"Underground shelters?" Magnan inquired.

"What-caverns large enough to shelter the entire population-cut into solid rock?" Sloonge sounded surprised. "Quite beyond the scope of our technology, I'm afraid."

The party topped a rise; through a momentary break in the pall of rolling dust, a featureless plain was visible, stretching to a row of humpbacked hills.

"Still nothing," Magnan complained, his voice barely audible over the keening of the wind. "How much farther are we expected to wade through this Niagara of emery dust?"

"Not far," Sloonge said. "We're almost there."

"I suppose the palace is nestled in the hills," Magnan muttered doubtfully as they forged ahead.

Ten minutes later, after mounting a slope of drifted dust in the lee of a rounded promontory, they reached a sheltered furrow in the lumpy ground.

"Ah, here we are," Sloonge telepathed, angling toward a lightless fold in the landscape.

"I still don't see anything," Magnan said.

"We Quahoggians don't lavish much effort on externals," Sloonge explained. "Why bother, when the sand would flay a coat of paint off in twelve seconds by the clock?"

The giant creature extended an improvised digit the size of a prize-winning watermelon to thumb a spot on the featureless gray wall. At once, a crack appeared, valved open on a brilliantly lit pa.s.sage wide enough to admit a brace of dire-beasts in tandem harness.

"Breathtaking!" Magnan gasped as they stepped inside the rose-colored pa.s.sage. The howl of the wind died as the entry closed behind them, to be replaced by the soothing strains of a Strauss waltz; liveried amoeboids of medium size sprang forward to attend the newcomers.

"You may remove your helmets, gentlemen," Sloonge announced. "You'll find the air here tailored to your specifications, as suggested by Amba.s.sador Wrothwax."

"Why, Retief, I don't believe I've ever seen anything so lavish in scale and decor," Magnan said as they proceeded along a lofty hall paved in red carpeting and draped in iridescent scarlet silk shot through with bluish traceries. "No wonder they don't bother fancying up the external facades, with all this in store!"

"I'm exceedingly pleased you find the surroundings acceptable," a deep, soundless voice seemed to boom through Retief's brain.

"Good lord! What was that?" Magnan quavered.

"Gentlemen, permit me to introduce His Supreme Fulguration," Sloonge spoke up smoothly. "Your Supremacy, the newly arrived members of the Terran delegation."

"A pleasure," the vast voice rumbled. "Sloonge will show you to your quarters. Just ask for whatever you'd like. As for myself, I'll have to ask you to excuse me for the present. A touch of dyspepsia, I fear."

Magnan was fingering his skull as if exploring for cracks. "I understood you to say contact was necessary!" he said. "How is it we can hear His Supremacy when he's not even here?"

"Not here? Surely you jest, Magnan," Sloonge said jovially. "Of course he's here!"

Magnan looked around. "Where?"

"Don't you know where you are?" Sloonge's mental tone was somewhat amused.

"Of course-we're inside His Supremacy's palace..."

"Close," Retief said. "But I think 'inside His Supremacy' would be closer; about fifty yards along the pharynx, on the threshold of the cardiac orifice, to be precise."

8.

"You-you don't mean we've been eaten alive?" Magnan gobbled feebly.

"Eaten?" Sloonge laughed a hearty telepathic laugh. "My dear sir, you'd hardly const.i.tute a crumb for His Supremacy-even if he was capable of subsisting on carbon compounds."

"Then... what...?"

"I think I'm beginning to get the idea, Mr. Magnan," Retief said. "The external environment here on Quahogg made development in that direction pretty difficult; so they turned to the inner man, so to speak."

"Well put, Retief," Sloonge said. "I think you'll find we live very well here under the protection of His Supremacy."

"But-inside a living creature! It's fantastic!"

"As I understand human physiology, you maintain a sizable internal population of your own," Sloonge said somewhat tartly.

"Yes-but those are merely intestinal parasites. We diplomats are a different type of parasite entirely!"

"I hope sir," Sloonge said with a noticeable chill in his tone, "that you harbor no groundless prejudice toward honest intestinal fauna?"

"Gracious, no," Magnan said hastily. "Actually, I couldn't get along without them."

"To be sure. Well, then, may I show you around? Ahead are the fundus and pylorus; on my left, the arcade leading to the pancreas and spleen; I believe we're having a modest chamber-music concert there this evening. There'll be a few tables of bridge in the jejunum, and roulette in the ileum for the more adventurous souls."

"Retief, it's amazing," Magnan murmured as they proceeded. "The hangings, the carpeting, the furnishings-they're magnificent. Whoever would have thought tripe could be so glamorous?"

"Your quarters, gentlemen," Sloonge announced, ushering them through an arched opening into an anteroom done in a rather sour yellow. "Unfortunately, the colors are a bit liverish at the moment, but the decor will improve as soon as His Supremacy is feeling better." He opened wide doors on a s.p.a.cious room complete with flowery wallpaper, luxurious beds, pictures on the walls, capacious closets containing complete wardrobes, and an adjoining chamber a-twinkle with ceramics and bright metal fittings.

Magnan thumped the bed; the mattress seemed to be a high-quality innerspring; the sheets were of pink silk, the blanket a light-weight violet wool.

"Am I to understand His Supremacy provides all this himself?" he inquired in an awed tone.

"Why not? Once complete control of the metabolic processes is established, the rest is easy. After all, silk, wool, leather, ivory-are all animal products. His Supremacy simply manufactures them in the required sizes and shapes. He can, of course, duplicate any artifact."

"Great heavens, Retief-there are even nymphs disporting themselves on the shower curtain," Magnan marveled. "How in the world do they-I mean does he do it?"

"It's really quite simple," Sloonge said. "Over the ages, you Terrans have learned to manipulate externals. His Supremacy has merely concentrated on the internal environment."

"Marvelous," Magnan ooh-ed. "I can't wait to see the rest!"

"A word of caution," Sloonge said. "Certain areas are off limits to guests for reasons of internal security. You'd find conditions beyond the pyloric orifice most uncomfortable; and I'd recommend avoiding the trachea and bronchial pa.s.sages. Some of our people sometimes go slumming in the quaint little bronchioles over that way, but they run the risk of having some unsavory character jump out of a dark alveolus at them. Kindly limit your explorations to the Upper tract."

Magnan looked suddenly thoughtful. "Ah... what happens when His Supremacy has his dinner?"

Sloonge chuckled heartily. "I suppose you're picturing yourself swept downstream by a sudden avalanche of appetizers, eh, Magnan? Have no fear. The living quarters have been evolved as a quite separate complex in the anterior wall of the gut, well out of traffic. In any event, His Supremacy only ingests at intervals of several centuries. Just between us," he added, "he sometimes nibbles between meals; thus his present indisposition, no doubt. However, gluttony is its own punishment, as I've so often reminded him."

"Can't he hear you?" Magnan inquired nervously, glancing at the ceiling.

"His Supremacy would never think of eavesdropping," Sloonge said. "And if he did, he'd soon be looking for a new staff. We treasure our privacy."