it. But at the earliest part of the day there was only tranquillity over
the city and the square and the Interstellar Embassy.

At the gate of the Embassy enclosure, staff members piled up boxes and
bales and parcels for transport to the spaceport and thence to
destinations whose names were practically songs. There were dispatches
to Delil, where the Interstellar Diplomatic Service had a sector
headquarters, and there were packets of embassy-stamped invoices for
Lohala and Tralee and Famagusta. There were boxes for Sind and Maja, and
metal-bound cases for Kent. The early explorers of this part of the
galaxy had christened huge suns for little villages and territories back
on Earth--which less than one human being in ten thousand had ever seen.

The sound of the stacking of freight parcels was crisp and distinct in
the morning hush. The dew deposited during darkness had not yet dried
from the pavement of the square. Damp, unhappy figures loafed nearby.
They were self-evidently secret police, as yet unrelieved after a
night's vigil about the Embassy's rugged wall. They were sleepy and
their clothing stuck soggily to them, and none of them had had anything
warm in his stomach for many hours. They had not, either, anything to
look forward to from their superiors.

Hoddan was again in sanctuary inside the Embassy they'd guarded so
ineptly through the dark. He'd gotten out without their leave, and made
a number of their fellows unwilling to sit down and then made all the
police and municipal authorities ridiculous by the manner of his return.
The police guards about the Embassy were very positively not in a cheery
mood. But one of them saw an Embassy servant he knew. He'd stood the man
drinks, in times past, to establish a contact that might be useful. He
summoned a smile and beckoned to that man.

The Embassy servant came briskly to him, rubbing his hands after having
put a moderately heavy case of documents on top of the waiting pile.

"That Hoddan," said the plainclothesman, attempting hearty ruefulness,
"he certainly put it over on us last night!"

The servant nodded.

"Look," said the plainclothesman, "there could be something in it for
you if you ... hm-m-m ... wanted to make a little extra money."

The servant looked regretful.

"No chance," he said, "he's leaving today."

The plainclothesman jumped.

"Today?"

"For Darth," said the Embassy servant. "The ambassador's shipping him
off on the space liner th