"It is stated categorically," said Kitten, "that the Egg which gorges itself too early will deny its offspring."

"You are being impertinent, but if he wasthat bad ... You always were up on your Saduriquil, soft-angles."

"Why Orvy! You still remember my pet name! Now that you've gotten all that off your thorax, why not relax and tell us why we've been pulled off our post-graduate work and plunked down here in the midst of savage Pisces and piscean savages?"

"The good Governor would net care-for-that-tone," Orvenalix grinned.

"Say, how did you know I was doing post-grad work?" yelped Porsupah.

"I picked your pocket back at the hotel. Before I went in to change. Your school relief notice was in there, along with relevant material. Hardly consistent with your cover, Pots! Tch!"

"Not only morals!" said the seething Tolian. "No scruples, either!"

"That's an insult! I put the wallet back, didn't I?"

There was a long silence. Finally, unable, to stand the suspense, Porsupah put a paw into the pouch under his belt to make sure ....

Otvenalix put a truhand over his mouth to cover the slight fluttering of mandibles that signified laughter among the thranx.

"All right," The intelligence officer said. "let us observe. Repler is backward in many ways, sure. It has a limited population, true. Hut its shuttle and spacecom facilities are modern and well-manned -very true.

Major industries are tourism and exotic woods, but the main income is derived from Repler City's use as a busy transfer point for interstellar shipping. It's the only habitable planet between Fluva and Praxiteles as you drive down the Arm. And it's still fairly dose to the center-ward systems."

A good place to trade around," agreed Porsupah.

'While also avoiding major tariffs on planets of destination. True. Nothing like the business Terra, Hivehom, or Drallar do, of course. But the merchants here make a good living, and business is growing steadily if not spectacularly."

"I've read the manual," Kitten said drily.

"Fine! Good!" Orvenalix reached into a drawer and removed a small vial of glass ... no, quartz ... with a pressure lock twice as big as the container, and a small bit of black board. Kitten and Porsupah slid their chairs closer.

Orvenalix keyed the lock and sprinkled, very carefully, a few grains of white crystal onto the board.

"Since you've both, presumably, 'read the manual,' perhaps you can tell me what this is?" Both junior officers leaned forward.

The Tolian sniffed once, gently. "Odorless. Clear, rhombehedric crystals with a glassy luster." The Tolian crushed one of the largest pieces to powder in a sharp, trimmed claw. He sniffed again, careful not to inhale the dust. "Concoidal fracture, no odor released on pulverizing ... yes, I think I know what it is, Major." He turned and looked at Kitten. "The lines of fracture turn blue, they turn blue."

Her eyes widened, and she couldn't help but whisper when she spoke to Orvenalix. "Bloodhype. Very high grade, too, if the fracture line turns that dark."

The antennae dipped slightly. "Almost pure. Also known as faster, brain-up, phinto, silly-salt, and many other names the mere mention of which are sufficient to inspire thoughts of regurgitation among intelligent, feeling beings."

"I thought I read that the Hyperion forests on Annubis were sterilized and wiped out ten years ago,"

Kitten said.

"As indeed they were," the intelligence officer continued. "Naturally, that was the first place the Service checked. We found nothing to indicate that any of the plants had survived the holocaust. At that time it was believed that the Hyperion plant could grow only on Arbutus. Transplanting was attempted for scientific purposes, but the seedlings and mature plants died rapidly as soon as they were removed from the planet. Fertilized seeds likewise transshipped did not sprout. In wiping out the supply it turned out that the species had been effectively exterminated forall purposes!"

"I wouldn't imagine anyone raising a fuss overthat ," said Porsupah.

"Other than a few masochistic botanists, no one did."

"It seems, though, that someone, somewhere, has gotten hold of some seeds and found a way to make them sprout, and worse, reproduce."

"What sort of ... of creature, would want to restart the traffic in bloodhype?" said Kitten, shuddering.

"Soft-angles, I remember you to be a brilliant student. Someday I hope you will make an even better agent, but in many ways you are still an immature grub. The galaxy contains a high volume of pure loathsomeness. Of which I have seen far more than is good for one's sleep. There are plenty of beings nominally labeled 'intelligent' who would sell their own eggs, and worse, for a few credits. The thing here that makes me marvel is not the perpetrators, but their science.

"I don't have to tell you what bloodhype addiction does. These new users display the same symptoms and reactions as those of over a decade ago. Which means that this new strain is at (cast as powerful as the original. It affects any living creature with a complex neural system and circulating liquid in its body.

'This includes every known intelligence, with the exception of a few silicon based primitives on restricted planets. Direct injection is the most common method of application, but inhaling the drug in sufficient quantities is also effective.

"Concentrating on the neurons, the drug produces an extremely pleasurable sensation. The thing about bloodhype is that most drugs work only on the mind, by distorting and affecting the images it creates and the information it receives. Bloodhype, on the other hand, is more in the nature of direct neural stimulation. In other words, instead of producing distortions in the information- interpreter (the brain), the original information is distorted right at the beginning, at the original nerve pickups in hands, feet, liver- everywhere the blood can carry it. The effect has been described many ways. One addict said it was like being the highest-pitched wire on a stringed instrument. It's many, many times more powerful than anything that works just on the mind acting as it does directly on the nerve cells rather than the brain. A moderate dose produces a 'fire-fit', an intense burning sensation that seems to add to the overall pleasure.

"Withdrawal symptoms commence anywhere from 60hh or 72 t-standard hours after the last injection.

Coordination begins to go, accompanied by a speed-up in involuntary muscular reactions. Breathing can speed up or slow, as can the heart and other self-regulating muscles. The senses are badly confused and feed false reports to the brain, which is itself undergoing severe emotional changes, from depression to exaltation and so forth. The body goes downhill like an unhatched egg with in sufficient yolk. It's possible to be in excellent physical shape and be dying-until the final moment, when every thing seems to jump on you at once.

"You go slowly insane, aware of what's taking place all the time. 'Dying by inches,' I believe a terran author called something far less extreme. The only way an addict can survive, once hooked, is if the medics can get to him fast. A lot of very complicated and expensive equipment supports the being's nervous system until the drug has burned itself out. Very painful and not always successful. If the brain itself has been too badly damaged, nothing can be done. In such cases, mercy killings are not unknown.

"If 120hh or 144 t-standard hours have passed, there is a ninety-eight and something percent chance of an excruciatingly painful death occurring. In such cases even the best of medical treatment is useless.

There is, of course, nothing like a simple antidote."

"And the shipments are coming through Repler?" said Kitten.

"It is thought to be so. We intercepted one, just one, by accident. No persons were taken. The best evidence we have is that every planet where new addicts have appeared was visited shortly before by a vessel that stopped to change or exchange cargo on Repler. There ate a few suspects here, whom we're being very careful not to warn-off. And this is not the only planet that's being carefully checked cut. But at this stage it seems like Repler is the best of several thin possibilities-Everything about the operation suggests professional planning with plenty of brains behind it. There's a lot of experience behind this setup."

"I don't wish to minimize out abilities, sir" interrupted Kitten, "but if all this is true, wiry send for two fairly inexperienced agent-students instead of a hundred pros?"

"One, your very inexperience is your best asset. You will be equally unknown to the runners. The one thing we fear more than anything else is that they might become aware that we suspect their operations here. And with something of this magnitude running smoothly, it's a likely bet that the pros handling things would stay quiet and shut down until they could shift their base elsewhere. We don't want to start over again somewhere a hundred parsecs down the Arm. We might not be fortunate enough to intercept another shipment. Arid the traffic hasn't assumed the proportions ... yet ... where an investment of that kind would justify the risk. A large sweep would be likely to catch up a lot of the small fry. The moguls usually manage to slip away and start raising hell somewhere else. You two stand a chance of cutting through a lot of opaque membrane and latching onto them before they have a chance to get suspicious.

At least, that's the theory. If you're caught, the worst that can happen is we lose two agents."

"You frame things so delicately," murmured Porsupah.

"The covers we've prepared for you don't require a lot of effort to maintain. Barring," he said, staring hard at Kitten, "unforseen complications! Lieutenant Porsupah is listed as a wealthy tree-farmer's nephew from Tolus Prime. Your covers provide you with a number of common interests. A shared interest in mildly dangerous sports, for one thing. It means you have reasons for wanting to jet all over the place- and incidentally, for carrying sidearms. Sport pistols. Licenses will be issued to the both of you on your way out. Your 'sporting weapons' each pack a much greater wallop than their appearance will suggest.

So for Hive's sake, be circumspect with them- Look around, take your time, and honestly try to have fun. I don't believe is miracles, but 'erecting the proper superstructure facilitates acquiring interior trappings.' "

"Mathewson, twenty-third edict, section four," said Kitten.

"'Accidents and miracles will happen if you can find the proper place in space'; yes, you're right, my door," replied Orvenalix. "I never knew theology interested you."

"Only the juicy parts. For example ..."

Porsupah elected to chew the upholstery.

Malcolm Hammurabi was counting his money. The awkward fact drat he didn't have it yet failed to interrupt fire pleasure he took in the mathematics.

It had been the kind of trip that ship-masters drink over: no muss, no fuss, and plenty of profits. Even tire drive bad bees trouble-free. Who'd have thought that those attenuated seals on Largess would be crazy for importedalva - let alone Replerianalva . Granted, though, the stuff was tasty enough. Even if Rodriguez wouldn't program the stuff for the galley. Mal's share of the profits would be, well, healthy.

Might even be enough to refinish that verdammt upper right quarter of the Umbra's KK drive projector screen. Not that it was an essential job ... not yet. But it would boost her favorable energy conversion ratio by a good thirty percent. That would convert to a savings of, oh, so and so much in ignition radioactives. Not to mention reducing wear and increasing efficiency in the engine systems.

He'd been told, often, that his habit of making a personal, solitary survey of ship's cargo the night after it had been shuttled down was just a little peculiar. The excuse be offered in return was that he wanted to be certain of the cargo's proper alignment for redistribution, atc., etc., right up to the moment of transfer.

In actuality, the fascination of standing alone with tons and tons of goods from tire far roaches of the galaxy, piled high in rainbow-hued plastic and metal containers, was one he had carried from childhood.