“But if I remember right,” said Herr Syrup, bewildered, “New Vinchester, de Anglian capital, is only about ten t’ousand kilometers from here. Vy do dey not send a varship?”

  “They are not aware of it,” said Sarmishkidu, burying his flat face in the tankard. “Excuse me, I mean dey do not know vot fumblydiddles is here going on. Before facation time, ve neffer get many ships here. Der Erses landed chust four days ago. Dey took ofer der Rundfunk, der raddio, und handled routine messaches as if nottings had happened. Your ship vas der first since der infasion.”

  “And may be de last,” gloomed Herr Syrup. “Dey made some qvack-qvack about plague and qvarantined us.”

  “Ach, so!” Sarmishkidu passed a dramatic hand over his eyeballs. “Den ve iss ruined for certain. Dot iss chust der excuse der Erses hass been vanting. Now dey can call New Vinchester, making like dey vas der real medical officer, und say der whole place iss qvarantined on suspicion of plague. So natural, no vun else vill land for six veeks, so dey not be qvarantined too und maybe efen get sick. Your owners iss also notified und does not try to infestigate vot hass to you gehappened. So for six veeks der Erses hass a free hand here to do vot dey vant. Und vot dey vant to do meanss der ruin of all Grendel!”

  “My captain is still arguing vit’ de Erse sheneral,” said Herr Syrup. “I am yust de enshineer. But I come down to see if I could save us anyt’ng. Even if ve lose money because of not delivering our cargo to Alamo, maybe at least ve get paid for de beer ve bring you. No?”

  “Gott in Himmel! Mitout any facation season pizznizz like I vas counting on, vere vould I find der moneys to pay you?”

  “I vas afraid of dat,” said Herr Syrup.

  He sat drinking and smoking and trying to persuade himself that an Earthside job as assistant in a yeast factory wasn’t really so bad. Himself told him what a liar he was.

  The door opened, letting in a shaft of sun, and light quick steps were heard. A feminine voice cried: “Rejoice!”

  Herr Syrup rose clumsily. The girl coming down the stairs was worth rising for, being young and slim, with a shining helmet of golden hair, large blue eyes, pert nose, long legs, and other well-formed accessories.

  Her looks were done no harm by the fact that—while she avoided cosmetics—she wore a short white tunic, sandals, a laurel wreath on her head, and nothing else.

  “Rejoice!” she cried again, and burst into tears.

  “Now, now,” said Herr Syrup anxiously. “Now, now, Frken…er, Miss—now, now, now, yust a minute.”

  The Martian had already gone over to her. “Dot iss nicht so bad, Emily,” he whistled, standing on tip-tentacle to pat her shoulder. “Dere, dere. Remember Epicurus.”

  “I don’t care about Epicurus!” sobbed the girl, burying her face in her hands.

  “Outis epoidei doi bareias cheiras,” said Sarmishkidu bravely.

  “Well,” wept the girl, “w-well, of course. At least, I hope so.” She dabbed at her eyes with a laurel leaf. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…that…oh, everything.”

  “Yes,” said the Martian, “the situation indubitably falls within the Aristotelian definition of tragedy. I have calculated my losses so far at a net fifty pounds sterling, four shillings and thruppence ha’penny per diem.”

  Wet but beautiful, the girl blinked at Herr Syrup. “Pardon me, sir,” she said tremulously. “This situation on Grendel, you know. It’s so over-wreaking.” She put a finger to her lips and frowned. “Is that the word? These barbarian languages! I mean, the situation has us all overwrought.”

  “Ahem!” said Sarmishkidu. “Miss Emily Croft, may I present Mister, er—”

  “Syrup,” said Herr Syrup, and extended a somewhat engine-grimy hand.

  “Rejoice,” said the girl politely. “Ellenicheis?”

  “Gesundheit,” said Herr Syrup.

  Miss Emily Croft stared, then sighed. “I asked if you spoke Attic Greek,” she said.

  “No, I am sorry, I do not even speak basement Greek,” floundered Herr Syrup.

  “You see,” said Miss Croft, “I am a Duncanite—even if it does make Father furious, he’s the vicar, you know—and I’m the only one on Grendel. Mr. Sarmishkidu…I’m sorry, I mean Herr von Himmelschmidt…speaks Greek with me, which does help, even though I cannot approve his choice of passages for quotation.” She blushed.

  “Since ven has a Martian been talking Greek?” asked the engineer, trying to get some toehold on reality.

  “I found a knowledge of the Greek alphabet essential to my study of Terrestrial mathematical treatises,” explained Sarmishkidu, “and having gone so far, I proceeded to learn the vocabulary and grammar as well. After all, time is money, I estimate my time as being conservatively worth five pounds an hour, and so by using knowledge already acquired for one purpose as the first step in gaining knowledge of another field, I saved study time worth almost—”

  “But I’m afraid Herr von Himmelschmidt is not a follower of the doctrines of the Neo-Classical Enlightenment,” interrupted Emily Croft. “I mean, as first expounded by Isadora and Raymond Duncan. I regret to say that Herr von Himmelschmidt is only interested in the, er,” she blushed again, charmingly, “less laudable passages out of Aristophanes.”

  “They are filthy,” murmured Sarmishkidu with a reminiscent leer.

  “And, I mean, please don’t think I have any race prejudices or anything,” went on the girl, “but it’s just undeniable that Herr von Himmelschmidt isn’t, well, isn’t meant for classical dancing.”

  “No,” agreed Herr Syrup after a careful study. “No, he is not.”

  Emily cocked her head at him. “I don’t suppose you would be interested?” Her tone was wistful.

  Herr Syrup rubbed his bald pate, blew out his drooping mustache, and looked down past his paunch at his Number Twelve boots. “Is classical dancing done barefoot?” he asked.

  “Yes! And vine crowned, in the dew at dawn!”

  “I vas afraid of dat,” sighed Herr Syrup. “No, t’anks.”

  “Well,” said the girl. Her head bent a little.

  “But I am not so bad at de hambo,” offered Herr Syrup.

  “No, thank you,” said Miss Croft.

  “Vill you not sit down and have a beer vit’ us?”

  “Zeus, no!” She grimaced. “How could you? I mean, that awful stuff just calcifies the liver.”

  “Miss Croft drinken only der pure spring vater und eaten der fruits,” said Sarmishkidu von Himmelschmidt rather grimly.

  “Well, but really, Mr. Syrup,” said the girl, “it’s ever so much more natural than, oh, all this raw meat and…well, I mean if we had no other reason to know it, couldn’t you just tell the Erse are barbarians from that dreadful stuff they drink, and all the bacon and floury potatoes and— Well, I mean to say, really.”

  Herr Syrup sat down by his stein, unconvinced. Emily perched herself on the table top and accepted a few grapes from a bowl of same which Sarmishkidu handed her in a gingerly fashion. The Martian then scuttled back to his own beer and pipe and a dish of pretzels.

  “Do you know yust vat dese crazy Ersers is intending to do, anyhow?” asked Herr Syrup.

  The girl clouded up again. “That’s what I came to see you about, Mr. Sarmishkidu,” she said. Her pleasant lower lip quivered. “That terrible Major McConnell! The big noisy red one. I mean, he keeps speaking to me!”

  “I am afraid,” began the Martian, “that it is not in my province to—”

  “Oh, but I mean, he stopped me in the street just now! He, he bowed and…and asked me to— Oh, no!” Emily buried her face in her hands, trembling.

  “To vat?” barked Herr Syrup, full of chivalrous indignation.

  “He asked me if…if…I would…oh…would go to the cinema with him!”

  “Vy, vat is playing?” asked Herr Syrup, interested.

  “How should I know? It certainly isn’t Aeschylus. It isn’t even Euripides!” Emily raised a flushed small countenance and shifted gears to wrath. “I thought, Mr. Sarmishkidu, I mean, we’ve been friends for a while now and we Greeks have to stick together and all that sort of thing, couldn’t you just refuse to sell him whisky? I mean, it would teach those barbarians a lesson, and it might even make them go home again, if they couldn’t buy whisky, and Major McConnell wouldn’t get a calcified liver.”

  “Spake iv the divvil!” bawled a hearty voice. Huge military boots crashed on the stairs and Major Rory McConnell, all two hundred redhaired centimeters of him, stalked down into the rathskeller. “Pour me a drop iv cheer, bhoy. No, set out the bhottle an’ we’ll figure the score whin Oi’m done. For ’tis happy this day has become!”

  “Don’t!” blazed Emily, leaping to her feet.

  “Aber, aber det vitsky I sell at four bob der shot,” said Sarmishkidu, slithering hastily off his bench.

  Major McConnell made a gallant flourish toward the girl. “To be sure,” he roared, “there’s no such thing as an unhappy day wi’ this colleen about. Surely the good God was in a rare mood whin she was borned, perhaps His favorite littlest angel had jist won the spellin’ prize, for faith an’ Oi nivver seen a swater bundhle iv charms, not ayven on the Auld Sod herself whin Oi made me pilgrimage.”

  “Do you see what happens to people who eat meat and drink distilled beverages?” said Emily to Herr Syrup. “They just turn into absolute oafs. I mean to say, you can hear their great feet stamping two kilometers off.”

  McConnell sprawled onto a bench, leaning against the table and resting his great feet on the floor at the end of prodigious legs. He winked at the Earthman. “She’s the loight darlin’ on her toes,” he agreed, “but thin, she’s not jist owerburdhened wi’ clothing. Whin Oi make her me missus, that’ll have to be changed a bit, but for now ’tis pleasant the soight is.”

  “Your wife?” screamed Emily. “Why…why—” She fought valiantly with herself. At last, in a prim tone: “I won’t say anything, Major McConnell, but you will find my reply in Aristophanes, ‘The Frogs,’ lines—”

  “Here der pottle iss,” said Sarmishkidu, returning with a flask labeled Callahan’s Rose of Tralee 125 Proof. “Und mind you,” he added, rolling a suspicious doorknob eye at the Erseman, “ven it comes to paying der score, ve vill machen mit red analytical balances to show how much you haff getaken.”

  “So be it.” McConnell yanked out the stopper and raised the bottle. “To the Honor iv Ireland!” He caught Herr Syrup’s eye and added politely: “Skaal.”

  The Dane lifted a grudging stein to him.

  “ ’Tis the foine day for celebrathin’,” burbled McConnell. “Oi’ve had the word from the injinerin’ corps, our new droive unit tests out wan hundred per cint. They’ll have it riddy to go in three wayks.”

  “Oh!” gasped Emily. She retreated into a dark corner behind a beer keg. Even Sarmishkidu began to look seriously worried.

  “Vat ban all dis monkeyshining anyvay?” demanded Herr Syrup.

  “Why, ’tis simple enough, ’tis,” said the major. “Ye’re well aware the rare earth praseodymium has hoigh value, since ’tis iv crithical importhance to a geegee injin. Now the asterhoid—”

  “Ja, I have read de proclamation. But vy did you have to land here at all? If Erse vants Lois, vy not attack Lois like honest men and not bodder me poor spaceshipper?”

  McConnell frowned. “ ’Tis that would be the manly dayd,” he admitted. “Yit the opposition party, the Gaelic Socialists, may their cowardly souls fry in hell, happen to be in power at home, an’ they won’t sind the fleet ag’inst Laoighise; for the Anglians have placed heavy guard on it, in case iv jist such a frontal assault, an’ that base act iv aggression holds our Republic in check, for it shall nivver be said we were the first to start a war.”

  He tilted the flask to his lips again and embarked on a lengthy harangue. Herr Syrup extracted from this that the Shamrock League, the other important political party in the Erse Cluster, favored a more vigorous foreign policy; though its chiefs would also not have agreed to an open battle with the Anglian Navy. However, Scourge-of-the-Sassenach O’Toole was an extremist politician even for the League. He gathered men, weapons, and equipment, and set out unbeknownst to all on his own venture. His idea was first to occupy Grendel. This had been done without opposition; armed authority here consisted of one elderly constable with a truncheon. Of course, it was vital to keep the occupation unknown to the rest of the universe, since the Shamrock League Irredentist Expeditionary Force could not hope to fight off even a single gunboat sent from any regular fleet The arrival of the Mercury Girl and the chance thus presented to announce a quarantine, was being celebrated up and down the inns of Grendel as unquestionably due to the personal intervention of good St. Patrick.

  As for the longer-range scheme—oh, yes, the plan. Well, like most terraformed asteroids, Grendel had only a minimal gyrogravitic unit, powerful enough to give it a twenty-four hour rotational period—originally the little world had spun around once in three hours, which played the very devil with tea time—and an atmosphere-retaining surface field of 980 cm/sec2. Maintaining that much attraction, warming up the iron mass enough to compensate for the sun’s remoteness, and supplying electricity to the colonists, was as much as the Grendelian atomic-energy plant could do.

  O’Toole’s boys had brought along a geegee of awesome dimensions. Installed at the center of mass and set to repulsor-beam, this one would be able to move the entire planetoid from its orbit.

  “Move it ag’inst Laoighise!” cried McConnell. “An’ we’ve heavy artillery mounted, too. Ah, what think ye iv that’, me bhoy? How long do ye think the Anglian Navy will stand up ag’inst a warcraft iv this size? Eh? Ha, ha! Drink to the successful defense iv Gaelic roights ag’inst wanton an’ unprovoked aggression!”

  “I t’ink maybe de Anglian Navy vait yust long enough to shoot two, t’ree atomic shells at you and den land de marines,” said Herr Syrup dubiously.

  “Shell their own people livin’ here?” answered McConnell. “No, ayven the Sassenach are not that grisly. There’ll not be a thing they can do but retire from the scene in all their ignominy. An’ faith, whin we rethurn home wi’ poor auld lost Laoighise an’ put her into her roightful orbit with the ither Erse Cluster worlds—”

  “I t’ought her orbit vas orig’inally not de same as eider vun of your nations.”

  “Exactly, sor. For the first toime since the Creation, Laoighise will be sailin’ where the Creator intinded. Well, then, all Erse will rise to support us, the craven Gaelic Socialist cabinet will fall an’ the tide iv victory sweep the Shamrock League to its proper place iv government an’ your humble servant to the Ministhry iv Asthronautics, fwhich same portfolio Premier-to-be O’Toole has promised me for me help. An’ thin ye’ll see Erse argosies plyin’ the deeps iv space as nivver before in histhory—an’ me the skipper iv the half iv ’em!”

  “Gud bevares,” said Herr Syrup.

  McConnell rose with a bearlike bow at Emily, who had recovered enough composure to return into sight. “Iv course, Grendel will thin be returned to Anglia,” he said. “But her wan foinest threasure she’ll not bring home, a Stuart rose plucked to brighten a field iv shamrocks.”

  The girl lifted a brow and said coldly: “Do I understand, major, that you wish to keep me forever as a shield against the Anglian Navy?”

  McConnell flushed. “ ’Tis the necessity iv so usin’ your people that hurts ivry true Erse soul,” he said, “an’ be sure if it were not certain that no harm could come to the civilians here, we’d nivver have embarked on the adventure.” He brightened. “An’ faith, is it not well we did, since it has given me the soight iv your swate face?”

  Emily turned her back and stamped one little foot.

  “Also your swate legs,” continued McConnell blandly, “an’ your swate…er— Drink, Mr. Syrup, drink up wi’ me to the roightin iv wrongs an’ the succorin’ iv the disthressed!”

  “Like me,” mumbled the engineer.

  The girl whirled about. “But people will be hurt!” she cried. “Don’t you understand? I’ve tried and tried to explain to you, my father’s tried, everyone on Grendel has and none of you will listen! It’s been forty years since our nations were last close enough together to have much contact. I mean, you just don’t know how the situation has changed in Anglia. You think you can steal Lois, and our government will swallow a fait accompli rather than start a war…the way yours did when we first took it. But ours won’t! Old King James died ten years ago. King Charles is a young man—a fire-eater—and the P.M. claims descent from Sir Winston Churchill—they won’t accept it! I mean to say, your government will either have to repudiate you and give Lois back, or there’ll be an interplanetary war!”

  “Oi think not, acushla, Oi think not,” said McConnell. “Ye mustn’t throuble your pretty head about these things.”

  “I t’ink maybe she ban right,” said Herr Syrup. “I ban in Anglia often times.”

  “Well, if the Sassenach wants a foight,” said McConnell merrily, “a foight we’ll give thim!”

  “But you’ll kill so many innocent people,” protested Emily. “Why, a bomb could destroy the Greek theater on Scotia! And all for what? A little money and a mountain of pride!”

  “Ja, you ruin mine pizznizz,” croaked Sarmishkidu.

  “And mine. My whole ship,” said Herr Syrup, almost tearfully.

  “Oh, now, now, now, man, ye at least should not be thryin’ to blarney me,” said McConnell. “What harm can a six or sivvin wayks holiday here do to yez?”

  “Ve ban carrying a load of Brahma bull embryos in exogenetic tanks,” said Herr Syrup. “All de time, dose embryos is growing.” He banged his mug on the table. “Dey is soon fetuses, by Yudas! Ve have only so much room aboard ship; and it takes time to reach Alamo from here. If ve are held up more dan two, t’ree veeks—”

  “Oh, no!” whispered McConnell.

  “Ja,” said Herr Syrup. “Brahma bull calves all over de place. Ve cannot possibly carry dem, and dere is a stiff penalty in our contract.”