lying around wounded and ready for the taking. They weren't too injured to recover and get busy. Only a fool works when he can make someone else do it. We Tungs are not fools."

"How would you like it if we made a slave of you?" Grayder asked with much curiosity.

It took the other aback. He had a period of confusion before he replied, "Isn't that what you intend to do?"

"No."

"But I am strong and healthy. I'm more valuable alive than dead. It will be your loss if you kill me."

"We don't kill people if we can help it," Grayder told him. "Neither do we make

slaves of them."

"What do you do with them?"

"Nothing."

"Then why am I here?"

"We want information. After we've got it you may go."

"You must be imbeciles," opined Alaman Tung, baffled and suspicious. "Or

liars."

"Idiots and liars don't build ships like this one," Grayder retorted. "If you're up against something you can't understand don't try to understand it. Just answer our questions." He let that sink in before he went on, "How many people live in the Tung stronghold?"

"About seven hundred."

"How many other strongholds are there?"

"A lot."

"Be more specific! What number?"

"How should I know what number? How should anyone know what number?" demanded Alaman Tung. "When it is risky to stray outside one's own hunting-grounds do you expect people to explore the world? Nobody knows what number, not even the Roms."

"Roms? Who are those?"

"Dirt, fidgety dirt. They're the only ones who move around and they haven't even got a stronghold. They roam the desert like animals and every once in a while they come out and poach on somebody's hunting-grounds. They never fight if they can help it. At first sign of attack they disappear into the desert."

"Sounds like the gang we noticed using tents." ventured Major Hame.

Grayder nodded and returned to his questioning. "So you get food by hunting?"

"Mostly. The women gather some where they find it. The slaves grow some but not much."

"Wouldn't it be better, surer and easier to grow food systematically and on a wide scale?"

"What, and have it stolen in a night-raid the moment it was ready?" scoffed Alaman Tung. "We're not so witless as to grow food for others to take. Besides, it means work."

"You don't like work?"

"Who does?"

"What's wrong with it?" Grayder pressed.

"Plenty. It's stupid. It isn't necessary except for gnoits. Why work if you can live

without it?"

Ignoring the point, Grayder said, "Did your father tell you that?"

"Sure he did. And his father told him. They all had brains, see? That's why you

shoved our ancestors out of Terra. They had brains. You worked and they didn't. You didn't like clever people making fools of you. It advertised your inferiority for all to see. So you had to get rid of them."

"Did your father tell you that too?"

"Everybody knows it," said Tung as if stating an incontrovertible fact.

"Well," said Grayder, "if your ancestors were so remarkably superior why didn't

they kick us out?"

"There were too many of you. On Terra the dopes have always outnumbered the clever."

"Am I a dope?" interjected the Ambassador curiously.

"I should think so," answered Tung. "You look one to me. I daresay that if you

found something valuable belonging to somebody else you would give it back to

him."

"I certainly would."

"That proves it."

A little annoyed, the Ambassador said, "And why shouldn't I give it back?"

"Finders keepers. It's the finder's reward for having his wits about him and the

loser's punishment for not having them. You people seem to have no idea of

common justice."

"If I stole the very clothes off your back and the food you were about to eat, would you consider it just?"

"Sure thing-if you were smart enough to do it and I was stupid enough to let you."

"You'd not take any action about it?"

"Of course I would."

"What would you do?"

"First chance I got I'd steal them back and more besides."

"Suppose there wasn't a chance?"

"Then I'd take them off some dopier dope."

"In other words," pursued the Ambassador, "you think it's every man for himself

and the Devil take the hindmost?"

"It's the clever for themselves and let the stupid go soak. I don't know what you mean by the Devil. I have never heard the word."

As the Ambassador gave up, Grayder took over again and asked, "Have you ever heard of God?"

"What's that?" inquired the other blankly.

Lying back in his seat, Grayder drummed his fingers on his desk and didn't reply. He stared at Tung while his thoughts meandered around. After a while he said to the Ambassador, "To be frank, Your Excellency, I don't think this is worth continuing. We're wasting our time."

"I feel the same way about it," the Ambassador confirmed. "But Terra wants a report and expects to get one. We'd better make it look comprehensive even if it isn't. I'd like to ask this fellow a few more questions. To give him his due he is willing enough to answer."

"If he's doing it truthfully," commented Grayder, watching Tung.

There was no visible reaction. Without a doubt Tung had heard the remark and understood it. But he did not bristle with indignation as the average Terran would have done. He seemed completely indifferent as to whether he was viewed as a paragon of veracity or an incorrigible liar.

Grayder's own brain did a couple of somersaults as he strove to analyze the other's mind. Obviously Alaman Tung did not know the difference between right and wrong or, if he did, his estimates did not accord with Terran standards. He did not know the difference between honesty and dishonesty, justice and injustice. In view of this it was hardly likely that he could detect the wide gap between truth and untruth. If all his answers had been truthful, as was possible, it would be for one reason only, namely, that he had considered it convenient to tell the truth and inconvenient to tell lies. Expediency was the sole determining factor.

The Ambassador broke into Grayder's train of thought by asking Tung, "What method of communication is there between these various strongholds?"

"Communication?" Tung looked baffled.

"You talk with them, don't you?"

"Only in the trading season."

"Never at any other time?"

"No."

"Then how do you get news from far away?" said the Ambassador?

"We don't. What do we want news for? We can't eat ft, drink it or sleep with it.

What's the use of news?"

"Surely you'd like to know what's happening on your own planet?"

"We couldn't care less. We tend our own business and leave others to tend theirs,"

replied Tung. "What goes on elsewhere is no concern of ours. The nosey ask for

all the trouble they get."

The Ambassador tried another tack. "With how many strongholds do you have contact during the trading season?"