ICEBERG FROM EARTH

(Originally printed in Analog 1963.02)

The delicate business of balancing two enemies one against the other, while an economical way of handling both, requires some sharp awareness, and fast reactions. ..

by J. T. MciNTOSH

ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR

"They're sending us a girl," Billjohn said. "What for?" I asked.

"Not," he replied regretfully, "for any of the purposes which immediately spring to mind - which is a pity, for I understand she's remarkably attractive - but to instruct us in our job."

"What job?"

"Specifically, to make sure the Mars leaves here exactly as she arrives, and that nobody acquires any important information about her while she's here."

"So this girl is some kind of Intelligence expert?" "Exactly," said Billjohn, pleased at having achieved communication.

"Why a girl ?"

"Ours is not to reason why," he sighed. "She arrives on the ship this afternoon. Her name is Nova Webb. Now you know as much as I do, God help you."

"Want me to go and meet her?"

Billjohn smiled sadly. "And thus inform Pack Larner that Miss Webb is here to work with us? No, thank you. We'll meet her later today at a spot already arranged. I'll tell you where when you get back."

"Back from where?"

"Back from making yet another check on the land dock where the Mars will be berthed."

"Why do you keep sending me to look at a plain blank concrete hole in the ground?" I demanded with some heat.

"To make Larner think it might be something more. To puzzle him and prevent him sleeping nights."

I shrugged. "I think we're wasting our time."

"Howso?"

"There's no indication that Coran means to try anything against the Mars. There's not even any indication that Coran means war in the near future."

"Why kick when you're looking for trouble and fail to find it?"

Billjohn was a fat, indolent ex-policeman who had found himself, rather against his will, placed in charge of Marlock Intelligence on Rham. He wasn't a bad boss to work with except that as his chief deputy I had to do all the legwork for us both. And the state visit of the Mars, although she wasn't due for some days yet, had already meant a lot of legwork and would probably mean more.

If I had guessed how much more, I'd have fainted.

Despite any false optimism, Coran could be confidently expected to try something - and though we had so far failed to come up with any idea of what it might be, we'd be expected to counter it. Naturally.

"O.K.," I said. "I'll go look for trouble and hope I don't find it."

"Please be most careful that you don't find it," said Billjohn gently. He was reaching for a box of candy as I left.

The apparent tangle of Naroonian politics is remarkably simple if you stick to essentials and ignore all the protestations of innocence and fraternal love.

Naroon is the sun, Sol-type and not much smaller. The three planets, from Naroon out, are Rham, Marlock and Coran, all Earthworlds and all colonized.

Rham, the hottest, was colonized first and is the richest and most populous - so rich and populous that in all the many wrangles between the two outer planets Rham stays fatly, comfortably neutral, selling to both, making plump profits out of both, and becoming even richer and more populous. Neither Marlock nor Coran likes Rham very much but that's the way it is.

Marlock is a temperate world with too little land surface. Gradually we're making more in the warm regions, but it's a slow business and we'll always be particularly vulnerable to attack. The kind of world which is least enthusiastic about being attacked is a world on which most of the population lives on stilts over water.

Coran is a cold world where only on the equator is life reasonably bearable. Coran envies Marlock, and Rham.

So in this three-world system too far from other human-occupied worlds to be greatly affected by them, Cinderella not only has looks but everything else as well, and the two ugly sisters are literally out in the cold.

There's just one other thing that must be understood. Although the Naroonian -worlds are independent and likely to remain so, there are few pies into which the mother world Earth can resist sticking a finger. To keep the balance of power in Naroon - in other words, to prevent the system from becoming even potentially dangerous to Terran interests - Earth long ago found the magic formula - back Marlock. Not enough to displace Rham as the comfortable, complacent boss-world in wealth, technology, power and everything else. Just enough to keep Rham and Coran in their place, without encouraging Marlock to get too far above hers.

Terran technicians had helped Marlock to build the Mars, a warship more powerful than anything even Rham could aspire to. Now Earth was sending us an Intelligence expert, this Nova Webb, to make sure we didn't fall down on the job on guarding the Mars and her secrets.

Privately I thought Earth hardly needed to trouble herself. Captain Thorson and the one-hundred-twenty man crew of the Mars were quite capable of looking after the safety of the warship. As for the technical secrets of the Mars - even we, with the ship in our possession, were incapable of duplicating her. So how could anything that Pack Larner managed to find out do Coran any good?

Nobody paid much attention to me as I strolled along the broad, blinding avenues of Rham City to the spaceport, adjusting my stride to the usual Rhamian amble. After three months in and around Rham City I had a tan indistinguishable from that of the locals, and in slacks and a T-shirt I looked as Rhamian as the Via Naroonia itself. The snag was that any Coranian agents operating on Rham could be guaranteed to look just as Rhamian as I did.

There was no denying that Rham City was beautiful. Built on a friendly world mysteriously devoid of life until the first human colonists came, it had no excuse to be anything else. The avenues were wide and flat, the white buildings graceful and set well apart from each other.

If there was one thing both Marlock and Coran envied more than any other about Rham City's situation, it was the surfeit of space. To the north and east of the city, flat, firm scrub stretched limitlessly, ready to be developed whenever necessary with the minimum of effort. A few acres of such ground on Malock or Cocan, even without Rham's wonderful climate, would have been worth millions. And the Rhamians left thousands of square miles of it doing nothing because they weren't within centuries of needing it yet. To the south was the Gresham River. To the west was Little Sahara, a desert of golden sand which was used by the Rhamians as a playground.

The natives were friendly. They were too sure of themselves to be anything else. Although immigration from Marlock and Coran was strictly limited, anyone who liked could come to Rham City and stay as long as he liked. Rham had nothing to hide.

So Rham was a kind of Switzerland, headquarters of the main Coranian and Marlockian Intelligence services. Although the two outer worlds were not currently at war, the peace was so suspicious and uneasy - it generally was - that Coranian agents sent to Marlock itself, and vice versa, were speedily hunted down and executed. Thus, though agents sent to Rham could not be particularly secret nor could they learn anything at first hand, at least they learned something and survived to report it, more than could generally be said of the heroes and heroines of the cloak and dagger divisions.

The Rham City spaceport was huge and devoid of all pretension to strict military security. The Rham Navy yards to the east were guarded, of course, but not very seriously. With a long focus camera you could photograph anything you wanted to, and I already had.

The berth which was to take the Mars stood empty in the middle of a square mile of nothing. This was by request of the Marlock Navy. The Navy preferred to be responsible for its own security instead of having to pretend to depend on the Rham authorities.

"That's where the big warship's going to be, isn't it?" a voice said behind me.

"Yes," I said, and turned slowly. A young Rhamian - or Marlockian or Coranian - in shorts and a silk shirt was surveying the empty berth with mild interest.

"You got something to do with it?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm from the Marlock Embassy."

"Marlock?" the youth said, puzzled. "I thought the ship came from Coran."

"No," I said patiently. "She's ours. From Marlock." "Why do you call the Mars 'she'?"

"Ships are always 'she' even if they have masculine names."

"Oh." He wandered casually away. No rudeness was intended - Rhamians were casual about everything.

Well, not quite about everything. They'd hardly have held their leadership among three rapidly growing, pushing worlds if they were quite as casual as they seemed to be. The national character of Rham is to be efficient at one thing, usually but not always their job, and careless about everything else.

They're said to be the most sexually promiscuous people in the galaxy. Whether this is so or not, I wouldn't know - not because I don't know how sexually promiscuous they are, but because I've never been outside the Naroonian system. All I do know is, there are no Rhamian prostitutes.

Why the Mars was visiting Rham at all was outside my orbit, but it was easy to guess. It was a flag-waving affair, a reminder to the casual, promiscuous, wealthy Rhamians that Marlock possessed the most powerful and deadly weapon this side of Earth. Up to now the ordinary private citizen of Rham had been able to believe, if he felt like it, that the Marlockian super-ship was a myth. After the Mars had towered over Rham City for four days, anyone still capable of believing she was a myth would be in a bad way.

"Hi, Smith. Expecting trouble?"

I turned again, already knowing I was going to see

Pack Larner, my opposite number. He was older than me, taller, thinner, and his eyes were black buttons. I wouldn't have liked him even if it hadn't been part of my job not to. Strictly he wasn't my opposite number but Billjohn's. However, since Billjohn rarely budged out of his office chair, I was the one who came in contact with Larner, the Coran Intelligence boss on Rham.

"My day hasn't been wasted," I said dryly - "So Coran is taking an interest?"

"Coran always takes an interest in anything Marlock does," Larner said.

"Quite right, too. You may learn something. All things are possible - even that."

"I'll give you due warning, Smith," said Larner softly. "If you're expecting trouble, you're not going to be disappointed."

I looked at him narrowly. I'd be the last man on Rham to underestimate Larner. Why should he warn me? Did Coran have other fish to fry, fish of such importance that Larner could afford to drop a threat about the Mars as nothing more than a red herring?

"So you're going to blow up the Mars," I said.

"Who said anything about blowing her up?" he said.

"After this visit we're going to have a complete set of blueprints, Smith. And in a little while we'll have a Mars of our own. There's not a thing you can do about it, you or your fat, lazy boss. Make what you like out of that."

And he, too, strode away across the field. I didn't make anything out of it.

Exactly how our meeting with Nova Webb later that day had been fixed up was not revealed to me. Billjohn talks a lot without saying very much. The important thing was that we made quite sure nobody followed us or overheard us. We met in a dingy room containing three chairs and nothing else.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Webb," Billjohn said, and we were.

She was tall and fair, too pale and icy to qualify as a sexpot among the tanned lovelies of Rham, but an object of supreme interest to any man who liked hard - to-get women. She was superbly shaped and she wore what was presumably the latest Terran fashion in silk suits. It was blue and it was startling because it concealed so much without denying a thing.

"We'll get straight to business," she said briskly. "Unless anything has happened in the last two weeks, you can take it I'm as well-informed about the whole situation here as you are."

"All that's happened," I said, "is that Pack Larner told me today Coran would have a complete set of blueprints when the Mars left here."

"Interesting," she said. "That's all ?" She didn't sound interested.

"Yes," I admitted. I'd have given a lot for some item that would really have rocked her. That's the kind of girl she was.

"I propose to find out first," she said, "whether Coran has any immediate intention of opening hostilities on Marlock. I won't need any assistance. I'll meet you again here on ...Tuesday?"

That was the day the Mars was due.

"It will be quite easy to find this out?" Billjohn said mildly.

"Oh, yes. Frontier worlds are never very subtle."

"It will be very interesting to hear what you have say on Tuesday, Miss Webb."

My fat boss was drooling with the fatuous certainty of most plump, middle-aged Lotharios on meeting a pretty girl that if they'd met her twenty years ago she couldn't have failed to succumb to their charm. "You're staying here openly as a Terran ?"

"Why not? There's nothing to stop Terrans going anywhere they like in Rham City."

"But Earth's pro-Marlock bias is well known. Larner will check on you as a matter of course."

"The report he'll get will be that I'm acting as an ordinary Terran tourist. You will not contact me until Tuesday. I'll be here at 10:30."

That seemed to be that.

In the next few days I saw Nova Webb several times, because although Rham City was pretty big, the pools, beaches, restaurants and bar lounges which were currently in fashion were a small, select group, and she appeared only in the fashionable places.

She was certainly acting like an ordinary Terran tourist.

The first time I saw her she wore dark glasses, sweater and slacks and was just leaving one of the artificial beaches. In her cover-up outfit her figure looked so promising that I greatly regretted not having seen her half an hour earlier.

The next time I did see her half an hour earlier, at one of the pools. She wore a wisp of nylon at her hips and two frilly cups over her breasts, and such was her cool, clinical physical perfection that she looked fully dressed. As I surveyed her I showed nothing beyond the respect which the revelation deserved. We might need an Intelligence expert from Earth to teach us our job, but we weren't foolish enough to inform any Coranian agents who might be watching that Nova Webb was working for us.

The third time I saw her I began to wonder if she was working for anybody. For the third time she was completely alone, and for the second time she was idly scanning a newspaper. Then she threw it in a waste basket and sauntered along the Via Naroonia, looking about her with the icy interest of a tourist who liked

what she saw but not very much.

The fourth and last time she was again alone, again by a pool, again reading a newspaper. That she could stay alone if she wanted to, even with her looks, was no surprise - the icy types always can. But why should she want to? She was trying to find something out. You don't find things out by not talking to anybody.

Anyway, when Billjohn and I met her again she had already acquired a Rhamian tan with the aid of fast-tanning oils, but she was still deliberately and obviously Terran. Personally I doubted if she could have pretended to be a Rhamian girl if she tried. It takes more than a brown coat to make an iceberg look warm.

Guessing my thoughts, she said coldly: "In Intelligence, Mr. Smith, one of the first laws is to keep information and action strictly separate. An agent either finds things out or acts on the information someone else has acquired. Never both at the same time. I've been looking for information, and I can get it as Nova Webb, from Earth. It's quite unnecessary for me to carry a stick and wear a false beard."

"Did you get what you were looking for, Miss Webb?" Billjohn asked politely.

"Quite as easily as I expected. As I told you, frontier worlds aren't subtle."

"Is Coran planning war, then?"

"Yes, and fairly soon."

We were quite sure this was only a guess. Having spent her time as she had been doing, what could she do but guess?

"I see I'll have to explain in words of one syllable, or less," she said. She took a newspaper clipping from her bag. "This is from a page of trade advertisements. Rham supplies the outer worlds with fruit, electronic apparatus, manufactured goods and books. Marlock trades in oil, coal, steel and other minerals. Coran advertises a large range of materials including ceramics, papers, plastics and resins."

She took out her lighter and set the paper on fire, holding it until it was well alight and then grinding the ashes under her heel.

"Thank you very much, Miss Webb," said Billjohn happily. "The significance of what you've just said escapes me, but you have a lovely voice."

"You really are remarkably obtuse," said Nova coldly. "Don't you know anything about Intelligence?"

"Evidently not," Billjohn sighed. "Please tell us about Intelligence, Miss Webb - employing, of course, words of one syllable or less."

"Fortunately, Coran doesn't know anything about Intelligence either. Or images, understandably, that Marlock has none. Having these resins for disposal, Coran has no more sense than to attempt to sell them, quite openly - although their availability makes it obvious to anyone but a nitwit that Coran is preparing for war."

Billjohn stared at me and I stared at him. Receiving no help from either quarter, we turned blank gazes back on Nova.

"Rocket fuels," she said clearly and distinctly "You manufacture large quantities of various rocket fuels. As by-products you then have for disposal resins AH 12/B, FS 17/S and FX 29/T. If you are as naIve as Coran, you openly try to sell them. And if you are as moronic as Marlock you fail to see any significance in the fact."

Billjohn and I looked at each other to see if there was any chance of pretending we'd known that all along. Reluctantly we both decided there was none.

"A world which is manufacturing large quantities of rocket fuel," Nova explained as if to children, "obviously has no intention of embarking on interstellar exploration. The purpose can be nothing but large.scale transportation of troops and materials over relatively short distances. And you don't begin stock-piling rocket fuel until fairly soon before the anticipated delivery date."

She stopped. There was no need to explain further to us. We got the message.

"But . . . steel," I said. "Coran has always been short of metal. So is Rham. That's why it's been worth our while to mine the sea-bed. We export to Rham and Coran has to re-export - "

"We are all well aware of this, Mr. Smith," Nova said. "The inescapable conclusion is that Coran has discovered large iron ore deposits at last. She's not quite silly enough to advertise steel and the associated by-products for sale to Rham, because - "

"Yes!" said Billjohn, excited for once. He was aghast, too. "Rocket fuel without steel. ..no, that would be useless. So there must be steel available, as you say, Miss Webb. And that means - "

That meant, quite simply, war. Coran fought Marlock, or had done in the days before we had the Mars, every time she had managed to stockpile enough steel and iron at the ruinous prices she had to pay Rham for it. We sent Rham all the steel she asked for - we needed the money. We did not sell direct to Coran, any more than you would sell a knife to a man who had openly expressed his intention of cutting your throat. But Coran bought our steel from Rham, and Rham got still fatter on the proceeds.

"There's one way we can test this," I said. "Get the Marlock mining companies to offer Coran steel ship. ments direct. If they don't accept the offer, we'll know what to - "

For the first time I heard Nova Webb laughing. It was a cool, mocking sound. "If they didn't accept the offer, of course we would know," she said. "Would you expect them to refuse? Since they have taken so long to find it, we can assume their iron supplies are very hard come by. Offer them metal and they'll accept in half a second."

"Then what do we do ?" I said.

"You take good care of the Mars. Obviously Coran means to eliminate the ship, not attempt to steal her secrets. Without a ship to stand against the Mars, all the steel in the galaxy won't do Coran the slightest good. Without the Mars, Marlock might as well surrender to Coran without futile resistance."

"Have you any plans?" I asked humbly. She did have a brain, this girl. She had a remarkable brain to go with her remarkable body, and though there was no evidence so far that any real feminity went with them, that didn't stop her being an excellent Intelligence agent. Rather the reverse.

She smiled frostily. "Intelligence and action, remember? Intelligence is my department. Action is up to you. However, if you meet me here again tomorrow, after the ship is here, I may have something to suggest."

Everybody in Rham City watched the Mars land that afternoon - and even the people who were determined not to be impressed were impressed.

The Mars was the largest and most powerful warship in existence. Even Earth had nothing to match her - though Earth could easily send up a fleet of smaller ships which could destroy her at a certain cost to themselves. But this was an academic point, for the Mars had no interstellar drive. Had she been intended for interstellar flight, she wouldn't have been built half as large.

She would never see service beyond the Naroonian system.

I might not be as bright as Nova Webb, but I had long ago figured out for myself that Earth's motives in helping us to build one huge warship which we couldn't duplicate ourselves, and our own interests, might be equal to the same thing without being equal to each other.

To Marlock the Mars was both a blessing and an enormous liability. We were rather in the position of a chessplayer with a queen, and certain other pieces undeveloped, against a player without a queen but with all his pieces developed. Invulnerable though we were in theory, we could not risk losing our queen.

In practical terms, we could never pick a quarrel with Rham, because Rham, probably at enormous cost to herself, could knock out our queen eventually and then mop us up with whatever happened to be left. We were always reluctant to be cast as the aggressor even against Coran, for Coran might damage the Mars and therefore be able to destroy her. Then we'd be finished, for Coran did not depend on possesion of one supreme weapon and we did.

But meantime we still had the Mars, and even the complacent Rhamians gaped as she landed.

Other things being equal, size generally means power. A tiny armed motor cruiser from the Twentieth Century would be more than a match for a seventy-four-gun ship of the line from the Nineteenth - but helpless against anything bigger than herself in her own time. And the Mars was big. The secret of her size was imperfectly understood by our own scientists.

It had been the Terran technicians who had built the reinforcing magnetic-antigrav network which gave her stability and prevented her from collapsing under her own weight. The Terran technicians, too, had produced a normal-looking power unit that was capable of driving a ship four times larger than anyone could expect it to drive.

The Mars was descending slowly and cautiously, every moment becoming more impressive. A huge ship a mile away is very like a tiny ship four hundred yards away. As the Mars dropped, she grew and grew and grew.

Billjohn was with the official reception committee. Theoretically he was only an unimportant member of the Embassy staff, and he stood out on the field among the Marlockian messengers, typists and drivers mustered to make an imposing phalanx behind the ambassador waiting to welcome the commander of the Mars.

After the public ceremonies, however, Billjohn would have an extremely private conference with Captain Thorson. He would stress the importance of maintaining the strictest possible guard while the Mars was on Rham. And we knew already what Thorson would say. He would say that Coranian saboteurs could do their worst, but they wouldn't succeed in mussing up the sheets in any of the bunks or spoiling the taste of the coffee.

The trouble was, did Thorson have as much imagination as Coranian Intelligence?

Me, I was watching Pack Larner. I didn't see the warship actually land and I missed all the ceremony of polite, lying statecraft. I didn't reckon I was missing much, at that.

I had done a neat job on my face with pads in my mouth and fleshwax to change the shape of my ears and nose. Whoever I looked like, I didn't look like me, and it didn't matter whether Larner got a good look at me or not, for I couldn't put on the same face again if I tried. This was a face for one showing only.

I wasn't particularly interested in the assignment until I realized that while I was watching Larner he was watching somebody else, and even then I didn't flip until I saw that it was Nova Webb he was watching.

She was no longer solitary. Not only was she being jostled by a crowd, she was talking to another girl, a brown brunette who looked as warmly passionate as Nova was icy.

Larner wasn't supposed to know anything about Nova. If he knew enough to keep an eye on her, what else might he know?

The Mars was down now, in her predetermined position in the berth to an inch. The ceremonies were in full swing. Although what was happening around the vast fins of the warship was being covered by television cameras and relayed all over Rham, the people only just out of earshot on the field found that there wvas nothing more to interest them. The first Marlockians having emerged from the hollow fin, there was nothing to look forward to but the sight of more and more green-uniformed men emerging.

With a last look at the enormous bulk of the warship, her huge hull dull and pitted yet all the more impressive for that, people began to drift from the field. One of the first to lose interest was Nova Webb. She sauntered away, the brunette still with her. Larner sauntered after them. I sauntered after Larner.

The two girls sat at an open-air table outside one of the smart cafes on the Via Naroonia and drank iced lemonade. Larner drank lemonade, too. I stayed on the other side of the avenue and pretended to be waiting for my girl.

It seemed for a moment as if the brunette, apparently only a chance acquaintance of Nova's, was going to leave her at the cafe table. The brunette stood up and gave all the indications of going on her way, but then Nova stood up, too, and they strolled on together.

The procession resumed.

I was glad Nova had stuck with the brunette, or vice-versa, for while she was with her she wouldn't do anything important or significant, anything we wouldn't want Larner to see her do. If it hadn't been for the brunette, I'd have had to consider waming her that she was being watched.

I knew, although Nova hadn't told me, that she was staying at the Astoria Hotel. So I wasn't surprised when she cut off the Via Naroonia through one of the parks. She was returning to the Astoria by the straightest route, taking the brunette with her.

Larner followed the two girls and I followed Larner. My sixth sense just wasn't working that day, I guess. For when I was cut down by a stun gun I hadn't had the faintest breath of warning. I didn't even know I'd been stunned until I woke up.

Nova and I woke up more or less together, and we saw we were all untidily deposited on the dusty floor of a large helicar. When I say all I mean all - Billjohn was there, and Nova, and the brunette, and me. Larner had swiveled his seat round to face us, and without moving I could see that the stun gun in his hand was set to drop any or all of us before we had moved a foot.

Nobody did any talking, although we were all fully awake except the brunette. What was there to say? Threatening Larner, yammering at him "You won't get away with this!" was pointless, and saying anything else might tell him something he didn't already know. So we sorted ourselves out, sat up and otherwise waited for Larner to make a move.

Larner didn't make a move because he wasn't ready. There was another man piloting the helicar, and that left Larner free to devote his entire attention to us. He didn't need any help, not with a stun gun.

It wasn't as bad for me as for the other two, because I never had any dignity or any sense of my own importance. There was stark disbelief in Billjohn's eyes. This couldn't be happening to him. As for Nova, her eyes were at absolute zero as she speared Larner with them. Her stockings were ruined, her smart blue suit would never be the same again, but this was nothing to the wound inflicted on her pride. People didn't do this kind of thing to Nova Webb. Didn't Larner know that her specialty was Intelligence, not action? He was breaking the rules.

Then the brunette sat up and the sound came on.

She took one quick look round and started to get up. "Stay where you are!" Larner snapped.

"Who are you?" she demanded, more puzzled than angry. "Police? Did we get mixed up in some demonstration against that warship, or something? Was I knocked out?"

"You were knocked out with this," Larner said, indicating the gun. "There will be no ill effects if you behave yourself."

The girl met Nova's eye. "Nova," she said, "do you understand what this is all about? Who's that man? What are we doing in a helicar? Who's the fat man, and who - "

To get her name, I said: "George Smith, at your service." I hadn't checked whether there was any of my disguise left, but I knew it no longer served any purpose anyway. Larner knew who I was. He had known all along that I was tailing him.

"Pauline Pratt," she said automatically. "Nova, can't you tell me ...?"

"I know no more than you do," Nova said. "I've no idea what - "

"That won't do, Miss Webb," said Larner. "I know you're a Terran agent working for Marlock. As for you, Miss Pratt, I admit it may be possible that you have no idea what's going on - If by any chance that's so, it's just your bad luck that you got mixed up with Nova Webb."

"Mixed up with her?" said the girl, getting angry. "I happen to be staying at the same hotel, that's all. She and I went to the spaceport to see the warship. Now will you please land and let me get out?"

Billjohn spoke for the first time. "It may save a lot of unnecessary talking," he said sadly, "if I tell you that Larner has already informed me what he's going to do with us. He's going to land us in the middle of Little Sahara." He rolled a lugubrious eye at me. "I presume you were not responsible for the message which took me to the Naroonia Gardens? I wouldn't have thought for a moment you were, only the messenger did give this week's code word."

Abruptly the helicar started to descend. Pauline Pratt was still protesting, but nobody was listening to her. If Larner proposed to drop us in the middle of Little Sahara, that was exactly what was going to happen to us, and we could save our breath. I didn't like him any more or any less for what he was doing: if he had plans that demanded our non-participation for five days, dumping us in the desert was about what we could expect if we let him catch us, and we had. Keeping us prisoner in the Coran Embassy wasn't practicable; the Rhamian police, if we were reported missing, might request the Coranian ambassador to prove that we were not there.

Then I had another look at Larner and decided I did like him less. For he was going to enjoy leaving us in the desert, and he didn't bother to hide it.

The helicar was down. The pilot stayed immobile with his back to us so that we didn't get a look at his face - not that it mattered.

Larner opened the door and gestured with his gun. The alacrity with which Billjohn climbed down and I followed showed, I guess, that we had the best grasp of the situation. Nova followed slowly and reluctantly, still trying unsuccessfully to freeze Larner with her eyes. Pauline, still protesting angrily, incredulously, stepped down only when Larner finally convinced her that if she did not he would stun her and push her out.

Larner jumped down after us, still with the gun. "Your coats, please," he said.

"Huh?" I said, though I knew exactly what he meant. With some protection against the sun you could at least try to cross Little Sahara in the full heat of day. Without it, you had to travel only by night. Hot, blinding sun is fine when you can take it or leave it, when you can sunbathe on an inflated mattress and roll under a striped umbrella when you've had enough. When you have a five-day trek across desert in front of you, you'd trade sunshine for rain and mist any time.

Billjohn met my eye ruefully and stripped off his coat. I followed suit. We didn't expect Larner would be satisfied, and he wasn't. He took our pants as well, but left our sandals.

Nova surrendered the jacket of her suit. I thought he'd have to stun her to get her stripped further. How. ever, when she saw there was no help for it she peeled to her bra and pants.

Pauline said: "This has gone far enough. I know you. You're from the Coranian Embassy. I'm a Rhamian, and I've never been to either Marlock or Coran. These quarrels between you are nothing to me. If you don't take me straight back to Rham City - "

It would have been interesting to hear what the alternative was, but we never did. Larner stunned her and when she slumped on the sand in the shadow of the helicar, leaned down and ripped her clothes. For a moment I thought he was going to leave the torn cloth where it was, but this was wild optimism. He threw it all inside the car. He wasn't going to leave us anything we could use as sun helmets.

Before the helicar took off, he dropped out four water bottles and a compass. We were grateful for that much.

"The first thing I'm going to do when I get back," Billjohn said with more concentrated venom than I had ever heard in his voice, "is dump Larner and two of his agents right in this spot."

"How pointless," Nova said distantly.

Pointless on the face of it, but understandable if you knew how the Marlockian and Coranian Intelligence services on Rham operated. The Rham cops left us alone as far as possible, on the understanding that whatever we did to each other we wouldn't harm or inconvenience Rhamians. Since Rham refused to listen to complaints by Malockians against Coranians and vice-versa, a tacit, unwritten understanding had to be reached, and had been reached long ago. It was simple: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. If a Marlock agent got sapped, a Coran agent got sapped. If a Coranian wound up dead, a Marlockian wound up dead.

This was mutually understood and it kept the private war on neutral soil within bounds. Larner must have known that if he had us killed, an equal number of his own men would be killed. He probably knew, too, that Billjohn's reaction to being dumped in Little Sahara would be exactly what it was. Of course, by the time we got back there would be no particular advantage to us in giving three Coranian agents a five-day hike. It was, as Nova said, pointless.

But to keep the status quo Billjohn would do it.

"How far to Rham City?" Nova demanded.

I resisted the impulse to remind her that she was as well-informed about the whole situation as we were. "Something over a hundred miles," I said. "If we really are in the center, that is."

"Three days? Four?"

"Without sun helmets, five. Twenty miles a day is good going."

"We can't afford to take five days. That would mean we wouldn't get back until the Mars had left. We simply have to do the trip in four nights, and assume that whatever Larner's trying to do, he hasn't been able to do it by the time we get back."

Billjohn nodded. More calmly he said: "Fortunately, there's a good chance of that. I don't think Larner will try to blow up the Mars in her berth in Rham City. To do really serious damage he's need an explosion that would wreck half the city. Rham wouldn't stand for that - and Coran can't fight Rham as well as us. So - "

"So there's a good chance," Nova said impatiently, "that Larner's plan, whatever it is, is aimed at destroying the Mars after take-off. That's elementary. Mean. time we've got to make up our minds whether we head due east as fast as we can or not."

"How do we know Larner dropped us in the middle? Why not at the western edge of the desert?"

It was Billjohn who answered. "No, Miss Webb. There are farms all around Little Sahara, which is roughly circular. Consequently there are many helicar flights round the edges. Larner would not take the risk that we might be seen and picked up. Helicars do not cross the desert, however, being unable to travel on sand should they be forced to land. We may, perhaps, be spotted by a plane - "

"And what sort of chance is that?"

"Poor, or Larner would have chosen some other way of putting us out of circulation. There are no regular flights across the desert. Most of the other Rhamian cities are to the north and south, not west or east. I think we can take it that Larner told us the truth."

Nova was not satisfied. "I hate doing exactly what I'm expected to do. Suppose we made for one of the farms?"

Billjohn shook his head. "Near the city, as you know, there is far more chance of being seen. If we travel in any other direction, we may reach the edge of the desert and still have to walk many miles - "

Nova capitulated with poor grace. "All right," she said. "One more thing. The fact that Larner disposed of the three of us is a clear indication that we are the ones he most fears. He expects to defeat the Mars captain's own routine precautions. I'm going on the assumption that it is my special knowledge which Larner particularly fears."

Of course she would. How could Billjohn and I matter? We were peasants. We couldn't read or write or count beyond ten.

We all looked down at Pauline. In the black bra and pantie-girdle which was all Larner had left on her, she showed up as older and considerably heavier than she had seemed in her cunningly-cut dress. She would have been glad to weigh at least twenty pounds less, I guessed.

As we looked at her, she opened her eyes and sat up.

"The car's gone?" she said blankly.

"As you see," said Nova briefly.

Pauline's eyes fell on the water bottles. "Where's the food ?" she asked.

"What food ?"

She jumped to her feet. "You mean he's left us without food? We'll starve to death!"

"You won't," Nova said coolly, "for at least a month." "But. ..no food - "

She still didn't seem to have taken it in when we started out. Evidently she had never missed a meal in her life and could not believe that it was possible to survive for several days without food.

The sun was low and we were able to set out without waiting for the heat of the day to diminish further. We walked in single file, Nova first, then Billjohn, then Pauline, then me. We made fair progress, once the two girls had wrenched the high heels off their shoes. The sand was flat and fairly firm, and when the sun went down the heat completely ceased to bother us. Indeed, it became rather cold, but not freezing; Rham, a rich world, could afford, and possessed, a giant satellite reflector which provided the dark side of the world with heat and light. It gleamed benevolently down at us, a brighter, warmer moon than nature had thought fit to provide for any planet in the galaxy.

For a while Pauline snapped forward at Billjohn and back at me, blaming us as much as Larner for landing her in this situation. After an hour or so, however, she became more philosophical, saving her breath for the long walk.

I won't describe the trek in detail. It was uneventful - not easy, not pleasant, but uneventful. There were no animals, no birds, no reptiles, no insects. Food was no problem - we hadn't any. Thirst was with us all the time. We decided we were going to reach Rham City on the morning of the fourth day - the last day of the warship's state visit - and grimly forced ourselves to drink no more than a quarter of the contents of our bottles each day. Having one bottle each, we knew this was a matter for each of us individually. There were no reserves.

We slept through the heat of the day, throwing up a wall of sand for shelter from the blazing sun. Throughout the evening, night and early morning - twelve standard hours - we plodded in a dead straight line across the desert, making all of two miles an hour on average, cutting rests to a minimum.

Alone I might have traveled faster, but not so much faster that it was worth while going ahead. Nova would not have held me up much. Even Billjohn, fat and heavy and old as he was, was no great drag on us. It was Pauline who held us back, and we soon wished quite as much as she did that she had not been caught up in this purely Coran-Marlock affair.

Although she was good-natured, she was as lazy as most Rhamians, and only the threat of leaving her behind forced her to try to travel as fast as we wanted to. On the evening of the second day, when we started again, she said she'd stay where she was and we could send a helicar to pick her up when we got back. We shrugged and left her. But two hours later she caught up with us, breathless and frightened. Left alone she had realized that in eleven thousand square miles of desert finding her wouldn't be easy.

We saw one plane. We had nothing to burn and could not attract the pilot's attention, so we had to watch it go.

The third night we were crazy with hunger, of course, but we had known all along we would be. When dawn came we kept going as long as we could, and at last Pauline dropped back to talk to me.

"Why doesn't Nova stop?" she said. "Isn't she ever going to stop? Is there any chance of reaching Rham City now if we keep on ?"

"None, I should think," I said. "But tomorrow we just have to keep going. Our water will be gone."

"Well, that's tomorrow, isn't it? Why do we have to keep on now?"

"There's no way of shortening the distance we have to travel. The further we go today, the less is left for tomorrow."

After a sulky pause she said: "You don't think much of me, do you ?"

I grinned slightly. "You do seem to find it hard to accept the obvious, Pauline."

"I didn't ask to be marooned in the middle of the desert."

"Neither did we."

"But you're Marlock spies, aren't you? It's on the cards that things like this can happen to you."

"Sure."

"Well, that's your job. It isn't mine. I was minding my business . . . you can't expect me to take it as calmly as you."

"I don't."

She stumbled and I reached out and grabbed her. I was going to call to Nova, but when I looked up I saw she was stopping. The sun was now quite high and we couldn't keep going much longer.

Billjohn joined Nova about two hundred yards ahead and they started throwing up the usual sand shelter. Pauline bent and began to do the same, right there where we were.

I didn't say anything. The two previous days we'd all slept together. But if Pauline wanted it this way, it was nothing to me. I just wanted to sleep. Within two or three minutes I was doing it.

I woke up with the usual horrible taste in my mouth, the usual blazing hunger, the usual thirst. The sun was low in the west - in an hour or so we'd be on our way again.

The last hop. It had to be. I took a mouthful of water and had to force myself to tear the bottle away from my lips.

When I looked up, Pauline was watching me. Without preamble she said: "If you want to make a pass at me, I'm waiting."

"I couldn't make a pass at anything right now except a bowl of soup."

She sat back on her heels. "Couldn't you? I thought you were tough."

"I used to be. I'm nothing but an empty shell any more."

She put her arms behind her, reaching for the clasp of her brassiere, watching me archly.

I could have hit her. All my irritation with her rushed to the surface. This ludicrous episode was typical of Rham and Rhamians, I thought. They were careless and lazy and sensual and they cared for nothing but pleasure. They didn't know what life was, these plump, spoiled children.

Then I really looked at her. She had lost all her surplus weight and was lean and firm. Even after three days without food, I suddenly found that the situation wasn't quite so ludicrous after all.

We reached the edge of the desert just after dawn. As soon as we saw Rham City we saw the Mars, towering over the flat-topped white buildings, as huge and solid as ever.

"Thank God," Billjohn murmured. "We're not too late, anyway."

We stumbled into the first beach reservation we saw. At this time in the morning it was quite empty, its striped unbrellas and deck chairs and plastic-topped tables looking naked without hordes of tanned, laughing Rhamians to clothe them.

An hour later Billjohn and I were at the Embassy, feeling fully half human. Indeed, after four days of losing weight Billjohn looked more human than usual.

He was beaming. "There's no better time to strike," he said happily, "than when the enemy expects you to do so, but just before he's ready for you. My men didn't get Larner, but they picked up two of his top agents and a girl, stunned them and dumped them in a helicar, and they're now on their way to the Black Rock hills."

"Not little Sahara?"

"If they were dumped in the desert, Larner would know where to look. Fifty miles inside the Black Rock hills works out about the same - "

"And you're pleased with yourself, boss ?" I said meekly.

"Well, it's all we can do. Complaining to the police is no use, we know that. Even Pauline recognizes it - "

"Yes, Pauline. Know why you were able to pick up three top Coran agents so easily, boss? Because Nova and I kept Pauline quiet for you. We didn't let her phone Larner."

Billjohn gaped, but only for a moment. "So Larner planted her with us," he said. "How did you find out?"

"When she insisted on making love to me to prove she was a Rhamian. It was a mistake. It worked the other way. I know how the local girls make love. She doesn't, not in detail. She was planted for several reasons, I guess, the second of which was to warn Larner the moment we got back. I fixed that by not leaving her alone while you were phoning the Embassy. Nova and I stuck with her the whole time - "

"So you told Nova?"

"I've also asked her to fix a tracer bug on Pauline at the hotel. That shouldn't be difficult, since we're all pals together."

"You didn't think of consulting me about all this?"

I lit a cigarette, only my second in four days. It tasted wonderful. "It's hard for three people to hold consultations without letting the fourth know anything's going on. When I got Nova to massage my ankle last night, I don't think Pauline was suspicious. But if I'd made an opportunity to talk to you too - "

Billjohn nodded. I was forgiven.

"We decided," I went on, "that if you went ahead and quietly put three of Larner's agents out of the way, as you planned to do anyway, nothing could suit us better."

"I'm so glad."

"Listen, this is the situation: Larner dumped us in the desert hoping we wouldn't get back until the Mars had left. He planted Pauline with us with several purposes in mind, the first being to delay us and make sure we didn't get back until the Mars was gone. That didn't work because we just didn't let her delay us. The second was to warn him when we got back. That didn't work either because without letting her know she'd given herself away, Nova and I stuck with her so that she couldn't phone anybody without making such a point of being alone while she did it that we'd become suspicious. With me so far?"

"No great demands have been made on my intellect as yet."

"Right. Now since Thorsen reports nothing out of the ordinary, Larner's big effort must still be to come - before the Mars takes off at midnight tonight, in fact. By hitting back sooner than Larner expected, you've put three of his top agents out of action. Who was the girl anyway, Mary Hollins?"

"Naturally. If I couldn't get Larner himself, I wasn't going to settle for anything less than the next three on his payroll."

"Good. Well, my idea may not work, but then again, it might. Nova goes back to the Astoria and plants a tracer on Pauline. Then she goes to bed and sleeps. What happens?"

"Pauline calls Larner and reports to him."

"Right. And what are the chances that Larner will tell her: Look, honey, I know you've been in the desert for four days, but that fat Billjohn has snatched my three top agents. For the big show tonight I'm going to need you."

Billjohn stared at me with gratifying amazement on his face. "It must be contact with Nova Webb that's done it," he muttered. "You never showed enough sense to come in out of the rain before."

I grinned. I saw no reason why I should tell him that Nova herself had worked most of this out when I told her out on the desert what I had discovered about Pauline.

I slept for a few hours in the middle of the day, know ing that Pauline was doing the same thing.

Nova had done better than plant a tracer bug on Pauline. She left a miniature transmitter in her room instead. She was thus able to hear half of Pauline's phone conversation with Larner. It went something like this:

"Harry? We got back an hour ago, but there were people around. I wasn't able to call you without. ..

"Well, that's too bad, Harry, but you can hardly blame me. If I'd insisted on making a private phone call, they might have wondered. ..

"Hell, do I have to? Don't I get a rest?

"Well, that's not so bad. Tonight at seven-thirty, then. I'll be there."

That was all - more could hardly be expected on an open line.

Pauline was to be somewhere that evening at 7:30. My - or Nova's - plan was working so far: stripped of three of his agents, Larner was calling on Pauline to assist him in his scheme, almost certainly aimed at the Mars.

Larner would know he himself was watched. Unless he could be certain he had lost all Billjohn's minions, he personally would not be involved. He would be at the Coranian Embassy. No doubt he was reluctant to use Pauline, since she was known to us. But he could hardly have any agents who were not. He preferred using Pauline, whom we knew but not as an agent of his. Maybe he had no choice.

At seven o'clock I tapped on the door of Nova's room. After a slight delay she appeared in a flowered silk wrap, not looking at all like a girl who had spent the last four nights in the desert. She motioned me inside. "Wait here," she said. Surprised, I said: "Where are you going?"

"Along to Pauline's room. With luck I may be able to plant your tracer for you." She had it in her hand - a tiny metal object actually designed to look like an insect.

"Why now? Why didn't you plant it when you planted the transmitter?"

She looked at me pityingly. "You imagine, perhaps, that a girl who stays in this hotel possesses only one pair of shoes? One coat? One dress?" She slipped out, leaving me crushed. It was true that there wasn't much point in planting a tracer on a garment that was going to be left in a drawer. Nova was back in five minutes. She still had the tracer in her hand.

"Sorry," she said. 'Pauline told me she had a date and had to get dressed. She didn't encourage me to stay. You'll have to pick her up outside."

"But she'll change her face - "

"Of course. I can give you one hint. I saw the makeup she was going to put on. If she understands colors, and I think she does, her dress will be purple."

"Purple. O.K. What are you going to do? "

"Me?" She was surprised. "Nothing. I tell you what to do. You do it. Wait. ..one thing. If you expect a raid on the Mars, hydrogen bombs, substitution of officers - forget it. Larner's plan, if he has one that has any chance of working, will be simple and will employ some loophole that's been missed. Oh, by the way, Pauline plays rough." I waited inquiringly.

"She tried to give me a doped drink just now. I guess she thinks I drank it."

"What did you do with it?"

"Poured it on the sofa behind a cushion. She's in a hurry. With luck she'll miss it and think I'm out for the next twelve hours at least."

"Well, you're not going to do anything anyway, are you?"

She smiled coolly. "I don't know - I expect you'll have to phone me up and ask me what to do."

I went downstairs and stationed myself at the main entrance where I could watch everybody who came out.

Disguise in these days of fleshwax and muscle-contracting salves can be so effective that you could pass your own brother in the street, stare at him and fail to recognize him. False beards and dark glasses are out. Contract your cheek muscles, lengthen your chin, change the shape of your nose and put a rinse through your hair, and you're somebody else - so long as you remember to change your walk, too.

Pauline was sure to change her appearance. I hoped Nova was right about the purple dress. I needed a break like that.

Women, fortunately for us male agents, are handicapped, especially on a warm world like Rham. Dressed or undressed, they have to show so much of their real shape that a lot of elimination is possible. Except in extreme cases, you can't positively identify a girl by her figure. But you can be sure a one-hundred-pound girl isn't the one-hundred-forty-pound woman you're looking for.

At 7:20 a woman in a purple dress came out alone. The time was right, the color was right and the dimensions were approximately right, yet I hesitated. Could Pauline be so convincingly matronly? Four days ago perhaps, but now?

For agonizing seconds I stood irresolute, unable to decide whether to follow this woman and perhaps lose Pauline, or let her go and then make up my mind, too

late, that she must have been Pauline.

Then a girl in a lilac dress came out.

It still wasn't possible to be certain. This girl looked slimmer than even the new Pauline, and younger. She also looked more like a Marlockian than a Rhamian or Coranian. Still, that might be a clue in itself.

I followed her, anyway.

The bug tracer would have been useless, as it turned out, unless it had been slipped in her handbag. She wore no wrap or cape and her shoes, such as they were, were white. The bug Nova had had would have been noticed and brushed off, wherever we put it, by the girl herself or somebody else. And, if Pauline found it, she'd know we'd spotted her as one of Larner's agents.

At 7:30 the girl I was following stepped into a public phone booth. I didn't approach closely; you can't hear what's being said inside no matter how close you are.

Then I saw nothing was being said inside. She took a paper from behind the box, read it carefully, and then burned it. She came out without making a call.

I was satisfied. This must be Pauline, and she had been reading her instructions.

Further proof was forthcoming when she went to the Via Naroonia Argosy and sat at an outside table until it got dark, and then went inside. We had already discovered that the Argosy had some tie-up with Coran. If Larner's men wanted to pump anyone, they took him to the Argosy. No questions were asked there.

An hour passed and nothing at all happened. Pauline sat alone at her table and stayed alone. Three times she was approached. She must have said something monumentally rude, for the three men left her with thunderous expressions.

Me, I found myself a seat right at the back of the club and pretended to be a gargoyle.

Not many hours ago Pauline had been claiming a thirst which would last her the rest of her life. It hadn't lasted very long - she sat for an hour with the same drink in front of her, untouched.

At about nine o'clock half a dozen Marlock navy men in green uniforms came into the club, and I began to see a glimmer of light.

Only a glimmer, however. Even after Pauline had carved herself out a fair-haired young ensign and taken him to her table, the glimmer didn't brighten.

From the way they talked to each other it was easy to guess that she was pretending to be a Marlockian girl, and using this as an excuse for picking up the young officer so blatantly - a familiar face on a strange world. But what she hoped to accomplish was as great a mystery as ever.

I ran through possibility after possibility, only to discard them all, one after another. The idea that she was pumping the ensign for information was ludicrous: he couldn't possibly have any. It was equally out of the question that she was trying to persuade him to co-operate in some scheme of sabotage or betrayal. The chances of succeeding with an officer picked at random were negligible. If there was any idea of whisking the ensign out of sight and substituting a Coranian agent, the attempt would be a dismal failure - navy men returning to the ship were checked in a dozen ways as a matter of routine.

In an effort to think of any possibility that made sense I cast my mental net wider and wider. I had plenty of time. Pauline was plying the ensign with drink, and drinking along with him. I now saw why she had sat for over an hour with an untouched drink in front of her. She had been trying to work up a thirst.

Navy men from ancient times have been traditionally suspicious of anyone who makes them drink and does not drink along with them. On the other hand, nobody is less suspicious than a friend who does drink along with them. And Pauline, no doubt assisted by her four days in the desert, had a thirst that enabled her to keep up with the ensign.

It would be pointless, too, I reflected, sipping my fifth beer, to make the ensign incapable of joining his ship before she left. For the Mars would certainly not wait for an insignificant junior officer. She would take off on schedule and the ensign would be posted AWOL.

Besides, there were now ten or eleven other Marlock navy men in the Argosy, staying clear of Pauline and her companion but taking due, slightly envious, note of every smile and gesture. Nothing could be less secret.

I looked at my watch. It was after eleven, and the Mars took off at midnight. The ensign's pass could not be for later than 11:30. And I still hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.

I left my beer and slipped out of the club as unobtrusively as possible. I could have phoned from the club itself, but I had not forgotten that Larner was in cahoots with the management. Phone calls from the club might well be monitored by Coranian agents or sympathizers, especially when something was going on inside at the time.

Nova sounded smugly satisfied when she answered, but I ignored that. I told her in detail what was happening and asked her if it meant anything to her.

"I take it the precautions you mention are really carried out on the Mars?" she said.

"Conscientiously?"

"Certainly. Thorson is unimaginative but thorough."

"Tell me, have you ever heard of bacchanite?"

"Bacchanite? What's that?"

"I take it you haven't. That's what Larner was counting on. It really is as well for Marlock that I'm around - "

"Well, what is it?" I demanded.

"I won't tell you over the phone. The best thing for you to do is go straight to the Mars and see Captain Thorson. Make sure that when that ensign returns, he isn't allowed on board the Mars."

"Huh?"

"He's to be left behind this trip. Fix that, and I'll attend to the rest."

"I don't know the ensign's name - "

"You can describe him, can't you?"

So I went to the Mars and with some difficulty managed to see Thorson. He wouldn't let me on board the ship; he came down to see me. He was not pleased.

"Leave Barlow behind ?" he exclaimed, when we had managed to establish the ensign's identity. "Nonsense. You Intelligence people are all the same. See a man drinking with a suspicious character and you assume he's a spy - "

"Leave Barlow behind, captain," I said quietly. "If you're not satisfied that I have authority to request this, lets you and me call the Marlock Embassy."

"But it's nonsense - Sure, Barlow will be no damn good for anything when he comes back. He'll be tipped in his bunk and tomorrow - "

"Captain, are you going to leave Barlow behind?"

"No," he said firmly.

"You're relieved of your command, captain. Your executive officer will take over. Confirmation will come through from the Embassy in a few minutes."

Although it was a bluff, it stopped Thorson and forced him to think. Probably he had some excuse for his contempt for the pettifogging restrictions of Intelligence and Security. The trouble with Security is that you have to make a thousand apparently unnecessary checks to make sure of including the one necessary one.

"Wait, you, what's your name - Smith. Can you give me any sound reason for leaving Ensign Barlow behind?"

"Two," I said. "One is that if you take him with you, you'll be lucky if you're an ensign yourself when you get back to Marlock. The other is that you probably won't get back to Marlock at all."

Ten minutes later, when Barlow returned, he was placed under close arrest. Two navy men were left behind to take him to the Marlock Embassy.

Nova picked me up at the spaceport just fifteen minutes before the Mars was due to take off. She had hired a helicar and was flying it herself.

"Get in," she said. "Barlow's been sent to the Embassy? Good. I've already called them and told them what to do with him. The Mars can take off as planned."

I got in.

"Nova," I said, "what is bacchanite?"

She wasn't listening. She was sending the helicar skimming along the Via Naroonia only twenty feet above the ground traffic.

"This is illegal," I protested.

"I know, It doesn't matter. We're landing. Look." She pointed ahead and down.

We dropped close beside Pauline, who was walking back to the hotel slowly and carefully, carrying a heavy load.

"Hi, Pauline," Nova said. "We'll give you a lift."

Pauline looked at us rather dazedly. But she came over and climbed into the helicar.

Nova had a flask with her. "I've got just what you need," she said.

"I don't need anything," said Pauline thickly. "I'm fine."

"Sure, you're fine. Have a drink. I owe you one, remember?"

Pauline took the flask doubtfully. She was very drunk, which was no surprise at all.

"The Mars takes off in five minutes," Nova said coolly.

"The Mars? The warship? What's that to me?"

"Is there some reason why you shouldn't have another drink, Pauline?" Nova said thoughtfully.

"No, except that I've had enough."

"Have you? I think you should have another. The Mars takes off in four and a half minutes, Pauline."

Pauline shrugged and put the flask to her lips. She took a sip and then hesitated. It was only too clear that if there was any time in her life when she particularly wished to be sober and completely clear-headed, it was now.

"Shall we go and watch the ship take off?" Nova said. "If you like. What's it to me?" Trying to be nonchalant, she drank some more. Then she stared. The car was landing outside the Coranian Embassy.

"Want to go inside, Pauline?" Nova said. "Want to report to your boss Larner?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Pauline said uneasily. "I'm a Rhamian. I know nothing about - "

"Yes, you do, Pauline. Don't you want to report to Larner? Or do you want to stay with us? We're working for Marlock, you know. And the Mars takes off in three minutes."

Suddenly Pauline jumped out of the helicar and ran into the Embassy.

"What was all that in aid of?" I demanded.

Nova ran the car across to the other side of the street and parked there. "Got a cigarette ?" she asked.

We waited. I gave up trying to make Nova say anything. It was useless.

We saw the Mars climb on an orange pillar of fire into the night sky. In a matter of seconds there was nothing more to see.

Nova condescended to unbend slightly. "Pauline co-operated," she pointed out, "because she believed Barlow was on the ship. Nothing mattered except stalling for a few moments until it was too late to haul him off. And she didn't think I really knew anything."

"So ?" I asked. "Wait."

We waited for ten minutes, twenty. Then suddenly there was an explosion within the Coranian Embassy. Glass shattered and we heard screams. Part of the roof had caved in, and fumes poured from the aperture. Dust began to settle.

As explosions went it was not impressive. Imagining such an explosion occurring within the Mars instead of in the Coranian Embassy, however, I started convulsively and stared up at the sky.

"It's all right," Nova said coolly, starting the motor. "Barlow isn't on board, you see."

I wasn't sorry Nova was gone.

She knew the spy business, that girl. I guess we were as ignorant and unsubtle as she said. Occasionally she might make mistakes - who doesn't? - but on a long. term business I guess she'd be twice as efficient as Bill. john and me put together. And if she was an iceberg, and she was, that only meant that she did her job unhampered by human frailty.

All the same, that last performance of hers gave me the shivers.

Pauline was working for Coran, true. I guess it was softheartedness on my part to think that what happened out on the desert made any difference. Certainly it made none to Nova.

Bacchanite tastes like alcohol and has the same initial effect as alcohol. Funny, once you know about bacchanite you can see that it was only a matter of time before somebody developed something like it. We humans have a taste for effective nastiness.

The real difference is, bacchanite is not nearly as stable as ordinary alcohol. When the digestive juices start working on it, it becomes something quite fierce, and any unfortunate person who has drunk a lot of it believes he's going to die. But he doesn't die - if he lies quietly and puts up with it for about six hours, the body eventually conquers the bacchanite.

On the other hand, if he takes a violent emetic, the resulting chaos inside him results in a nasty little explosion.

It was predictable that if Barlow, on the Mars, developed the symptoms which bacchanite produces, the medical officer would have given him an emetic.

Afterwards, it was possible to understand how Pauline had felt herself forced to act as she did when we picked her up. She believed that Barlow was on the point of leaving on the Mars. It was only a matter of making sure the Mars left with him on board.

I saw the purpose of Nova's reminders that the war ship would leave in five minutes, four minutes, three minutes. Pauline must have decided she guessed something, but wasn't quite sure. Nova might have the wrong idea altogether, and if she had the right one, Pauline didn't want her to become sure.

So she drank from Nova's bottle.

The stuff tasted all right - but there was a violent emetic in it.

Larner, we found later, was killed in the explosion. To say Pauline was killed, too, was a truism - she was the explosion.

We waited for reprisals, but they didn't come. Evidently the Coranians figured the mistake was their own and that we could not possibly be responsible for what happened.

Barlow had a bad day and then recovered.

"A remarkable girl," Billjohn said, just after Nova had left for Earth. I think Billjohn, too, was glad she was gone. He's a quiet, peaceable soul really.

"Girl ?" I said. "She's no girl, she's an electronic brain set in an iceberg. I'd rather have a date with Pauline, any day."

"You're too late for that," Billjohn remarked. "But would you care for a glass of bacchanite ?"

I shuddered.

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PROOFERS NOTES:- OCR'ed from multipage TIFF file, proofed & original images replaced.