irely and get the byline. Grupe had promised faithfully.

But what, she wondered, had put Drosmig "out of commission"?

The taxi drew up before a building with a vulgar number of floors
showing above ground.

"Ah--before we--er--meet the others," Stet suggested, twitching his
crest, "I was wondering whether you would care to--er--have dinner with
me tonight?"

This roused Tarb from her speculations. "Oh, I'd love to!" _A date with
the boss right away!_

Stet fumbled in his garments for appropriate tokens with which to pay
the driver. "You--you're not engaged or anything back Home, Miss
Morfatch?"

"Why, no," she said. "It so happens that I'm not."

"Splendid!" He made an abortive gesture with his leg, then let her get
out of the taxi by herself. "It makes the natives stare," he explained
abashedly.

"But why shouldn't they?" she asked, wondering whether to laugh or not.
"How could they help but stare? We are different." _He must be joking._
She ventured a smile.

He smiled back, but made no reply.

The pavement was hard under her thinly covered soles. Now that walking
looked as if it would present a problem, the ban on wing use loomed more
threateningly. She had, of course, walked before--on wet days when her
wings were waterlogged or in high winds or when she had surface
business. However, the sidewalks on Fizbus were soft and resilient. Now
she understood why the Terrestrials wore such crippling foot armor, but
that didn't make her feel any better about it.

A box-shaped machine took the two Fizbians up to the twentieth story in
twice the time it would have taken them to fly the same distance. Tarb
supposed that the offices were in an attic instead of a basement because
exchange difficulties forced the _Times_ to such economy. She wondered
ruefully whether her own expense account would also suffer.

But it was no time to worry about such sordid matters; most important
right now was making a favorable impression on her co-workers. She did
want them to like her.

Taking out her compact, she carefully polished her eyeballs. The man at
the controls of the machine practically performed a ritual _entrechat_.

"Don't do that!" Stet ordered in a harsh whisper.

"But why not?" she asked, unable to restrain a trace of belligerence
from her voice. He hadn't been very polite himself. "The handbook said
respectable Terran women make up in public. Why shouldn't I?"

He sighed. "It'll take time for you to catch o