Top Secret
Astounding Science Fiction – August 1956
(1956)*
Eric Frank Russell
illustrated by van Dongen

Man invented speech a long time ago. Later they invented writing. After due consideration of Russell's theme here, I begin to understand why verbal relaying wasn't satisfactory.

-

	Ashmore said, with irritating phlegmaticism, "The Zengs have everything to gain and nothing to lose by remaining friendly with us. I'm not worried about them."

	"But I am," rasped General Rail-ton. "I am paid to worry. It's my job. If the Zeng empire launches a treacherous attack upon ours and gains some initial successes, who'll get the blame? Who'll make wholesale accusations of military unpreparedness and for whose blood will the masses howl?" He tapped his two rows of medal ribbons. "Mine!"

	"Understanding your position, I cannot share your alarm," maintained Ashmore, refusing to budge. "The Zeng empire is less than half the size of ours. The Zengs are an amiable and co-operative form of life and we've been on excellent terms with them since the first day of contact."

	"I'll grant you all that." General Railton tugged furiously at his large and luxuriant mustache while he examined the great star map that covered an entire wall. "I have to consider things purely from the military viewpoint. It's my task to look to the future and expect the worst."

	"Well, what's worrying you in particular?" Ashmore invited.

	"Two things." Railton placed an authoritative finger on the star map. "Right here we hold a fairly new planet called Motan. You can see where it is—out in the wilds, far beyond our long-established frontiers. It's located in the middle of a close-packed group of solar systems, a stellar array that represents an important junction in space."

	"I know all that."

	"At Motan we've got a foothold of immense strategic value. We're in ambush on the crossroads, so to speak. Twenty thousand Terrans are there, complete with two spaceports and twenty-four light cruisers." He glanced at the other. "And what happens?"

	Ashmore offered no comment.

	"The Zengs," said Railton, making a personal grievance of it, "move in and take over two nearby planets in the same group."

	"With our agreement," Ashmore reminded. "We did not need those two planets. The Zengs did want them. They put in a polite and correct request for permission to take over. Greenwood told them to help themselves."

	"Greenwood," exploded Railton, "is something I could describe in detail were it not for my oath of loyalty."

	"Let it pass," suggested Ashmore, wearily. "If he blundered, he did so with the full approval of the World Council."

	"The World Council," Railton snorted. "All they're interested in is exploration, discovery and trade. All they can think of is culture and cash. They're completely devoid of any sense of peril."

	"Not being military officers," Ashmore pointed out, "they can hardly be expected to exist in a state of perpetual apprehension."

	"Mine's not without cause." Railton had another go at uprooting the mustaches. "The Zengs craftily position themselves adjacent to Motan." He swept spread fingers across the map in a wide arc. "And all over here are Zeng outposts mixed up with ours. No orderliness about it, no system. A mob, sir, a scattered mob."

	"That's natural when two empires overlap," informed Ashmore. "And, after all, the mighty cosmos isn't a parade ground."

-

	Ignoring that, Railton said pointedly, "Then a cipher book disappears."

	"It was shipped back on the Laura Lindsay. She blew apart and was a total loss. You know that."

	"I know only what they see fit to tell me. I don't know that the book was actually on the ship. If it was not, where is it? Who's got it? What's he doing with it?" He waited for comment that did not come; finished, "So I had to move heaven and earth to get that cipher canceled and have copies of a new one sent out."

	"Accidents happen," said Ashmore.

	"Today," continued Railton, "I discover that Commander Hunter, on Motan, has been given the usual fat-headed emergency order. If war breaks out, he must fight a defensive action and hold the planet at all costs."

	"What's wrong with that?"

	Staring at him incredulously, Railton growled, "And him with twenty-four light cruisers. Not to mention two new battleships soon to follow."

	"I don't quite understand."

	"Wars," explained Rail-ton, as one would to a child, "cannot be fought without armed ships. Ships cannot function usefully without instructions based on careful appraisal of tactical necessities. Somebody has to plan and give orders. The orders have to be received by those appointed to carry them out."

	"So—?"

	"How can Zeng warships receive and obey orders if their planetary beam stations have been destroyed?"

	"You think that immediately war breaks out the forces on Motan should bomb every beam station within reach?"

	"Most certainly, man!" Railton looked pleased at long last. "The instant the Zengs attack we've got to retaliate against their beam stations. That's tantamount to depriving them of their eyes and ears. Motan must be fully prepared to do its share. Commander Hunter's orders are out of date, behind the times, in fact plain stupid. The sooner they're rectified, the better."

	"You're the boss," Ashmore reminded. "You've the authority to have them changed."

	"That's exactly what I intend to do. I am sending Hunter appropriate instructions at once. And. not by direct beam either." He indicated the map again. "In this messy muddle there are fifty or more Zeng beam stations lying on the straight line between here and there. How do we know how much stuff they're picking up and deciphering?"

	'The only alternative is the tight beam," Ashmore said. "And that takes ten times as long. It zigzags all over the starfield from one station to another."

	"But it's a thousand times safer and surer," Railton riposted. "Motan's station has just been completed and now's the time to make use of the fact. I'll send new instructions by tight beam, in straight language and leave no room for misunderstanding."

	He spent twenty minutes composing a suitable message, finally got it to his satisfaction. Ashmore read it, could suggest no improvements. In due course it flashed out to Centauri, the first staging-post across the galaxy.

	In event of hostile action in your sector the war must be fought to outstretch and rive all enemy's chief lines of communication.

	"That," said Railton, "expresses it broadly enough to show Hunter what's wanted but still leave him with some initiative."

	At Centauri the message was unscrambled, read off in clear, read into another beam of different frequency, scrambling and angle, boosted to the next nearest station. There it was sorted out, read off in clear, repeated into another beam and squirted onward.

	It went leftward, rightward, up-ward, downward, and was dutifully recited eighteen times by voices ranging from Terran-American deep-South-suh to Bootean-Ansanite far-North-yczzah. But it got there just the same.

	Yes, it got there.

-

	Lounging behind his desk, Commander Hunter glanced idly at the Motan thirty-hour clock, gave a wide yawn, wondered for the hundredth time whether it was something in the alien atmosphere that gave him the gapes. A knock sounded on his office door.

	"Come in!"

	Tyler entered, red-nosed and sniffy as usual. He saluted, dumped a signal form on the desk. "Message from Terra, sir." He saluted again and marched out, sniffing as he went.

	Picking it up, Hunter yawned again as he looked at it. Then his mouth clapped shut with a hearable crack of jawbones. He sat bolt upright, eyes popping, read it a second time.

	Ex Terra Space Control. Tight Beam, Straight. TOP SECRET. To Motan. An event of hospitality your section the foremost when forty-two ostriches arrive on any cheap line of communication.

	Holding it in one hand he walked widdershins three times round the room, but it made no difference. The message still said what it said.

	So he reseated himself, reached for the phone and bawled, "Maxwell? Is Maxwell there? Send him in at once!"

	Maxwell appeared within a couple of minutes. He was a long, lean character who constantly maintained an expression of chronic disillusionment. Sighing deeply, he sat down.

	"What's it this time, Felix?"

	"Now," said Hunter, in the manner of a dentist about to reach for the big one at the back, "you're this planet's chief equipment officer. What you don't know about stores, supplies and equipment isn't worth knowing, eh?"

	"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I—"

	"You know everything about equipment," insisted Hunter, ascending a step higher up the tonic solfa, "else you've no right to be here and taking money for it. You're skinning the Terran taxpayer by false pretenses."

	"Calm down, Felix," urged Maxwell. "I've a bellyful of troubles of my own." His questing eyes found the paper in the other's hand. "I take it that something's been requisitioned of which you don't approve. What is it?"

	"Forty-two ostriches," informed Hunter.

	Maxwell gave a violent jerk, fell off his chair, regained it and said, "Ha-ha! That's good. Best I've heard in years."

	"You can see the joke all right?" asked Hunter, with artificial pleasantness. "You think it a winner?"

	"Sure," enthused Maxwell. "It's really rich." He added another ha-ha by way of support.

	"Then," said Hunter, a trifle viciously, "maybe you'll explain it to me because I'm too dumb to get it on my own." He leaned forward, arms akimbo. "Why do we require forty-two ostriches, eh? Tell me that!"

	"Are you serious?" asked Maxwell, a little dazed.

	For answer, Hunter shoved the signal form at him. Maxwell read it, stood up, sat down, read it again, turned it over and carefully perused the blank back.

	"Well?" prompted Hunter.

	"I've had nothing to do with this," assured Maxwell, hurriedly. He handed back the signal form as though anxious to be rid of it. "It's a Terran-authorized shipment made without demand from this end."

	"My limited intelligence enabled me to deduce that much," said Hunter. "But as I have pointed out, you know all about equipment required for given conditions on any given world. All I want from you is information on' why Motan needs forty-two ostriches—and what we're supposed to do with them when they come."

	"I don't know," Maxwell admitted.

	"You don't know?" 

	"No."

	"That's a help." Hunter glowered at the signal. ."A very big help."

	"How about it being in code?" inquired Maxwell, desperate enough to fish around.

	"It says here it's in straight."

	"That could be an error."

	"All right. We can soon check."

	Unlocking a big wall safe, Hunter extracted a brass-bound book, scrabbled through its pages. Then he gave it to Maxwell. "See if you can find a reference to ostriches or any reasonable resemblance thereto."

	After five minutes Maxwell voiced a dismal, "No."

	"Well," persisted Hunter, "have you sent a demand for forty-two of anything that might be misread as ostriches?"

	"Not a thing." He meditated a bit, added glumly, "I did order a one-pint blowtorch."

	Taking a tight grip on the rim of the desk, Hunter said, "What's that got to do with it?"

	"Nothing. I was just thinking. That's what I ordered. You ought to see what I got." He gestured toward the door. "It's right out there in the yard. I had it dragged there for your benefit."

	"Let's have a look at it."

	Hunter followed him outside, inspected the object of the other's discontent. It had a body slightly bigger than a garbage can, also a nozzle five inches in diameter by three feet in length. Though empty, it was as much as the two could manage merely to lift it.

	"What the deuce is it, anyway?" demanded Hunter, scowling.

	"A one-pint blowtorch. The consignment note says so."

	"Never seen anything like it. We'd better check the stores catalogue." Returning to the office, he dug the tome out of the safe, thumbed through it rapidly, found what he wanted somewhere among the middle pages.

	19112. Blowtorch, butane, ½ pint capacity.

	19112A. Blowtorch, butane, 1 pint capacity.

	19112B. Blowtorch (tar-boiler pattern), kerosene, 15 gallons capacity.

	19112B(a). Portable trolley for 19112B.

	"You've got B in lieu of A," Hunter diagnozed.

	"That's right. I order A and I get B."

	"Without the trolley."

	"Correct."

	"Some moron is doing his best." He returned the catalogue to the safe. "You'll have to ship it back. It's a fat lot of use to us without the trolley even if we do find need to boil some tar."

	"Oh, I don't know," Maxwell opined. "We can handle it by sheer muscle when the two hundred left-legged men get here."

	Hunter plonked himself in his chair, gave the other the hard eye. "Quit beating about the bush. What is on your mind?"

	"The last ship," said Maxwell, moodily, "brought two hundred pairs of left-legged rubber thigh-boots."

	"The next ship may bring two hundred pairs of right-legged ones to match up," said Hunter. "Plus forty-two ostriches. When that's done we'll be ready for anything. We can defy the cosmos." He suddenly went purple in the face, snatched up the phone and yelled, "Tyler! Tyler."

	When that worthy appeared he said, "Blow your nose and tight-beam this message: Why forty-two ostriches?"

	It went out, scrambled and unscrambled and rescrambled, upward, downward, rightward, leftward, recited in Sirian-Kham lowlands accents and Terran-Scottish highlands accents and many more. But it got there just the same.

	Yes, it got there.

-

	General Railton glanced up from a thick wad of documents and rapped impatiently, "What is it?"

	"Top secret message from Motan, sir."

	Taking it, Railton looked it over.

	We've fought two ostriches.

	"Ashmore!" he yelled. "Pennington! Whittaker!"

	They came on the run, lined up before his desk, assumed habitual expressions of innocence. He eyed them as though each was personally responsible for something dastardly.

	"What," he demanded, "is the meaning of this?"

	He tossed the signal form at Pennington who gave it the glassy eye and passed it to Whittaker who examined it fearfully and got rid of it on Ashmore. The latter scanned it, dumped it back on the desk. Nobody said anything.

	"Well," said Railton, "isn't there a useful thought between the three of you?"

	Picking up courage, Pennington ventured, "It must be in code, sir."

	"It is clearly and plainly captioned as being in straight."

	"That may be so, sir. But it doesn't make sense in straight."

	"D'you think I'd have summoned you here if it did make rhyme or reason?" Railton let go a snort that quivered his mustaches. "Bring me the current code book. We'll see if we can get to the bottom of this."

	They fetched him the volume then in use, the sixth of Series B. He sought through it at length. So did they, each in turn. No ostriches.

	"Try the earlier books," Railton ordered. "Some fool on Motan may have picked up an obsolete issue.""

	So they staggered in with a stack of thirty volumes, worked back to BA. No ostriches. After that, they commenced on AZ and laboriously headed toward AA.

	Pennington, thumbing through AK, let go a yelp of triumph. "Here it is, sir. An ostrich is a food-supply and rationing code-word located in the quartermaster section."

	"What does it mean?" inquired Railton, raising expectant eyebrows.

	"One gross of fresh eggs," said Pennington, in the manner of one who sweeps aside the veil of mystery.

	"Ah!" said Railton, in tones of exaggerated satisfaction. "So at last we know where we stand, don't we? Everything has become clear. On Motan they've beaten off an attack by three hundred fresh eggs, eh?"

	Pennington looked crushed.

	"Fresh eggs," echoed Ashmore. "That may be a clue!"

	"What sort of clue?" demanded Railton, turning attention his way.

	"In olden times," explained Ash-more, "the word fresh meant impudent, cheeky, brazen. And an egg was a person. Also, a hoodlum or thug was known as a hard egg or a tough egg."

	"If you're right, that means Motan has resisted a raid by three hundred impertinent crooks."

	"Offhand, I just can't think of any more plausible solution," Ashmore confessed.

	"It's not credible," decided Rail-ton. "There are no pirates out that way. The only potential menace is the Zengs. If a new and previously unsuspected life form has appeared out there, the message would have said so."

	"Maybe they meant they've had trouble with Zengs," suggested Whittaker.

	"I doubt it," Railton said. "In the first place, the Zengs would not be so dopey as to start a war by launching a futile attack with a force a mere three hundred strong. In the second place, if the culprits were Zengs the fact could have been stated. On the tight-beam system there's no need for Motan to be obscure."

	"That's reasonable enough," Ash-more agreed.

	Railton thought things over, said at last, "The message looks like a routine report. It doesn't call for aid or demand fast action. I think we'd better check back. Beam them asking which book they're quoting."

	Out it went, up, down and around, via a mixture of voices.

	Which code book are yon using?

-

	Tyler sniffed, handed it over, saluted, sniffed again and ambled out. Commander Hunter picked it up.

	Which goad hook are you using?

	"Maxwell! Maxwell!" When the other arrived, he said, "There'll never be an end to this. What's a goad hook?"

	"I'd have to look it up in the catalogue."

	"Meaning that you don't know?"

	"There's about fifty kinds of hooks," informed Maxwell, defensively. "And for many of them there are technical names considerably different from space-navy names or even stores equipment names. A tensioning hook, for instance, is better known as a tightener."

	"Then let's consult the book." Getting it from the safe, Hunter opened it on the desk while Maxwell positioned himself to look over the other's shoulder. "What'll it be listed under?" Hunter asked. "Goad hooks or hooks, goad? G or H?"

	"Might be either."

	They sought through both. After checking item by item over half a dozen pages, Maxwell stabbed a finger at a middle column.

	"There it is."

	Hunter looked closer. "That's guard hooks: things for fixing wire fence to steel posts. Where's goad hooks?"

	"Doesn't seem to be any," Maxwell . admitted. Sudden suspicion flooded his features and he went on, "Say, do you suppose this has anything to do with those ostriches?"

	"Darned if I know. But it's highly probable:"

	"Then," announced Maxwell, "I know what a goad hook is. And you won't find it in that catalogue."

	Slamming the book shut, Hunter said wearily, "All right. Proceed to enlighten me."

	"I saw a couple of them in use," informed Maxwell, "donkey's years ago, in the movies."

	"The movies?"

	"Yes. They were showing an ostrich farm in South Africa. When the farmer wanted to extract a particular bird from the flock he used a pole about eight to ten feet long. It had a sort of metal prod on one end and a wide hook at the other. He'd use the sharp end to poke other birds out of the way, then use the hook end to snake the bird he wanted around the bottom of its neck and drag it out."

	"Oh," said Hunter, staring at him.

	"It's a thing like bishops carry for lugging sinners into the path of righteousness," Maxwell finished.

	"Is it really?" said Hunter, blinking a couple of times. "Well, it checks up with that signal about the ostriches." He brooded a bit, went on, "But it implies that there is more than one kind of goad hook. Also that we are presumed to have one especial pattern in stores here. They want to know which one we've got. What are we going to tell them?"

	"We haven't got any," Maxwell pointed out. "What do we need goad hooks for?"

	"Ostriches," said Hunter. "Forty-two of them."

	Maxwell thought it over. "We've no goad hooks, not one. But they think we have. What's the answer to that?"

	"You tell me," Hunter invited.

	"That first message warned us that the ostriches were coming on any cheap line of communication, obviously meaning a chartered tramp ship. So they won't get here for quite a time. Meanwhile, somebody has realized that we'll need goad hooks to handle them and shipped a consignment by fast service boat. Then he's discovered that he can't remember which pattern he's sent us. He can't fill up the necessary forms until he knows. He's asking you to give with the information."

	"If that's so," commented Hunter, "some folk have a nerve to tight-beam such a request and mark it top secret."

	"Back at Terran H.Q.," said Maxwell, "one is not shot at dawn for sabotage, treachery, assassination or any other equally trifling misdeed. One is blindfolded and stood against the wall for not filling up forms, or for filling up the wrong ones, or for filling up the right ones with the wrong details."

	"Nuts to that!" snapped Hunter, fed up. "I'm wasting no time getting a headquarters dope out of a jam. We're suppose to have a consignment of goad hooks. We haven't got it. I'm going to say so—in plain language." He boosted his voice a few decibels. "Tyler! Tyler!"

	Half an hour later the signal squirted out, brief, to the point, lacking only its original note of indignation.

	No goad hyphen hooks. Motan.

-

	Holding it near the light, Railton examined it right way up and upside-down. His mustaches jittered. His eyes squinted slightly. His complexion assumed a touch of magenta.

	"Pennington!" he bellowed. "Saunders! Ashmore! Whittaker!"

	Lining up, they looked at the signal form. They shifted edgily around, eyed each other, the floor, the ceiling, the walls. Finally they settled for the uninteresting scene outside the window.

	Oh God how I hate mutton.

	"Well?" prompted Railton, poking this beamed revelation around his desk.

	Nobody responded.

	"First," Railton pointed out, "they are mixing it with a pair of ostriches. Now they've developed an aversion to mutton. If there's a connection, I fail to see it. There's got to be an explanation somewhere. What is it?"

	Nobody knew.

	"We might as well," said Railton, "invite the Zengs to accept everything as a gift. It'll save a lot of bloodshed."

	Stung by that, Whittaker protested, "Motan is trying to tell us something, sir. They must have cause to express themselves the way they are doing."

	"Such as what?"

	"Perhaps they have good reason to think that the tight beam is no longer tight. Maybe a Zeng interceptor station has opened right on one of the lines. So Motan is hinting that it's time to stop beaming in straight."

	"They could have said so in code, clearly and unmistakably. There's no need to afflict us with all this mysterious stuff about ostriches and mutton."

	Up spoke Saunders, upon whom the gift of tongues had descended. "Isn't it possible, sir, that ostrich flesh is referred to as mutton by those who eat it? Or that, perhaps, it bears close resemblance to mutton?"

	"Anything is possible," shouted Railton, "including the likelihood that everyone on Motan is a few cents short in his mental cash." He fumed a bit, added acidly, "Let us assume that ostrich flesh is identical with mutton. Where does that get us?"

	"It could be, sir," persisted Saunders, temporarily drunk with words, "that they've discovered a new and valuable source of food supply in the form of some large, birdlike creature which they call ostriches. Its flesh tastes like mutton. So they've signaled us a broad hint that they're less dependent upon supplementary supplies from here. Maybe at a pinch they can feed themselves for months or years. That, in turn, means the Zengs can't starve them into submission by blasting all supply ships to Motan. So—"

	"Shut up!" Railton bawled, slightly frenzied. He snorted hard enough to make the signal form float off his desk. Then he reached for the phone. "Get me the Zoological Department. Yes, that's what I said." He waited a while, growled into the mouthpiece, "Is ostrich flesh edible and, if so, what does it taste like?" Then he listened, slammed the phone down and glowered at the audience. "Leather," he said.

	"That doesn't apply to the Motan breed," Saunders pointed out. "You can't judge an alien species by—"

	"For the last time, keep quiet!" He shifted his glare to Ashmore. "We can't go any further until we know which code they're using out there."

	"It should be the current one, sir. They had strict orders to destroy each preceding copy."

	"I know what it should be. But is it? We've asked them about this and they've not replied. Ask them again, by direct beam. I don't care if the Zengs do pick up the question and answer. They can't make use of the information. They've known for years that we use code as an elementary precaution."

	"I'll have it beamed right away, sir."

	"Do that. And let me have the reply immediately it arrives." Then, to the four of them, "Get out of my sight."

	The signal shot straight to Motan without any juggling around.

	Identify your code forthwith. Urgent.

	Two days later the answer squirted back and got placed on Railton's desk pending his return from lunch. In due course he paraded along the corridor and into his office. His thoughts were actively occupied with the manpower crisis in the Sirian sector and nothing was further from his mind than the antics of Motan. Sitting at his desk, he glanced at the paper.

	All it said was, "BF."

	He went straight up and came down hard.

	"Ashmore!" he roared, scrabbling around. "Pennington! Saunders! Whittaker!"

-

	Ex Terra Space Control. Direct Beam, Straight. To Motan. Commander Hunter recalled forthwith. Captain Maxwell succeeds with rank of commander as from date of receipt.

	Putting on a broad grin of satisfaction, Hunter reached for the phone. "Send Maxwell here at once." When the other arrived, he announced, "A direct-beam recall has just come in. I'm going home."

	"Oh," said Maxwell without enthusiasm. He looked more disillusioned than ever.

	"I'm going back to H.Q. You know what that means."

	"Yes," agreed Maxwell, a mite enviously. "A nice, soft job, better conditions, high pay, quicker promotion."

	"Dead right. It is only proper that virtue should be rewarded." He eyed the other, holding back the rest of the news. "Well, aren't you happy about it?"

	"No," said Maxwell, flatly.

	"Why not?"

	"I've become hardened to you. Now I'll have to start all over again and adjust myself to some other and different nut."

	"No you won't, chum. You're taking charge." He poked the signal form across the desk. "Congratulations, Commander!"

	"Thanks," said Maxwell. "For nothing. Now I'll have to handle your grief. Ostriches. Forty-two of them."

	At midnight Hunter stepped aboard the destroyer Dl0 and waved good-by. He did it with all the gratified assurance of one who's going to get what's coming to him. The prospect lay many weeks away but was worth waiting for.

	The ship snored into the night until its flame trail faded out leftward of Motan's fourth moon. High above the opposite horizon glowed the Zeng's two planets of Korima and Koroma, one blue, the other green. Maxwell eyed the shining firmament, felt the weight of new responsibility pressing hard upon his shoulders.

	He spent the next forthnight checking back on his predecessor's correspondence, familiarizing himself with all the various problems of planetary governorship. At the end of that time he was still baffled and bothered.

	"Tyler!" Then when the other came in, "For heaven's sake, man, can't you stop perpetually snuffling? Send this message out at once."

	Taking it, Tyler asked, "Tight or straight beam, sir?"

	"Don't send it direct beam. It had better go by tight. The subject is tagged top secret by H.Q. and we've got to accept their definition."

	"Very well, sir." Giving an unusually loud sniff, Tyler departed and squirted the query to the first repeater station.

	Why are we getting ostriches?

	It never reached Railton or any other brass hat. It fell into the hands of a new Terran operator who'd become the victim of three successive technical gags. He had no intention whatsoever of being made a chump a fourth time. So he read it with eyebrows waggling.

	When are we getting ostriches?

	With no hesitation he destroyed the signal and smacked back at the smarty on Motan.

	Will emus do?

	In due course Maxwell got it, read it twice, walked widdershins with it and found himself right back where he'd started.

	Will amuse you.

-

	For the thirtieth time in four months Maxwell went to meet a ship at the spaceport. So far there had arrived not a goad hook, not a feather, not even a caged parrot.

	It was a distasteful task because every time he asked a captain whether he'd brought the ostriches he got a look that pronounced him definitely teched in the haid.

	Anyway, this one was not a tramp boat. He recognized its type even before it sat down and cut power—a four-man Zeng scout. He also recognized the first Zeng to scramble down the ladder. It was Tormin, the chief military officer on Koroma.

	"Ah, Mr. Maxwell," said Tormin, his yellow eyes worried. "I wish to see the commander at once."

	"Hunter's gone home. I'm the commander now. What's your trouble?"

	"Plenty," Tormin informed. "As you know, we placed ordinary settlers on Korima, But on the sister planet of Koroma we placed settlers and a large number of criminals. The criminals have broken out and seized arms. Civil war is raging on Koroma. We need help."

	"Sorry, but I can't give it," said Maxwell. "We have strict orders that in no circumstances whatever may we interfere in Zeng affairs."

	"I know, I know." Tormin gestured excitedly with long, skinny arms. "We do not ask for your ships and guns. We are only too willing to do our own dirty work. Besides, the matter is serious but not urgent. Even if the criminals conquer the planet they cannot escape from it. We have removed all ships to Korima."

	"Then what do you want me to do?"

	"Send a call for help. We can't do it—our beam station is only half built."

	"I am not permitted to make direct contact with the Zeng authorities," said Maxwell.

	"You can tell your own H.Q. on Terra. They'll inform our ambassador there. He'll inform our nearest forces."

	"That'll mean some delay."

	"Right now there's no other way," urged Tormin. "Will you please oblige us ? In the same circumstances we'd do as much for you."

	"All right," agreed Maxwell, unable to resist this appeal. "The responsibility for getting action will rest with H.Q., anyway." Bolting to his office, he gave Tyler the message, adding, "Better send it tight-beam, just in case some Zeng stickler for regulations picks it up and accuses us of poking our noses in."

	Out it went, to and fro, up and down, in one tone or another, this accent or that.

	Civil war is taking -place among local Zengs. They are asking for assistance.

	It got there a few minutes behind Hunter, who walked into Railton's office, reached the desk, came smartly to attention.

	"Commander Hunter, sir, reporting from Motan."

	"About time, too," snapped Rail-ton, obviously in no mood to give with a couple of medals. "As commander of Motan you accepted full responsibility for the text of all messages beamed therefrom, did you not?"

	"Yes, sir," agreed Hunter, sensing a queer coldness in his back hairs.

	Jerking open a drawer, Railton extracted a bunch of signal forms, ire-fully slapped them on the desk,

	"This," he informed, mustaches quivering, "is the appalling twaddle with which I have been afflicted by you since Motan's station came into operation. I can find only one explanation for all this incoherent rubbish about ostriches and mutton, that being that you're overdue for mental treatment. After all, it is not unknown for men on alien planets to go off the rails."

	"Permit me to say, sir—" began Hunter.

	"I don't permit you, ' shouted Railton. "Wait until I have finished. And don't flare your nostrils at me. I have replaced you with Maxwell. The proof of your imbecility will be the nature of the next signals from Motan."

	"But, sir—"

	"Shut up! I will let you see Maxwell's messages and compare them with your own irrational nonsense. If that doesn't convince—"

	He ceased his tirade as Ashmore appeared and dumped a signal form on his desk.

	"Urgent message from Motan, sir.

	Railton snatched it up and read it while Ashmore watched and Hunter fidgeted uneasily. .

	Sibyl Ward is making faces among local Zengs. They are asking for her sister.

	The resulting explosion will remain a space legend for all time.

The End