"Get busy and give me three stripes," threatened Gleed, "or when I come back on duty I'll make everyone's heart bleed for you."

He offered an arm with the muscles bunched. O'Keefe did as ordered. Gleed examined the result, was satisfied. He glanced at the smirking onlookers.

"Well, what are you monkeys chittering at? Never seen a man in the altogether before?"

"It isn't that, Sarge," replied one. "It's the boots. They're incongruous."

"Hah," said Gleed without humor. "We've no sandals and that's that. It's got to be boots." He left them, reached the airlock. "I am now a model of sartorial perfection. Let's go, fellows." The eight went down the gangway, headed for the faint path the Hygeians had made through the grain, took no notice of personal and pointed comments yelled from the ship. They made good pace, got out of the crops and onto a narrow road leading to the town. There was no traffic upon this road except for what looked like a horse and cart vaguely visible a long way back. Trooper Yarrow, one of the erstwhile sunbathers, enthused, "Man, this gives me zip! Anything to get away from Bidworthy and that metal bottle for a while. I'd do it on ten-foot stilts if I had to. Don't understand why all the others are so windy." His boon companion, Trooper Kinvig, said, "Notice something? All troopers. No crew. Not one."

"Yellow-bellies," opined Yarrow.

"Yah, pinkies!" screamed a shrill voice.

They looked mutually toward the source. Two boys of nine, naked and deep

brown with sunburn, were sitting atop a wall pointing at them.

"Pinkies!" shrieked one.

"Corpse-bodies!" competed the other, laughing himself silly.

"Take no notice," ordered Gleed, marching on with bare dignity.

"Pinkies!" howled the two in unison. "Sickly dead-flesh!"

"They don't seem to like our complexions," complained Kinvig, unhappy about it.

"Well be as brown as they are within a few days," Gleed pointed out. "I'm

browning as I walk."

"That may be-but I still don't like being compared with a corpse. Who do those

kids think they are?"

Now the town hove into near view. So also did two men walking towards them.

These oncomers attracted instant attention because both were about seven feet tall and built like prize bulls. They weighed about three hundred pounds apiece. Each was adorned with an inscribed silver disc hanging from his neck by a thin chain.

Stepping into the visitors' path and bringing them to a halt, they surveyed the group with mingled disgust and disdain. One spoke, his voice deep and authoritative.

"You're Terrans?"

"That's obvious, Lashman," observed the second of the pair. "Pale, thin, underweight and ruining their soles with clumsy footgear."

"I know, Fant," said Lashman. "But we have to be formal about this." He returned

attention to Gleed, picking on him because of his greasepaint stripes. "Terrans?"

"Yes," said Gleed, accepting the role of spokesman.

"Where are you going?"

"What's it to do with you?" asked Gleed toughly.

"Everything." Lashman pointed to the disc shining on his huge chest. "We are

Public Guardians. We are entitled to ask questions. Where are you going?"

"Into town."

"Who gave you permission to do so?"

Not liking the situation nor the enormous size of his opponents, Gleed decided

that a little tact would not come amiss. "Our commanding officer. He's had an

interview with your Mayor and has since allowed us to go out.""Then let's see your certificates of fumigation.""Certificates of what?" exclaimed Gleed, thunderstruck."Fumigation," repeated Lashman and added in an aside to Fant, "Defective hearing. In need of aural irrigation."

"Canals blocked with dirt," agreed Fant.

At that point the physical culture expert stepped to the front, swelled his muscles

and demanded aggressively "Who says we should be fumigated?"

Reaching out a hand the size of a spade, Lashman picked him up by the scruff of his neck, held him in mid-air and said clearly and distinctly, "Shut up!" Then he

put him down. The victim shuffled sheepishly to the back of the bunch. Lashman spoke to Gleed.

"Have you or have you not been fumigated?"

"We're quite clean. We wouldn't have been permitted to leave the ship if we'd

been unclean."

"Have you or have you not been fumigated?"

"No, we haven't"

"You can't enter the town unless medically examined and disinfected."

"Yah, waxies!" came a thin cry from the distance.

"Why not?" asked Gleed, disappointed and peeved. "Do you think we're full of

disease?"

"The law is the law. If you don't like it, get it altered."

"This is no way to treat friends," Gleed persisted. "If your mayor had objected to us looking around he'd have said so."

"Was he asked?" put in Fant.

"I don't know."

"Then you can take it that he wasn't. What makes you think you can go where you like and do as you please on somebody else's world?"

"I--".

Lashman interrupted. "And why have you left off your coverings? Why are you

exposing your revolting bodies for all to see? Don't you know that it is indecent and disgusting?" "Holy smoke!" Gleed went pop-eyed. "We've been ordered to do as you people do."

"As we do?" Lashman frowned his disapproval. "We don't display bodies

anything like yours. If I were one half as feeble and decrepit I'd hang myself from the nearest tree, wouldn't you, Fant?"

"Yaz," said Fant with pious fervor.

"We exhibit strong, healthy bodies," insisted Lashman. "Like this one." He

slapped his broad abdomen. It sounded like smacking a slab of granite.

"Something worth seeing."

"Think you're good, don't you?" interjected Trooper Yarrow with maximum sarcasm.

Lashman stared at him forbiddingly. "Did anyone request you to speak, Skinny-

ribs?"

"Let's go back to the ship," said Gleed. "I'll make a report to the Colonel. Maybe he'll take some action about it."

"But what about our leave?" complained Kinvig. "We're being bilked of it."

"What alternative do you suggest?" Gleed invited.

Kinvig couldn't think of any. Neither could the others. A united attack upon the tremendous Public Guardians might be successful but obviously would not gain them the keys to paradise. On the contrary, assault and battery would earn them a court-martial, if they survived to face it.

"I'm returning anyway," Gleed told them. "You crummy-looking nakes can please