set up a schedule of conferences and arrange a place for ^ them?" *I

"At soonest. I will inform direct to your ship." ^

Barton decided that the party was about to break up, i*

but first Limila stepped forward to speak quietly with H"

Vertan. After a moment, he embraced her. In low tones H they spoke further, then separated, both smiling. But ^ when- Limila returned to Barton's side, he saw tears in her eyes.

Barton had bet on a final orgy of handshaking, and he won. Then after brief "so long"s to Slobodna, Tamirov, and Cummmgs, the walk back to the ship was silent. Far off, among buildings edging the spaceport. Barton had his first clear look at Tilaran trees. The foliage appeared feathery, with more yellow to its green than most Earthly vegetation. The breeze brought a light flowerlike fra- grance, though he saw no recognizable blooms.

Inside the ship, Tarleton said, "See you at dinner?

About an hour?" and left the other two. In Compartment Two. Barton and Limila doffed clothing. He had been

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right-she had lengthened the bra straps so that the pads now sat low and wide on her rib cage. She looked at him, but he made no comment.

He made drinks and gave her one; they sat relaxing.

Finally, he said, "You know Vertan before?"

"I knew of him; we had not met. He is one of great respect."

"I noticed, and I agree-he's a man, in anybody's league."

Limila smiled. "You want to know of what we spoke, that you did not hear?'*

"Sure, if it's any of my business." Well, she'd saved him from asking. . . .

"We spoke of teeth. Barton-of teeth and of tits. Soon I shall smile to you with forty teeth, again. And perhaps, though it is not yet certain, I no longer will need to wear dead padding. Vertan is to set a meeting of me with Tilaran surgical experts, and in a day or two I will know."

A couple of hours' talking in Tilaran, Barton thought, certainly brought back her native turn of phrase in a hurry. Not that he minded, so long as he knew what she meant. . ..

"That's fine with me, honey-whatever you want."

And at dinner, they and Tarleton were agreed that the fleet's first day on Tilara showed considerable promise.

Conferences-planning sessions-began the next day.

A Tilaran ground car delivered Barton and Tarleton to a building at the edge of the spaceport, indented into a grove of the feathery trees. Its shape was a simple para- bolic ellipsoid. Inside, the surface blended smoothly from copper-colored at floor level to shining silver at the top.

The first order of business-exchange of technical in- formation-went slowly at first, as the two groups be- came accustomed to each other's modes of thought Top priority was the project for testing the weapons of the Tilari-and their allies-against the Demu Shield. But the longer they talked about it, the more complicated it became.

Barton found himself becoming impatient. He felt his boss was too easygoing, too willing to allow the discus- sions to get onto side tangents. While the squadron lead-

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era and other specialists continued to talk, he drew Tarleton aside.

"Look-we're wasting time. They're talking projectile systems; we already know the Shield will stop those. Hell, it stood up against our fusion warheads, didn't it?"

"True," said Tarleton. "But we can't really tell our new allies, can we, that most of their arsenal is effec- tively a pile of junk?"

"We don't have to. But can't we zero-in first on the possibles, and let 'em test the other stuff later? You've listened to the pitch, same as I have-they have just three things that might work. I want to set it up to test those first, so we'll know what the hell-if anything- we have going for us."

"Three? Did I miss one?"

"Okay." Barton held up his index finger. "One. The TUari twin-ion beam, that converges when it hits solid matter, and induces kiloamps of high-freq current in the target. And they have that in a handgun model, believe it or not. I think that gizmo should be number one on our list."

"AH right, I agree. What else?"

Barton now had two fingers extended. "The plasma- gun. Whose is that? I didn't get all the spiel. . . ."

"A Filjar development-and that's the one I missed;

I didn't understand the explanation."

"Me either, in detail," said Barton. "But what I did get is, it throws a sort of souped-up ball lightning-a plasma that's stable until it touches something. Then it unstables in one hell of a hurry, focused toward the point of contact. Only drawback is that comparatively, it's a little slow."

"But will it penetrate the Shield?"

"Jesus Christ! That's what we want to find out!"

Tarleton shook his head. "Sorry. Trying to think in Tilaran, all day, has me a little confused."

"Yeh-me, too. Don't worry; we'll get used to it."

"I hope so. All right, then. Your third candidate?"

Barton had forgotten his finger-counting routine. "The Larka-Te high-drive torpedoes."

"I thought so, from the way you looked when they were being described. But that's a projectile system, isn't it?"

"Not quite," Barton said. "It starts that way, all drive 164.

and warhead, so it goes like a bat. In fact, the drive is the warhead, if I have that right.

"But why it might work is that when it hits and the drive begins to blow, it blows in a coherent wave front.

And while the front end is blowing, there's a matter of picoseconds when the back end is still pushing. So I think it's worth a try."

"All right. Barton. We'll arrange to put those three at the head of the line, for testing, and not worry about how long it takes to check out the rest."

"Good enough. One other thing, though. So far, we haven't talked about when we land and have to get out of the ships, in Demu territory. It's a safe bet the Demu have the sleep-gun in portable size-and maybe indivi- dual, one-man Shields. We don't, and we should. Hell, we haven't even worked up hand lasers."

"I know, Barton. Look-this was discussed on Earth.

The decision, was, that rather than delay the fleet, we wait to develop personal hardware until we saw what our allies might have to offer."

"All right-so here we are and here they are. When do we get to it? Just in case the Tilaran ion beam doesn't fill the bill?"

"Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any."

Barton was satisfied; the two men rejoined the group.