thrill of breaking new ground!”

  “An unfortunate turn of phrase,” Magnan quavered, looking down at the rocky outcropping below. The grassy plain on which the lighter had deposited the mission stretched away to the horizon, interrupted only by the upthrusting coral reefs dotted across it like lonely castles in the Daliesque desert and a distant smudge of smoky green.

  “And now—onward to what I hope I may, without charges of undue jocularity, term a new high in diplomacy,” Oldtrick cried. He advanced his jet control lever and lifted skyward, trailed by the members of his staff.

  II

  Five hundred feet aloft, Magnan clutched the arm of Retief, occupying the adjacent position in the line.

  “The lighter is lifting off I” He pointed to the slim shape of the tiny Corps vessel, drifting upward from the sand below. “It’s abandoning us!”

  “A mark of the ambassadors confidence that we’ll meet with a hospitable reception at the hands of the Zooners,” Retief pointed out “Frankly, I’m at a loss to understand Sector’s eagerness to accredit a mission to this wasteland.” Magnan raised his voice above the whistling of the sharp wind and the polyphonous huffing of the jato units. “Retief, you seem to have a way of picking up odd bits of information. Any idea what’s behind it?”

  “According to a usually reliable source, the Groaci have their eyes on Zoon—all five of them. Naturally, if they’re interested, the Corps has to beat them to it.”

  “Aha!” Magnan looked wise. “They must know something. By the way,” he edged closer. “Who told you? The ambassador? The undersecretary?”

  “Better than that; the bartender at the departmental snackbar.”

  “Well, I daresay our five-eyed friends will receive a sharp surprise when they arrive to find us already on a cordial basis with the locals. Unorthodox though Ambassador Oldtrick’s technique may be, I’m forced to concede that it appears the only way we could have approached these Zooners.” He craned upward at the fanciful formation of many-fingered rock past which they were rising. “Odd that none of them have sallied forth to greet us.”

  Retief followed his gaze. “We still have six thousand feet to go,” he said. “I suppose we’ll find a suitable reception waiting at the top.”

  Half an hour later, Ambassador Oldtrick in the lead, the party soared above the final rampart to look down on a wonderland of rose and pink violet coral, an intricacy of spires, tunnels, bridges, grottos, turrets, caves, avenues, as complex and delicately fragile as spun sugar.

  “Carefully, now, gentlemen.” Oldtrick twiddled his jato control, dropped in to a gentle landing on a graceful arch spanning a cleft full of luminous gloom produced by the filtration of light through the translucent construction. His staff settled in nearby, gazing with awe at the minarets rising all around them.

  The ambassador, having twisted a knob to deflate his gasbag and laid aside his flying harness, was frowning as he looked about the silent prospect.

  “I wonder where the inhabitants have betaken themselves?” He lifted a finger, and six eager underlings sprang to his side.

  “Apparently the natives are a trifle shy, gentlemen.” he stated. “Nose around a bit. Look friendly. And avoid poking into any possibly taboo areas such as temples and public comfort stations.”

  Leaving their deflated gasbags heaped near their point of arrival, the Terrans set about peering into caverns and clambering up to gaze along twisting alleyways winding among silent coral palaces. Retief followed a narrow path atop a ridge which curved upward to a point of vantage. Magnan trailed, mopping at his face with a scented tissue.

  “Apparently no one’s at home,” he puffed, coming up to the tiny platform from which Retief surveyed the prospect spread below. “A trifle disconcerting, I must say. I wonder what sort of arrangements have been laid on for feeding and housing us?”

  “Another odd thing,” Retief said. “No empty beer bottles, tin cans, old newspapers, or fruit rinds. In fact, no signs of habitation at all.”

  “It rather appears we’ve been stood up,” the economic officer said indignantly. “Such cheek—and from a pack of animated intangibles, at that!”

  “It’s my opinion the town’s been evacuated,” the political officer said in the keen tones of one delivering an incisive analysis of a complex situation. “We may as well leave.”

  “Nonsense!” Oldtrick snapped. “Do you expect me to trot back to Sector and announce that I can’t find the government to which I’m accredited?”

  “Great heavens!” Magnan blinked at a lone dark cloud drifting ominously closer under the high overcast. “I thought I sensed something impending. Uh, Mr. Ambassador!” he called, starting back down. At that moment, a cry from an adjacent cavern focused all eyes on the military attaché, emerging with a short length of what appeared to be tarred rope, charred at one end.

  “Signs of life, your excellency!” he announced. “A dope-stick butt!” He sniffed it. “Freshly smoked.”

  “Dope-sticks! Nonsense!” Oldtrick prodded the exhibit with a stubby forefinger. “I’m sure the Zooners are far too insubstantial to indulge in such vices.”

  “Ah, Mr. Ambassador,” Magnan called. “I suggest we all select a nice dry cave and creep inside, out of the weather—”

  “Cave? Creep? Weather? What weather?” Oldtrick rounded on the first secretary as he came up. “I’m here to establish diplomatic relations with a newly discovered race, not set up housekeeping!”

  “That weather,” Magnan said stiffly, pointing at the giant cloud sweeping swiftly down on them at a level which threatened to shroud the party in a fog in a matter of minutes.

  “Eh? Oh.”
Oldtrick stared at the approaching thunder-head. “Yes, well, I was about to suggest we seek shelter.”

  “What about the dope-stick?” The colonel tried to recapture the limelight. “We hadn’t finished looking at my dope-stick when Magnan came along with his cloud.”

  “My cloud is of considerably more urgency than your dope-stick, Colonel,” Magnan said softly. “Particularly since, as his excellency has pointed out, your little find couldn’t possibly be the property of the Zooners.”

  “Hal Well, if it isn’t the property of the Zooners, then whose is it?” The officer looked at the butt suspiciously, passed it around. Retief glanced at it, sniffed it “I believe you’ll find this to be of Groaci manufacture, Colonel,” he said.

  “What?” Oldtrick clapped a hand to his forehead. “Impossible! Why, I myself hardly know—that is, they couldn’t—mean to say, drat it, the location of this world is Utter Top Secret!”

  “Ahem.” Magnan glanced up complacently at his cloud, now a battleship-sized shape only a few hundred feet distant. “I wonder if it mightn’t be as well to hurry along now before we find ourselves drenched.”

  “Good Lord!” The political officer stared at the gray-black mass as it moved across the hazy sun, blotting it out like an eclipse. In the sudden shadow, the wind was abruptly chill. The cloud was above the far edge of the reef now; as they watched, it dropped lower, brushed across a projecting digit of stone with a dry squeel, sent a shower of tiny rock fragments showering down. Magnan jumped and blinked his eyes hard, twice. “Did you see . . .? Did I see . . .?”

  Dropping lower, the cloud sailed between two lofty minarets, scraped across a lower tower topped with a series of sharp spikes. There was a ripping sound, a crunch of stone, a sharp pow!, a blattering noise of escaping gas. A distinct odor of rubberized canvas floated across to the diplomats, borne by the brisk breeze. “Ye gods!” The military attaché shouted. “That’s no cloud! It’s a Trojan horse! A dirigible in camouflage! A trick!” He cut off and turned to run as the foundering four-acre balloon swung, canted at a sharp angle, and thundered down amid gratings and crunchings, crumbling bridges, snapping off slender towers, settling in to blanket the landscape like a collapsed circus tent A small, agile creature in a flared helmet and a black hip-cloak appeared at its edge, wading across the deflated folds of the counterfeit cloud, cradling a formidable blast gun in its arms. Others followed, leaping down and scampering for strategic positions on the high ground surrounding the Terrans.

  “Groaci shock troops!” the military attaché shouted. “Run for your lives!”

  He dashed for the concealment of a shadowy canyon; a blast from a Groaci gun sent a cloud of coral chips after him. Retief, from a position in the lee of a buttress of rocks, saw half a dozen of the Terrans skid to a halt at the report, put up their hands as the invaders swarmed around them, hissing soft Groaci sibilants. Three more Terrans, attempting flight, were captured within fifty feet, prodded back at gunpoint. A moment later a sharp oof! and a burst of military expletives announced the surrender of Colonel Smartfinger. Retief made his way around a rock spire, spotted Ambassador Oldtrick being routed from his hiding place behind a cactus-shaped outcropping.

  “Well, fancy meeting you here, Hubert.” A slightly built, splendidly dressed Groaci strolled forward, puffing at a dope-stick held in silver tongs. “I regret to submit you to the indignity of being trussed up like a Gerp-fowl in plucking season, but what can one expect when one commits an aggravated trespass, eh?”

  “Trespass? I’m here in good faith as Terran envoy to

  Zoon!” Oldtrick sputtered. “See here, Ambassador Shish, this is an outrage! I demand you order these bandits to release me and my staff at once! Do you understand?”

  “Field Marshal Shish, if you please, Hubert,” Shish whispered. “These are a duly constituted constabulary. If you annoy me, I may just order them to exercise the full rigor of the law which you have so airily disregarded!”

  “What law? Your confounded dacoits have assaulted peaceful diplomats in peaceful pursuit of their duties!”

  “Interplanetary law, my dear sir,” Shish hissed. “That section dealing with territorial claims to uninhabited planets.”

  “But—but the Zooners inhabit Zoon!”

  “So? An exhaustive search of the entire planetary surface by our Scouting Service failed to turn up any evidence of intelligent habitation.”

  “Surface? But the Zooners don’t occupy the surface!”

  “Exactly. Therefore we have assumed ownership. Now, about reparations and damages in connection with your release. I should think a million credits would be about right—paid directly to me, of course, as Planetary Military Governor, pro tem”

  “A million?” Oldtrick swallowed hard. “But . . . but . . . see here!” He fixed Shish with a desperate eye. “What is it you fellows are after? This isn’t the kind of sandy-dry real estate you Groaci prefer—and the world has no known economic or strategic value.”

  “Hmmm.” Shish flicked his dope-stick butt aside. “No harm in telling you, I suppose. We intend to gather a crop.”

  “Crop? There’s nothing growing here but blue grass and land coral!”

  “Wrong again, Hubert The crop that interests us is this . . .” He fingered the edge of his shaggy violet cape. “A luxury fur, light, colorful, nonallergic.” He lowered his voice and leered with three eyes. “And with reportedly fabulous aphrodisiac effects; and there are millions of credits worth of it, leaping about the landscape below, free for the harvesting!”

  “But surely you jest, sir! Those are—”

  There was a sudden flurry as one of the Terrans broke free and dashed for a cave. The Groaci constabulary gave chase. Shish made an annoyed sound and hurried away to oversee the recapture. Oldtrick, left momentarily alone, eyed the flying harnesses lying in a heap ten yards from him. He took a deep breath, darted forward, snatched up a harness.

  As he turned to sprint for cover, a breathy cry announced his discovery. Desperately, the chief of mission struggled into his straps as he ran, twisted the valve, fired his jato units and shot into the air above the heads of a pair of fleet-footed aliens who had been about to lay him by the heels. He passed over Retiefs head at an altitude of twenty feet, driven smartly by the brisk breeze. Retief ducked his head, hugged the shadows as Groaci feet pounded past at close range, pursuing the fleeing Terran. Retief saw half a dozen marksmen taking aim at the airborne diplomat as the wind swept him out over the reefs edge. Shots rang. There was a sharp report as a round pierced the gasbag. With a despairing wail, the ambassador sank swiftly out of sight Retief rolled to his feet, ran to the pile of flight harnesses, grabbed up two, whirled and sprinted for the edge over which Oldtrick had vanished. Two Groaci, turning to confront the new menace descending on their rear, were bowled aside by Retiefs rush. Another sprang to intercept him, bringing his gun around. Retief caught the barrel in full stride, swung the gun with its owner still clinging desperately to it, slammed the unfortunate alien into the faces of his astounded comrades. Shots split the air past Retief s ear, but without slowing, he charged to the brink and dived over into seven thousand feet of open air.

  III

  The uprushing wind shrieked past Retiefs ears like a typhoon. Gripping one of the two harnesses in his teeth, he pulled the other on as one would don a vest, buckled the straps. He looked down, squinting against the rush of air.

  The ambassador, falling free now, with his burst balloon fluttering at his back, was twenty feet below. Retief tucked his arms close, kicked his heels up to assume a diver’s attitude. The distance between the two men lessened. The rock face flashed past, dangerously close. Retiefs hand brushed Oldtrick’s foot. The ambassador twisted convulsively to roll a wild eye at Retief, suspended above him in the hurtling air stream. Retief caught the senior diplomat’s arm, shoved the spare harness into his hand. A moment later Oldtrick had shed his ruined gasbag and shrugged into the replacement

  With a twist of the petcock, he in
flated his balloon and at once slowed, falling behind Retief, who opened his own valve, felt the sudden tug of the harness. A moment later, he was floating lightly a hundred feet below the ambassador, who was drifting gently closer.

  “Quick thinking, my boy,” Oldtrick’s voice came faintly. “As soon as I’m aboard the transport, I shall summon a heavy PE unit to deal with those ruffians! We’ll thwart their inhuman scheme to massacre helpless infant Zooners, thus endearing ourselves to their elders!” He was dose now, dropping as Retief rose. “You’d better come along with me,” he said sharply as they passed, ten feet apart. “I’ll want your corroborative statements, and—”

  “Sorry, Mr. Ambassador,” Retief said. “I seem to have gotten hold of a heavy-duty unit. It wants to go up, and the valve appears to be stuck.”

  “Come back,” Oldtrick shouted as he dropped away below the younger man. “I insist that you accompany me!”

  “I’m afraid it’s out of my hands now, sir,” Retief called. “I suggest you stay out of sight of any colonist who may have settled in down below. I have an idea they’ll be a little trigger happy when they discover their police force is stranded on the reef, and a dangling diplomat will make a tempting target.”

  The southwest breeze bore Retief along at a brisk twenty-mile-per-hour clip. He twisted the buoyancy control lever both ways, to no avail. The landscape dwindled away below him, a vast spread of soft aquamarine hills.

  From this height, immense herds of creatures were visible, ranging in color from pale blue to deep grapejuice. They appeared, Retief noted, to be converging on a point not far from the base of the coral reef, where a number of black dots might have been small structures. Then the view was obscured, first by whipping streamers of fog, then by a dense, wet mist which enveloped him like a cool, refreshing Turkish bath.

  For ten minutes he swirled blindly upward; then watery sunshine penetrated, lighting the vapor to a golden glow; a moment later he burst through into brilliance. A deep blue sky arched above the blinding white cloud-plain. Squinting against the glare, he saw a misty shape of pale green projecting above the clouds at a distance he estimated at five miles. Using steering jets, he headed for it.