"That part puzzles me," Retief said. "The controls in these landing bugs are preset, you know."

"Possibly some malfunction," Magnan said absently. "Now, I'll want you to observe my technique, Retief; as Chief of Mission, I'll be moving in the highest levels of the local society, hobn.o.bbing with bigwigs, attending a gay round of routs and b.a.l.l.s. Tedious, of course, but one must accept these trifling inconveniences as part of the burden of leadership."

"What about finding the missing Amba.s.sador? Will you be handling that before or after the gay round-I mean the trifling inconveniences?"

"Frankly, Retief," Magnan said in a confidential tone, "I imagine we'll find His Excellency holed up in the native quarter with a pair of local houris. We'll hush up the affair, as is usual in such cases, and-"

"Ready for drop," the Captain's voice rasped in the diplomats' earphones. "Happy landings, gents-and look out for falling cargo." With a lurch, as though kicked by a giant boot, the capsule leaped free of the mother ship and arrowed downward through the murky atmosphere of Quahogg.

3.

"Great heavens. Retief," Magnan said, over the shriek of the wind, peering out through the armorgla.s.s panel set in the steel bulkhead of the tiny landing pod, moments after the cushioned impact on the surface. "There's nothing out there but a lot of worn-down stone and flying dust, unless you want to count those ugly-looking black clouds scudding overhead. What's happened to the palace of His Supreme Fulguration?"

"The welcoming committee seems to be late, too," Retief pointed out.

"Good lord-you don't suppose we blundered, coordinate-wise, and missed the drop area, like that last pack of nitwits?"

"If so, we missed it the same distance they did. Look over there."

Magnan eek!ed sharply. "Why-it's a CDT landing pod just like ours!"

"Except that the wind has peeled most of the plating off it," Retief agreed. "Well, let's get started, Mr. Magnan. We don't want to keep His Supremacy waiting."

Magnan a.s.sumed a determined expression. "I see we're up against some unexpected obstacles," he said firmly. "However, a diplomat's primary skill is adaptability."

"How true, Mr. Magnan. What do you plan to do?"

"Resign, effective last Tuesday, pension or no. Just thumb that intercom and tell the Captain to pick me up at once, will you?"

"One-way link, Mr. Magnan, remember? I'm afraid we're stuck."

"You mean...?"

Retief nodded. "We may as well disembark and find out if that report of a forty-foot worm was an exaggeration."

Magnan groaned. "Maybe, if we're lucky, we can find the cave. I hope those gluttons haven't eaten all the antipasto."

4.

Awkward in their bulky protective suits, the two diplomats cycled open the exit hatch. At once a violent blast of air seized them, spun them along across a stretch of eroded stone, to lodge with a thunderous impact against a low, stony ridge.

"So far so good," Retief said. "At least the weather reports were accurate."

"A scant consolation for being marooned in a maelstrom," Magnan's voice crackled in Retief's helmet.

"Still, you only have to hold the job down for thirty days to qualify for full Chief of Mission pay."

"If I live that long!"

"Our first move had better be to plant a tracer beam to mark ground zero, before they dump any more welcomees off-target," Retief suggested.

"Leaving clues to ease the burden of my successor interests me far less than preserving a whole skin," Magnan snapped. "I mean Amba.s.sador Wrothwax's skin, of course," he added quickly. "Gracious, I'm only too glad to hurl myself to destruction if it will help implement Corps policy."

"That's all right, my suit recorder's not on," Retief said. "And Wrothwax will be thinking of your skin-in strips-if you hurl yourself to destruction before you've found him."

Magnan, only dimly visible six feet away, struggled to a sitting position. At that precise moment there was a descending whistle, followed by a resounding thump a few yards distant in the gloom.

"That would be your medical supplies, right on schedule," Retief said. He got to his feet, forced his way forward into the gale. "That's a lot of medicine, Mr. Magnan," he said admiringly. "How did you sneak it past Supply Control?"

"Heavens, I hope the bottles aren't broken," Magnan offered.

"No bottles," Retief said. "Steel drums, fifty-five-gallon size. Lots of 'em."

a.s.sisted by his suit's servo-boosters, Magnan waded forward to peer at the heaped containers deposited on the rock. There was lettering of their sides: TINCTURE IODINE-.01%; SULPHURIC ETHER, USP; WHITE PETROLEUM OIL-HEAVY.

"You had me fooled," Retief said. "I thought you were just kidding about the medical kit."

"Whom, I?" Magnan said weakly. "Jest about a subject so essential to diplomacy?"

"Well, we're prepared for a variety of emergencies," Retief observed. "And I think I see the first one coming now." Magnan looked in the direction Retief was pointing. From the swirling cloud of windborne dust, a two-ton ma.s.s of leathery, dun-colored gelatin loomed mist-shrouded, humping itself relentlessly toward the Terrans on blunt pseudopodia.

"You see? I knew they were exaggerating," Magnan babbled, backing away. "It's hardly more than eight feet long, or possibly twelve, and it's not even a worm, it's more of a slug, and-"

"Let's hope it's a superslug-MDOM, for short," Retief said. "If not, I foresee a dim future for Terry-Quahogg relations."

Retief stepped aside as a long, tentaclelike member formed itself at the fore end of the amorphous creature and groped toward him. Thwarted, it shifted direction, s.n.a.t.c.hed at Magnan, who leaped away, was caught by the wind and bowled along head over heels into the murk. Retief went after him, brought him down with a flying tackle at the edge of a precipitous gully. For a moment, the two suited figures teetered at the lip of the ravine; then a vicious gust caught them, tumbled them over. Giant hammer blows slammed at Retief through his protective suit as he careened downward, bouncing from ledge to ledge to fetch up hard at the bottom. A moment later, Magnan came skidding down, helmet-first, amid a clatter of dislodged stones. Retief caught him by the shoulders, dragged him back into the meager shelter of the overhanging lip of a wind-carved cavern.

"Well, thank goodness you're here at last," a petulant voice chirped in his earphones. "We're almost out of anchovies!"

5.

"But this is insane," the slight, paunchy diplomat shivering in a use-stained environment suit repeated for the fourth time in three minutes. "It's obvious we're the victims of some grotesque hoax!"

"Possibly if you'd seen fit to confide a trifle more detail in your report, Thrashwelt, we'd all have been spared no little inconvenience," Magnan said acidly, holding out his gla.s.s.

"I did," Mr. Magnan, I a.s.sure you! I TWXed all the details to Sector, with particular emphasis on my allergy problem. And instead of a rescue team, they send us two more thirsts to quench-not that you're not welcome, of course," he added with a strained smile as he poured pink champagne into Magnan's sniffer. "We're down to the forty-four now, very poor year: miserable bouquet and an appalling traveler."

The diplomats were seated on spindly folding chairs grouped around a collapsible table with integral lace napery and bud vase, crowded with dainty gla.s.ses, crumb-covered plates, open tins, and crumpled paper napkins. In one corner of the cave were heaped a pile of ornately labeled empties, garnished with zwieback crusts, corks, and olive pits.

"Still, things could be worse," a silvery-haired Press Attache contributed in a tone of halfhearted optimism. "I recall hearing of a Cultural Mission marooned in the Belt for three weeks with nothing but a regulation multidenominational chapel kit to sustain them. Twenty-one days on Mogen David and sacrificial wafers..." He wagged his head in commiseration as the little group observed a moment of sympathetic silence.

"If only we could find the palace of His Supremacy," Magnan said dolefully. "Suppose we sent out search parties in various directions to comb the countryside-"