rrival for
some time."

* * * * *

Crownwall put his hands in his pockets. "That's hardly possible," he
said. "It was only decided yesterday, back on Earth, that I would be the
one to make the trip here. Even if you could spy through buildings on
Earth from space, which I doubt, your communications system can't get
the word through that fast."

"Oh, I didn't mean _you_ in particular," the Vegan said with a negligent
wave. "Who can tell one Earthling from another? What I meant was that I
expected someone from Earth to break through our blockade and come here.
Most of my advisors--even Ggaran here--thought it couldn't be done, but
I never doubted that you'd manage it. Still, if you were on your home
planet only yesterday, that's astonishing even to me. Tell me, how did
you manage to get here so fast, and without even alerting my detection
web?"

"You're doing the talking," said Crownwall. "If you wanted someone from
Earth to come here to see you, why did you put the cordon around Earth?
And why did you drop a planet-buster in the Pacific Ocean, and tell us
that it was triggered to go off if we tried to use the distorter drive?
That's hardly the action of somebody who expects visitors."

Ffallk glanced up at Ggaran. "I told you that Earthlings were
unbelievably bold." He turned back to Crownwall. "If you couldn't come
to me in spite of the trifling inconveniences I put in your way, your
presence here would be useless to both of us. But you did come, so I can
tell you that although I am the leader of one of the mightiest peoples
in the Galaxy, whereas there are scarcely six billions of you squatting
on one minor planet, we still need each other. Together, there is
nothing we can't do."

"I'm listening," said Crownwall.

"We offer you partnership with us to take over the rule of the Galaxy
from the Sunda--the so-called Master Race."

"It would hardly be an equal partnership, would it, considering that
there are so many more of you than there are of us?"

His Effulgence twitched his ear stalks in amusement. "I'm Viceroy of one
of the hundred Sectors of the Empire. I rule over a total of a hundred
Satrapies; these average about a hundred Provinces each. Provinces
consist, in general, of about a hundred Clusters apiece, and every
Cluster has an average of a hundred inhabited solar systems. There are
more inhabited planets in the Galaxy than there are people on your
single world. I, per