,
he was downright ugly, she realized. "Griblo can give me the dope and
I'll write up the story myself. I can fill it out with canned copy. And
you and I will discuss this situation in the morning."

"Won't go home when there's work to be done. Duty calls me." Giving a
brief and quite recognizable imitation of a Terrestrial trumpet, Tarb
stalked down the corridor to her office.

Drosmig looked up from his perch, to which he was still miraculously
clinging at that hour. "So it got you, too?... Sorry ... nice girl."

"It hasn't got me," Tarb replied, picking up a letter marked _Urgent_.
"I've got it." She scanned the letter, then made hastily for Stet's
office.

He sat drumming on his desk with the antique stainless steel spatula he
used as a paperknife.

"Read this!" she demanded, thrusting the letter into his face. "Read
this, you traitor--sacrificing our whole civilization to what's most
expedient for you! Hypocrite! Cad!"

"Tarb, listen to me! I'm--"

"Read it!" She slapped the letter down in front of him. "Read it and see
what you've done to us! Sure, we Fizbians keep to ourselves and so the
only people who know anything about us are the ones who want to sell us
brushes, while the people who want to help us don't know a damn thing
about us and--"

"Oh, all right! I'll read it if you'll only keep quiet!" He turned the
letter right-side up.

_Johannesburg_

_Dear Senbot Drosmig:_

_I represent the Dzoglian Publishing Company, Inc., of which I know
you have heard, since your paper has seen fit to give our books
some of the most unjust reviews on record. However, be that as it
may, I have opened an office on Earth with the laudable purpose of
effecting an interchange of respective literatures, to see which
Terrestrial books might most profitably be translated into Fizbian,
and which of the authors on our own list might have potential
appeal for the Earth reader._

_Dealing with authors is, of course, a nerve-racking business and I
soon found myself in dire need of mental treatment. What was my
horror to find that this primitive, although charming, planet had
no neurotones, no psychoscopes, not even any cerebrophones--in
fact, no psychiatric machines at all! The very knowledge of this
brought me several degrees closer to a breakdown._

_Perhaps I should have consulted you at this juncture, but I admit
I was a bit of