im over and decided that he would last. "You came here
of your own free will, didn't you?" he asked.

"If you call a company directive free will," Perkins answered. "I
wouldn't come here for a vacation, if that's what you mean. But the
commercial opportunities can't be ignored."

"I suppose not, but you can hardly blame the Niobians for being
suspicious of strangers. Perhaps there's no harm in you. But they have a
right to be sure; they've been burned before." Lanceford uncoiled his
lean gray length from the chair and walked over to the broad armorglas
window. He stared out at the gloomy view of Niobe's rainswept polar
landscape. "You know," he continued, "you might call this Customs
Service a natural consequence of uninvestigated visitors." He brooded
over the grayness outside. A polar view was depressing--scrubby
vegetation, dank grassland, the eternal Niobian rain. He felt sorry for
Perkins. Thirty days in this place would be sheer torture.

"It must have been quite some disturbance to result in this." Perkins
waved his hand at the barren room. "Sounds like you know something about
it."

"I do. In a way you might say that I was responsible for it."

"Would you mind telling me?"

* * * * *

"I wouldn't mind at all." Lanceford looked at his watch. "If I have the
time, that is. I'm due to be picked up in an hour, but Niobians have
some quaint conceptions of time. So if you want to take a chance that I
won't finish--"

"Go ahead."

"To start with, take a look at that insigne over the door. The whole
story's right there."

Perkins eyed the emblem of the Niobian Customs Service. It was a
five-pointed star surrounding a circle, superimposed over the typically
Terran motto: "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Safety." He nodded.

"How come the Terran style?" he asked.

"That's part of the story. Actually that insigne's a whole chapter of
Niobe's history. But you have to know what it stands for." Lanceford
sighed reminiscently. "It began during the banquet that celebrated the
signing of the Agreement which made Niobe a member of the Confederation.
I was the Director of the BEE's Niobe Division at that time. As a matter
of fact, I'd just taken the job over from Alvord Sims. The Old Man had
been ordered back to Terra, to take over a job in the Administration,
and I was the next man in line.

"The banquet was a flop, of course. Like most mixed gatherings involving
different races, i