"Why, if it isn't Broodmaster Slith!" Magnan cried. "Retief, it's Broodmaster Slith! You remember Broodmaster Slith, of the Groacian Trade Mission to Haunch IV?"

"Is it you, Magnan?" the Groaci grated. "When last we met, you were meddling in Groaci affairs under the guise of selfless uplifter, disrupting peaceful commerce. In what role do you now intrude in Groacian s.p.a.ce?"

"Now, Slith, you have to confess it was a bit much, selling plastic frankfurters to those poor backward hotdog lovers-"

"How were we to know their inferior metabolisms were incapable of a.s.similating wholesome polystyrenes?" Slith snarled. "Enough of this chatter! Withdraw at once or take full responsibility for precipitation of a regrettable incident!"

"Now, don't be hasty, Broodmaster-"

"You may address me as Grand Commander of Avenging Flotillas Slith, if you please! As for haste, it is a virtue I recommend to you! In sixty seconds I order my gunners to fire!"

"I suggest you reconsider. Commander," Retief said. "At the first shot from your guns, three will get you five the Slox open up on you with everything they've got."

"What matter!" Slith hissed. "Let the miscreants invoke the full wrath of outraged Groacihood!"

"At a rough count, they have thirty-one ships to your twenty-four," Retief pointed out. "I think they've got you outwrathed."

"But what's all this talk of shooting?" Magnan cried gaily. "What could possibly be gained by gunfire?"

"Certain parcels of real estate, for a starter," Slith said crisply. "Plus the elimination of certain alien vermin."

Magnan gasped. "You confess you're here to take Yudore by force?"

"Hardly-not that the matter is of any concern to Terry spies! My mission here is to prevent the invasion of hapless Yudore by the insidious Slox-"

"I hear this!" a rasping, high-pitched voice cut in from the auxiliary screen, accompanied by a hissing of background noise. A wavering image formed on the tube, steadied into the form of a shiny, purplish-red cranium, long and narrow, k.n.o.bbed and spiked, with a pair of yellow eyes mounted on outriggers that projected a foot on either side. "I outrage! I do not endure! You are gave one minutes, Eastern Standard Time, for total abandon of vicinity! Counting! Nine, twelve, two, several-"

"Wha-what is it?" Magnan gasped, staring at the newcomer to the conversation.

"Aha-collusion between Soft One and Slox!" Slith keened. "I see it now! You thought to distract my attention with an exchange of civilities whilst your vile cronies executed a sneak attack around left end!"

"I-Chief General Okkyokk-chum to these monstrositaries?" The Slox spokesman screeched.

"Such indignant my language lack! Insufficient you threaten to lowly benefits of Slox Protectorate-but addition of insults! My goodness! Drat! Other obscenity as required!"

"It will avail you naught to rant, treacher!" Slith whispered in a venomous tone. "My guns stand ready to answer your slurs!"

"Only incredible restrains of high-cla.s.s Slox general intrudes herself to spare those skinny neck!" Okkyokk yelled in reply.

"Now, now, gentlemen, don't get carried away," Magnan called over the hiss of static. "I'm sure this can all be worked out equitably-"

"Unless this pernicious meddler in the Groaci destiny disperses his flimsy hulls at once, I'll not be responsible for the result!" Slith declared.

"My frustrate!" Okkyokk yelled, and brandished a pair of anterior limbs tipped with complicated shredding devices. "Gosh, such wish to know sensation of plait all five eyes into single superocular, followed by pluck like obscene daisy!"

"To wait in patience until the happy moment when I officiate at your burial, head-down, in the ceremonial sandbox," Slith countered.

"Well, at least they're still speaking to each other," Magnan said behind his hand as the exchange raged on. "That's something."

"We may get through this without any hull-burns after all," Retief said. "They have each ther bluffed; it looks like talk rather than torpedoes will carry the day. I suggest we execute a strategic withdrawal while they slug it out, vocabulary-to-vocabulary."

"Hmm. Scant points in that for Terran diplomacy. That is, duty demands that we play a more creative role in the rapprochement." Magnan put a finger against his narrow chin. "Now, if I should be the one to propose an equitable solution..."

"Let's not remind them we're here, Mr. Magnan," Retief suggested. "Frustrated tempers are often taken out in thrown crockery, and we'd make a convenient teacup-"

"Nonsense, they'd never dare." Magnan leaned forward. "Gentlemen!" he called over the din of battle. "I have the perfect solution! Since there seems to be some lack of confidence on the part of each of you in the benign intentions of the other, I propose that Yudore be placed under a Terran Protectorate!" Magnan smiled expectantly.

There was an instant of total silence as two sets of alien sense organs froze, oriented toward the interruption. Slith was the first to break the paralysis.

"What? Leave the fruits of Groaci planning to Terran harvesting? Never!"

"I convulse!" Okkyokk howled. "I exacerbate! I froth at buccal cavity! How are you invite? Mercy! Heavens to Marmaduke! Et cetera!"

"Gentlemen!" Magnan cried. "We Terrans would only remain on Yudore until such time as the aborigines had been properly educated in modern commercial methods and s.e.xual hygiene, after which we'd withdraw in favor of local self-determination!"

"First to pervert, then to abandon!" Slith hissed. "Bold threats, Soft Ones! But I defy you! General Okkyokk! I propose a truce, whilst we band together to confront the common enemy!"

"Done! Caramba! I affronterize! I mortal insult! I even annoy! First destruction we the kibitzer! Then procedure to Slox-Groaci quarrel!"

"Wait!" Magnan yelped. "You don't understand-!"

"I'm afraid they do," Retief said as he reached for the controls. "Hang on for evasive action, Mr. Magnan." The tiny craft leaped ahead, curvetting wildly left and right. There was a flash, and the screens went white and blanked out. The boat bucked wildly and flipped end-for-end. A second detonation sent it spinning like a flat stone skipped over a pond.

"Retief! Stop! We're headed straight for No Man's Land!" Magnan gasped as a lone screen flickered back to life, showing a vast Groaci battle wagon swelling dead ahead.

"We're going in under their guns," Retief snapped. "Running away, we'd be a sitting duck."

"Maybe they'll let us surrender!" Magnan bleated. "Can't we run out a white flag, or something?"

"I'm afraid it would just give them an aiming point." Retief wrenched the boat sideways, rode out another near-miss, drove on, to dive under the big ship's stern.

"Look out!" Magnan screeched as a vast, mottled, blue-green disk slid onto the screen. "We'll crash on Yudore!"

"If we're lucky," Retief agreed. Then the rising scream of splitting air made further conversation impossible.

3.

Except for the fading hiss of escaping air and the ping! of hot metal contracting, the only sounds audible in the shattered c.o.c.kpit were Magnan's groans as he extricated himself from the wreckage of his contour chair. Through a rent in the hull, yellow sunlight glared on the smoking ruins of the scout boat's control panel, the twisted and buckled floor plates, the empty pilot's seat.

"Glad to see you're awake," Retief said.

Magnan turned his aching head to see his companion leaning in the open escape hatch, apparently intact but for a bruise on the cheekbone and a burned patch on the front of his powder-blue afternoon informal blazer. "The air's a little thin, but the O2 content seems adequate. How do you feel?"

"Ghastly," Magnan confided. He fumbled his shock harness free and groped his way through the hatch to drop down shakily on a close-cropped, peach-colored sward. All around, tall, treelike growths with ribbed, red-orange trunks rose into the pale sky, supporting ma.s.ses of spongy, tangerine-toned foliage. Clumps of yellow, amber, and magenta blossoms glowed in the shade like daubs of fluorescent paint.

"Why are we still alive?" the senior diplomat inquired dazedly. "The last thing I remember is a pale-pink mountaintip sticking up through a cloud bank directly in our path."