Welcome forced himself to be impassive. Inwardly, his heart leaped. If the Arcturians could make a cybernetic setup that compact, what couldn’t they do?

  “May I add they can act at individual discretion, within the limits of their basic directives?” said Rappapa eagerly. “Possibly toys or household servants for your superb people?”

  “It seems to me that a house could be built to do everything itself, without needing a special robot,” said Welcome.

  “Of a most suredly! These, as I say, are illustrative only. It has insignificantly occurred to me that your splendid spaceships could be given brains of their own, eliminating necessity for crews on those so-long voyages.”

  “To be sure, Freeman Rappapa. And control and communications in general—you can doubtless show us a great deal we don’t know.”

  “It is of a strangeness that you, who so daringly bridged the stars, have not surpassed us in this humble endeavor.”

  “Well, it’s not so odd, really.” Welcome rekindled his pipe. “Many things determine the technological progress of a culture: social need and demand, the general background of knowledge and tradition, the ability of individual researchers within a given field—sheer accident, too, I suppose. My race has gone furthest in developing transportation and energy sources. Your people stayed on their planet, but instead have gone in primarily for robots, automata, computers—cybernetics. On Procyon A III, they’re super-biologists, especially in the line of controlled genetics, but lack atomic energy. And so on throughout the Galaxy. It would be strange if the history of any one race had caused it to excel in everything.”

  “I am blinded by the clarity of your explanation. Sir, dare I hope that you will find our little skill worthy of consideration?”

  “Indeed you may,” said Welcome. “Was there anything in particular you would like to have from us, or do you first want to see what we can offer?”

  “Your incredible process for obtaining atomic energy from the disintegration of any matter whatsoever would prostrate us of Kwillitch with joy.”

  The human rubbed his chin. That was certainly a reasonable enough asking price. In fact, his conscience hurt him a bit.

  “I think that can be agreed on,” he said blandly. “You have, of course, brought specialized assistants, and plans and textbooks and so on, from which our people can learn what you have to teach them? Good. Then you should designate some of your people to study our energy-conversion techniques. The new hypnopedic system will make it possible for both sides to learn these things rather fast. Of course, it isn’t quite that simple. One can’t introduce a new science into a vacuum. For example, being told all about nuclear disintegration isn’t going to help you unless you already know something about magnetronics. I’ll give you a general outline of the course, and would like you to prepare a similar outline dealing with cybernetics, just so each side can know exactly what it is the other has to offer. Then the final agreement can be made and we can proceed to teach each other.”

  “That is a scheme of the slyest magnanimity,” said Rappapa with innocent enthusiasm.

  “Excellent.” Welcome slouched farther back in his chair and went on to social matters. How did the Arcturian party like the quarters which had been prepared for them here in the dome? The food and gravity and air-conditioning were satisfactory? They were enjoying themselves? Tours of Earth would be arranged for them—everything to make the guests from afar feel at home.

  And to disarm them, make them more receptive to our suggestions. Well, why not? When the future of entire planets is involved, naiveté would be criminal.

  Rappapa was charmed and quacked eloquent praises. His party had already seen a good deal of the dome, met the other extraterrestrials currently there, been lavishly entertained.

  Welcome nodded. There was certainly no rule against the different embassies having contact and perhaps driving their own bargains independently of Earth.

  As a matter of fact, such a deal was going on right now. The Sirian knowledge of nucleonics had turned out to be inferior to Earth’s, but the Vegan representative—who had come alone—was willing to trade some of his high-pressure chemistry for it.

  Welcome didn’t care very much: since he could always get the chemistry from Vega in exchange for something else—or even from Sirius, perhaps. Once a planet—or nation, tribe, clan, individual—had bought a technology, it was their own business what they did with it. A Horse Trader operated between all parties, playing both ends against the middle.

  “On a lower plane than your excellency, I think—”

  Rappapa was interrupted by the buzzing of the intercom. Welcome flipped the switch and Christine shouted half hysterically: “No, you can’t go in there. He’s busy—Auch, look out! The Sirian—”

  There was a thunderous crash on the door. Rappapa squawked and made a Lunar-gravity leap to cower behind his regiment. The door flew open and Thevorakz of Dzuga, Dominator from Sirius A IV, stalked in, waving his arms and roaring.

  He was a centauroid, with a quadrupedal gray body and a lashing tail. The upper torso, swathed in a black robe and cowl, was almost human; a bristling white walrus mustache concealed the fact that he had no chin. Under a forest of brow, his ruby eyes glared fire, and his ears twitched and his hoofs stamped ominously.

  “You!” he bellowed. “You low thiefing monthter! You thcum! You dominated! I do not like you!”

  Welcome got up, grateful for the expanse of desk between him and the newcomer. “What’s the matter, Dominator Thevorakz?” He tried hard to keep his voice level.

  “I thpit my cud on you!” roared Thevorakz. “I foul your floor! I go home to Thiriuth and come back with an army!”

  Christine squeaked in the doorway and sprang aside for the envoy from Vega VII. The gleaming six-foot sphere rolled slowly in on its wheels, laying a mechanical hand on Thevorakz’s rump, and the viewer swiveled toward Welcome. It looked uncomfortably like a gun.

  Inside, breathing hydrogen and ammonia at a pressure of incalculable atmospheres, the monster known only as George was staring at the human. His force-field generator hummed in a sudden crackling silence: if it ever quit, the vehicle would blow up like a gigantic bomb and scatter the dome from here to Copernicus.

  It had been a long, difficult, and expensive proposition to contact the natives of New Jupiter and get one of them to make the trip, but living under such conditions, they had learned things about high-pressure chemistry which men had never imagined. They wanted atomic energy and control circuits in exchange. The first they had gotten from Sirius, the second they had intended to get from Earth.

  Only—

  Welcome swallowed uneasily and put indignation into his voice. “May I ask the meaning of this intrusion? You know very well that I am in conference with the freeman from Arcturus.”

  “That amorakz!” shouted the Sirian. “Dithmith him!”

  “Help!” wailed Rappapa. His robots formed a hollow square about him.

  “Calmness, please.” George’s Voder voice was flat. “I think, Freeman Welcome, you know very well why we have come.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You do tho!” roared Thevorakz.

  “I shall detail the matter,” said George. “The Sirian group and I reached a bargain, and I educated them as agreed. Naturally, there were many technical data which it would be pointless to memorize, formulas and constants and the like, and I gave them a book of tables. Those tables are the main thing of value which I had to offer, since the basic theory of high-pressure chemistry is already known to you and to Sirius. Dominator Thevorakz put this book in his strongbox last night. This morning the box was open and the book was gone.”

  “You don’t—no!” gasped Christine.

  “I’m sorry to hear of this.” Welcome forced calmness on himself. “The matter will be investigated at once.”

  “By you!” bellowed Thevorakz. “And you are the mithbegotten dominated who thtole it!”

  Welcome loosed a calculated anger. “You’re insulting not only my personal integrity, but the honor of Earth. You have violated the sacred obligation of a guest to his host. I demand an immediate apology.” He stalked forward, swinging his clenched fists at his sides.

  “I will help your excellency,” quacked Rappapa. “Company forward! On the double! Hup-hup-hup-hup-hup!” The robots goosestepped after the man.

  Thevorakz suddenly looked worried. “If I am mithtaken, I will apologize,” he mumbled sullenly. “But the book had better be found, and you had better prove you did not take it.”

  Welcome turned to George, preferring the chill sanity of the monster. “Do you really think we’d stoop to theft?”

  “I have no opinion in the matter,” said the toneless voice. “It would be to your advantage to steal Vega’s knowledge and buy something else that we know; thus you would have two technologies in exchange for one. However, the possibility remains that some other of the parties rifled the box. Everyone knew about it.”

  “Or that the Sirians did it to blackmail us,” said Welcome gauntly. “Or that you did it yourself, George.”

  He took an uneasy turn about the room, the tiny robots scampering to avoid his feet.

  “I’m terribly sorry this has happened,” he said. “I’ll get the dome police on the case immediately. Meanwhile, I wish you would just return to your quarters. I’ll notify you as soon as anything happens.”

  “I will be waiting,” said George, and rolled ponderously out of the office. Thevorakz snorted and stalked after him. Rappapa crawled out from under the desk.

  “A pretty mess!” Welcome realized that he was shaking. “Just what I need to start my job off right!”

  “I am with humble firmness assured that your excellency will on the instant penetrate the depths of all dastardliness,” said Rappapa.

  “Um, yes, thanks.” Welcome looked sharply at the Arcturian. At least, I suppose I mean thanks. “Sorry you were bothered this way, Freeman Rappapa. If you don’t mind, I’ll be rather busy now—”

  “Of course. I shall not obtrude.” Rappapa lifted his voice. “Compan-ee, ten-SHUN! Form ranks! Right face! Forwaard—MARCH! Hup-two-three-four, hup-two-three-four, hup-two-three-four—” He marched out of the office trailing his army behind him.

  Christine leaned against the door and looked helplessly at Welcome.

  “Now what?”

  “Now we get to work. Get me Captain M’Gamba.”

  When the police chief’s dark face was on the screen, Welcome explained the situation.

  M’Gamba frowned. “Bad business, huh?”

  “This is not a Good Thing,” quoted Welcome. “You can see the spot we’re in. If that book isn’t recovered fast, we’re going to lose face everywhere in the whole Galaxy. Earth will be branded as a planet of thieves and nobody will care to come here to do his Horse Trading. Sirius could take the lead away from us on that, and you know what an arrogant, opinionated lot they are. Nice people to have as the leading race of our new interstellar culture!”

  “Maybe they did this job themselves, just to discredit us?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past ’em. But get busy, will you? You know the line—be tactful, but just as firm as you dare. And, Captain M’Gamba, if we don’t settle this affair quick, you and I are both going to be looking for new jobs.”

  “And good jobs aren’t easy to find these days. All right, Freeman Welcome, we’ll blast off on it right away. I’ll call you as soon as I have a report.”

  Welcome gave Christine a haggard look. She ran a hand through her blue-black hair and regarded him sympathetically. “Tough luck, Auch.”

  “For me or for Earth?” he asked bitterly.

  “You, mostly.” Her eyes widened. “You don’t think this could—lead to war, do you?”

  “Oh, no. The logistics of interstellar warfare and conquest are ridiculous. But it could lead to bad relations with our Galactic neighbors.” Welcome knocked the dottle from his pipe and began recharging it. “And you know, Chris, this new culture developing with the null-null drive is an abstract thing, an exchange of information and sympathy, ideas, philosophies—abstracts, not tangibles. Ill feeling now could poison it at the source. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  He stared moodily out at Earth.

  M’Gamba’s report came in a couple of hours later, and Welcome frowned as he fitted it into the pattern of knowledge he already had.

  There were a dozen adjoining suites on the fourth sub-level of the dome, adjustable to the conditions of other planets, and the same level held three large clubrooms for the use of guests. Currently, the apartments housed the envoys of five stars: Sirius, Vega, Arcturus, Procyon, and Alpha Centauri. All these groups had been on Luna for periods ranging from several days to three weeks, and had mingled freely in mutual curiosity. Last night the dome’s chief, Carlos Petersen, had thrown one of his periodic parties for the guests, and all had attended. The Sirians had come home late and gone directly to sleep, not noticing that their place was robbed until they woke up the next “morning.”

  Whoever did the burglary had been confoundedly clever. There was an electronic lock, supposedly burglar-proof, on the outer door of the suite, wired to sound an alarm if anyone tried to break it. It had been opened with no trouble at all. The thief had entered, cut into the strongbox with an energy torch, taken the book, and walked out again, locking the door behind him.

  Welcome scowled. The technique of fooling an electronic lock was something beyond the science of Earth.

  Of course, Thevorakz himself, or one of his underlings, might have raided the box and hidden the book.

  “The torch could have been taken from any of the workshops on the fifth sublevel,” said M’Gamba over the screen. “They’re open all the time, you know, for the use of anyone who has to build a model or something. The thief need only have taken the torch, used it, and returned it when nobody was around. But what gadget did he have to unlock that door?”

  “A key, maybe,” suggested Welcome.

  “But Thevorakz has the only key to it, except for Petersen’s.”

  “I know. How about the suspects?”

  “Well, the company was wandering in and out of the clubrooms all the while the party went on; and everybody was pretty looped, too, except that George creature. In short, nobody we’ve talked to can swear that any other being was there all evening.”

  “Hm-hm. Have you searched for the book?”

  “We’re still looking. We’ve requested permission to search all the apartments of our guests. So far, only the Arcturians have waived diplomatic immunity and invited us to do so.”

  “Well, keep plugging, Captain, and let me know what turns up.”

  “Will do.”

  A few minutes later, Carlos Petersen was on the screen, demanding to know what the trouble was. Welcome sighed and broke the news as gently as possible.

  “Oh, Lord!” said Petersen.

  “And little blue devils,” agreed the Australian.

  “I’d have your seat in a sling this moment, Welcome, if it weren’t that I have to go to Earth immediately,” said Petersen. “I’ll be gone a couple of days. When I come back, I’ll expect to see this mess straightened out.”

  “We’ll try.” Welcome was feeling too harried by now to care for manners. But the fact that he wouldn’t have Petersen breathing down his neck was a minor mercy. “M’Gamba’s a good man.”

  “He’d better be. I like you, Welcome, and think you were the right choice for your job. But this can develop into something too big and nasty for ethics to count. If it shows signs of doing so, Earth is going to need a scapegoat and you may very well be it.” Petersen grimaced. “If they don’t pick me, instead—Or both of us.” He glanced at his wrist chrono. “Got to run now. Earth rocket leaves in ten minutes.”

  “Have fun,” said Welcome moodily.

  He paced once around the office, and threw himself into his chair. For a minute he exercised the more picturesque parts of his vocabulary.

  The intercom interrupted him:

  “The envoy Orazuni of Inyahuna, planet Procyon A III, to see you, Freeman Welcome.”

  The man blinked. “Oh, yes. He did have an appointment, didn’t he? Send him in, please.”

  He stood up, composing himself as the Procyonite entered.

  Orazuni looked rather like someone’s idea of a medieval demon. His slim graceful body sloped forward, stalking on clawed feet and counterbalanced by the long thick tail. The six-fingered hands were also clawed, and the pointed ears were almost winglike in their size. But the head, though bald, was handsome by human standards, in a high-cheeked, sharp-chinned, flat-nosed way, and the golden eyes were large and luminous and beautiful. He wore a light tunic and a brilliant scarlet cloak, and carried a portfolio under one arm.

  “Good day, Freeman Welcome,” he said, bowing. He had taken better to the hypnopedic teaching of English than most non-humans, his accent being a nearly perfect Bostonian. “I trust you are in good health and spirits?”

  “More or less,” said Welcome wryly. He liked the Procyonite, despite the sharp battle of wits which had been going on between them for days now. “And yourself?”

  “Quite well, thank you.” Orazuni sat down on his tail, bracing himself with his rigidly straight legs, and accepted the proffered cigar. “There seems to have been an unfortunate incident last night.”

  “Yes, rather. Have you any notion—?”

  Orazuni shrugged delicately. “One prefers not to become involved in such matters. I would not throw baseless accusations about. My group has, however, decided to show good faith by permitting the searching of our quarters. I shall so notify the police.”

  “Thank you. The more cooperation we get, the sooner we’ll be able to clear this up.” Welcome grinned. “I wish you were as easy to deal with in the line of business, Freeman Orazuni.”

  “I regret the impression,” smiled Orazuni, “but I have my own planet to think of.” He opened the portfolio and took out a sheet covered with an elaborate diagram. “Here, sir, is the structural formula—on a genetic rather than a chemical basis—of the human X chromosome, as determined by our technicians since we arrived on Luna. We have found conclusively that the tendency to certain types of cancer in your race—mammary, for instance—is linked here and here.” He indicated a point where several lines diverged. That was a cluster of formulas in the alphabet of Inyahuna. “By proper treatment, it should be possible to modify the linkage without otherwise altering heredity in the zygote. The long-range prospect is the total elimination of any possibility of cancer from the heredity of your race.”