All set now. Ever’ thing ready.

  Tomorrow we start the transmitter an’ walk through to Bellegarde. Liquor on Bellegarde. Big celebration. But me, I get drunk on xenon, so why not start now? Whoops! How many moons this planet got, anyway?

  Jus’ one question, you fat smug people. (Dunno whether to call you smats or fugs.) One li’l bitty question. This here now funny elemental composition. Damn near killed us. Jus’ a very slight shift in relative abundances, and k-k-kr-r-r! So I ask you. Think about this. Think good ’n hard, because nex’ time aroun’, you’re not gonna have William J. Lind on deck. Nope, you’re not. I’ll be on Earth, livin’ the life o’ Riley, an’ I don’ ’magine Riley’ll ever come home. Cause he’s one o’ these here now onward-the-march-o’-mankind characters. He’ll be pioneerin’ the stars. I won’t.

  So, O.K., my question: What you gonna do when you hit the nex’ crazy kind o’ world?

  PEEK! I SEE YOU

  The father of Sean F.X. Lindquist was an amiable, easygoing Boston Swede. His mother was, as might be guessed, an O’Kelly with a will of her own. Their genes combined to produce a son who was good-natured, a bit raffish, intelligent, disinclined to toil—but, on occasion, stubborn as Lucifer. And thereby hangs a tale.

  Being expelled from college, for reasons having less to do with his grades than the president’s daughter, he was drafted. Presently he was shipped to Asia. Though the general truce there had now lasted for several years, it was chronically unstable and everyone concerned maintained large forces close to hand. In due course, however, and with a certain feeling of mutual relief, the Army gave Lindquist his honorable discharge. He was enchanted with Bangkok, where he had been spending his leaves, and pulled wires to be demobbed in that city.

  The enchantment wore off—she married someone else—and he made a leisurely way home around the world. Whenever his funds ran out, he did odd jobs. Some were very odd indeed. He was twenty-six before he reached the States again, and long out of touch. So he might have caught up on newspapers and technical journals; but he went instead to Las Vegas and updated himself in other fields. A true cliché calls luck a lady, apt to smile most upon men who do not pursue her. Lindquist departed with several thousand dollars in his pocket.

  At this time the southwestern tourist boom was entering the steep part of its exponential curve. Lindquist remembered boyhood camping trips in the area. It occurred to him that he could make a pleasant living, and have his winters free, by starting an airferry service. The Four Corners country is famous for the grandeur and solitude of its uplands. But the time, effort, and expense of packing into those roadless mountains discouraged most potential visitors. Now if they and their gear could be flown in, and out again at an agreed-on time—if the pilot was available by radio in the meanwhile, to handle emergencies like lost can openers…

  He took lessons and got his license. Then he bought himself a used VTOL aircraft and went to scout the territory.

  Thus it was that he saw the spaceship.

  He was droning leisurely along at about twelve thousand feet. The peaks were not extremely far below him. Their landscape was awesome: vast, steep, ragged, a ruddiness slashed by mineral ochers and blues, a starkness little relieved by scattered mesquite, greasewood, and sagebrush. Here and there, a streamlet turned the bottom of a canyon green. But mostly this was desert land, people-empty land, hawk, buzzard, jackrabbit, and coyote land. The sun was westering in a deep, almost purple sky. Updrafts boomed briefly and trickily, shaking the plane in its course.

  Lindquist’s lean, sandy-haired, shabby-clad form sat relaxed. He puffed a corncob pipe and hummed a bawdy song. But alertness was in him. Before he tried carrying passengers, he must get familiar with this kind of flying. And he needed a place to roost for the night, preferably containing water and firewood. His eyes roved.

  The vision slanted down before him. It moved at incredible speed, banked at impossible angles. Yet its passage was so silent that his own motor, his very pulse hammered at him. The shape, as nearly as he could tell, was roughly like a disk thickened in the middle. But the lambent, shifting colors that played across it, enveloped it in aurora, made such things hard to gauge.

  It swung around, slid near, and his magnetic compass went crazy. For a moment he stared at what seemed to be a row of ports, glowing as if furnaces burned behind them. Far in the back of his mind, a reckoner clicked: Diameter something like a hundred feet. Otherwise he felt sandbagged.

  The thing spun off. He grew aware that the pipe had dropped from his jaws. No matter. His hands were a-dance across the radar controls. He locked on. Reflection. Yes! His compass steadied again. The vision dwindled…a mile away, two miles, three, shrinking to a rainbow dot, like the diffraction dots you see when you look sunward through your lashes…vanishing to nothing against mountain flanks and canyon shadows.

  But it was real. Not just his rocking mind said so. His instruments did.

  Other memories from boyhood and youth boiled up. “Judas priest,” he whispered. “That’s a sho-nuff flying saucer.”

  He opened the throttle. His plane leaped forward. roaring and shivering with power. He hadn’t a chance of overhauling in a flat-out chase. But the thing did seem to be on a long downward track. Could he but stay within range, would it but land—

  “Well, what then, bimbo?” he challenged himself.

  He didn’t know. But he relived vividly the arguments that had once fascinated him. The radicals had insisted that flying saucers were ships from outer space, operated by benevolent though green little men. The conservatives denied that anyone had ever seen anything. In this hour he, S. F. X. Lindquist, had been handed a chance to investigate personally. He had nothing to lose, and perhaps—if he could solve the mystery—a great deal to gain. Like fame and money.

  Though no intellectual, he followed the news around him. Had he not spent the past several years in out-of-the-way places, he would have known that pursuit was a waste of time, that the riddle had, in fact, already been answered. But no one had mentioned this to him. Quite simply and naïvely, he lined out after the vision.

  In the different cultures of the galaxy, Dorek’s Law is known by many different names. Some call it Shepalour’s Rule, some the Basic Law of Thermodynamics, some the Principle of Most Effort, and so on for millions of languages. But the formulation is invariant, because we all inhabit the same universe.

  “Everything that can go wrong, will.”

  On their present voyage, the partners in the hypership had seen it in full glorious operation. There is no need to detail their woes with rickety hull, asthmatic engines, and senile computer. Nor need one describe what cargoes they carried, with what infinite trouble, from planet to planet. A tramp has to take anything she can get, and this is apt to be stuff too weird for the sleek cargo liners.

  But they did think their fortunes had turned when they reached Zandar. A message from the brokers lay waiting for them. After discharging their load of sandorads—and, hopefully, getting most of the mercaptan odor out of the vessel—they were to pick up some machine tools for New Ystanikkinikkitantuvo. Plain machine tools, harmless crafted metal! Of course, the destination was far out on the Rim. So much the better, though. It would be a peaceful haul, with lovely pay accumulating; and then, having been gone as long as they’d signed for, they would head home, loaded or not; and the fleshpots of the Core had better be filled in advance for them.

  But a summons came from the port coordinator.

  Pazilliwheep Finnison went along to the office. The coordinator was not of any species he recognized, possessing three eyes and a good many tentacles. They studied each other for a few seconds.

  The spacefarer was from Ensikt. He was a diopt himself, though the eyes were quite large and dark, contrasting with blue stripes upon glabrous orange skin. (The air being thicker, wetter, and hotter than he was used to, he went nude except for a musette bag.) His body was slender, centauroid, with a gracefully waving tail. He breathed through rows of gill-like organs on either side of his long neck, which alternated with aural tympani. Albeit he thus had no nose, he did sport a muscular trunk above his mouth. It split into two arms that ended in boneless four-fingered hands. This was entirely practical on Ensikt, where gravity is comparatively weak and animals comparatively small. Pazilliwheep stood three feet high at the rump.

  “Ah…Navigator Pilot Finnison. H/S Grumdel Castle… yes, yes. Welcome,” said the coordinator in Interlingo-5 with a flatulent accent. He punched a button on his data screen and regarded what appeared. “Yes. Correct what I was informed. You are clearing for…yes, that part of the Rim…with a stopover at…what is the name of the planet?”

  Pazilliwheep automatically jerked his tail, then said in haste: “My gesture indicated indifference.”

  “Were you afraid it might be objectionable in my culture? No, we have no tails. Now about this…yes…confounded planet. Never heard of it till the other day. Catalogued as—But what’s the name?”

  “Tierra, Earth, Mir, Jorden, die Erde, et cetera, et cetera.” Pazilliwheep’s vocal apparatus formed the sounds rather well, except for a lack of nasal quality. “Hundreds of autocthonous words. Most of them translate as ‘Dirt.’”

  “So. Yes. I see.” The coordinator had kept one eye on the unrolling data. “Primitive world. What do you call it?”

  “Restocking Station 143.”

  The coordinator waved a tentacle in the air. “I indicate assent and understanding. Well, Navigator Pilot, this is quite fortunate. Yes, fortunate. You came at, shall we say, the strategic moment. You are, therefore, able to be of material assistance to the Galactic Federation. Intergovernmental Department of Planetary Development, Bureau of Supervisions, to be exact.”

  Oh, oh! thought Pazilliwheep, and braced himself for bad news. But it was worse than he feared:

  “Yes, you can, and, therefore, you…are herewith instructed to…furnish transportation and every necessary assistance…to the sector inspector.”

  “No!” Pazilliwheep cried, His four hooves clattered on the floor when he sprang backward. “Not the sector inspector!”

  “Yes. The sector inspector. New one, you know. Anxious to make a good showing in…this latest assignment. Came here to check local records. Found no official investigation of that particular planet had been made for a long time. Yes, much overdue. Entire intelligent species being neglected. Perhaps, even, slyly exploited by the less scrupulous. Eh?”

  “Exploited, my lowest left operculum!” Pazilliwheep protested. “What the entropy would there be to exploit? Besides, their principal culture belongs to the Federation. If they have any complaints, they can go through regular channels, can’t they? And say, why doesn’t the inspector go in his own ship?”

  Remorselessly, the coordinator answered: “Economy drive at GHQ. Inspectors for outlying regions do not, shall we say, rate their own vessels any longer. They use available transportation. Yes. I know, they’re always behind-hand anyway. Too many planets. And a sector like this—not even important enough for records on it to clutter central data banks on any Core world—do you see?”

  “But…listen, the Grumdel’s an old wreck. We’ve got the stingiest owners in the galaxy. My engineer’s trying to repair a fusion tube right now. The interior maintenance units keep breaking down, too. Our top hyperspeed is a hypercrawl. Anything would be better!”

  “No doubt. No doubt. But nothing else available. Not soon. Every other vessel due here within the next several weeks is a liner or else on time charter. Or, of course, not crewed by oxygen breathers. You may be old, Navigator Pilot Finnison; you may be rusty; you may be underpowered, vermin-infested, and all but certifiably unspaceworthy: but you are the best I can do for the sector inspector. And, yes, my own career—promotion off this dreary mudball—his reports to GHQ—you understand. Yes. You are hereby commandeered.” And the coordinator handed over the official orders with a flourish.

  Thus Hypership Grumdel Castle departed Zandar with a third being aboard.

  The inspector was a good fellow at heart: young, inclined to take himself and his work overly seriously, but well intentioned. He apologized for the trouble he was causing, and reminded his hosts that their owners would be compensated according to law. His hosts showed no great enthusiasm at this. He explained that a major reason for his having picked their ship was that she was already scheduled to lay over on 143—“And might I inquire, out of a wish to become more intimately acquainted with my companions as well as for the technical information itself, not to mention simple curiosity, what activities you have planned on this planet?”

  He used Interlingo-12 rather than any language of his own world, Ittatik. Unfortunately, Pazilliwheep did not speak Interlingo-12. Engineer Supercargo Urgo the Red did, more or less, and translated into his version of Interlingo-7:

  “He says what’re we gonna do there?”

  “Well, no reason not to tell him the truth,” Pazilliwheep replied. “Unless you’ve got some other little racket you haven’t told me about.”

  “When we touch maybe once in three years? Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

  In point of fact, Pazilliwheep had a racket of his own. It was a mild one, and might even be legal, for all he knew. He swapped small quantities of ondon oil, which had turned out to have powerful aphrodisiac effects on the natives of 143, for kitchenware. The latter was unusual and artistic enough to command good prices on several more advanced worlds. This was one reason he did his restocking on 143 whenever possible.

  “Let’s answer his question by reciting common, elementary knowledge,” he suggested to Urgo. “Might put him to sleep, at least.”

  “Is any knowledge common?” wondered the engineer supercargo. “Like, it’s a big galaxy. I never heard o’ whatzisname’s muckin’ civilization till now. And still he says it fills a whole muckin’ star cluster! Maybe he don’t know how we operate in this spiral arm.”

  “Oh, I suppose the basic procedures are similar everywhere. If nothing else, in the course of ten thousand years or however long it’s been around, wouldn’t the Federation have had some leveling influence on the member species?” Pazilliwheep tail-shrugged. “We haven’t anything better to do. Suppose you translate as I talk.” He filled his lungs and began:

  “It’s a long way between stars in this thin outer part of the galaxy. And it’s even longer between up-to-date systems that are normal ports of call. So ships are apt to need fresh supplies en route. Maybe the deuterium runs low, or the protein, or—lots of things. Or else, because no ship has perfect biochemical balance, it’s necessary to stop on a homelike world and flush out accumulated by-products with fresh air. Planets suitable for the various types of space-going life forms are listed in the ‘Pilot’s Data Bank and Ephemerides’ for each region.”

  “He says we gotta tank up,” Urgo told the inspector.

  Klak’t’klak of Ittatik nodded, signifying assent in the same way as most 143an cultures. The head he used for this purpose also resembled the 143an, and those of both his shipmates, in that it had two eyes and a mouth. However, mouth and nostrils were set in a beak that brought the narrow skull to a point. A fleshy aileron grew from the top, counterpart to the rudderlike fluke at the end of a thin tail. The body in between had, like Pazilliwheep’s, evolved from a hexapod. But on Ittatik the rear limbs had become legs terminating in claws to grasp branches; the middle limbs had become skinny arms with six-digited hands; the forelimbs were now leathery wings. A keelbone jutted from the deep-chested torso. When he stood erect, Klak’t’klak’s nude gray-skinned frame was of slightly less stature than Pazilliwheep’s; but his wingspan was easily twelve feet. Nonetheless, he could not fly here. The ship’s G-field was set lower than his home gravity, but the air was so much thinner that he couldn’t stay healthy without artificial help. This took the form of a pomander which he kept lifting to his face. The oxygen-generating biochemicals within smelled like rich swamp ooze.

  “The requirement is understood,” he said, “and obviously biological maintenance problems alone suffice to compel your descent into the planetary atmosphere. The point, however, which it was desired to make, is that a primary reason for the selection of this vessel as my transport was that you were, indeed, planning to restock on the world in question. Furthermore, your cargo is not perishable nor urgently required by the consignee. Thus the sum total of inconvenience and delay is minimized. Admittedly, I may be the cause of your remaining for more than the few 37.538-hour periods you presumably reckoned with. But if all appears to be in order, if there is no clear need at this point in time for further investigation of the possibility that ameliorative action may be required somewhere upon the globe, then we should be able to proceed within two or three months. I will not insist upon being returned to Zandar, but will rather continue with you to the Rim, where I shall debark in order to instigate a study of conditions prevailing upon that frontier.”

  “Oh,” said Urgo. To Pazilliwheep: “He says we’ll be stuck there for at least two or three months.”

  “Oh!” said the navigator pilot, rather more pungently. “Will you ask his unblessed bureaucratship why the inferno he wants to excrete away so loving much time on one unseemly little ball of fertilizer?” Likewise rather more pungently.

  “No fair,” grumbled Urgo. “I can’t talk to him like that.”

  Klak’t’klak explained. He wasn’t really much interested in 143. His primary mission was to make sure that things were going well on the civilized planets of the Rim, and recommend remedies to the Federation authorities for whatever he found amiss. Still, 143 was overdue for inspection—seeing that it housed one nation that belonged to the great confraternity.

  Such membership confers certain privileges. They are not many, because a galactic-scale league is necessarily a loose one, little more than a set of agencies serving the common interests of wildly diverse cultures. But a member is entitled to some things: for example, technical assistance if it wishes to modernize in any way.