tness
chair, facing the judge, his eyes bright with fear and excitement.
"Your--Your Honor, I--I have a statement to make which will have a most
important bearing on this case. You must listen with the greatest care."
He glanced quickly at Meyerhoff, and back to the judge. "Your Honor," he
said in a hushed voice. "You are in gravest of danger. All of you. Your
lives--your very land is at stake."

The judge blinked, and shuffled through his notes hurriedly as a murmur
arose in the court. "Our land?"

"Your lives, your land, everything you hold dear," Zeckler said quickly,
licking his lips nervously. "You must try to understand me--" he glanced
apprehensively over his shoulder "now, because I may not live long
enough to repeat what I am about to tell you--"

The murmur quieted down, all ears straining in their headsets to hear
his words. "These charges," he continued, "all of them--they're
perfectly true. At least, they _seem_ to be perfectly true. But in every
instance, I was working with heart and soul, risking my life, for the
welfare of your beautiful planet."

There was a loud hiss from the back of the court. Zeckler frowned and
rubbed his hands together. "It was my misfortune," he said, "to go to
the wrong planet when I first came to Altair from my homeland on Terra.
I--I landed on Altair II, a grave mistake, but as it turned out, a very
fortunate error. Because in attempting to arrange trading in that
frightful place, I made certain contacts." His voice trembled, and sank
lower. "I learned the horrible thing which is about to happen to this
planet, at the hands of those barbarians. The conspiracy is theirs, not
mine. They have bribed your Goddess, flattered her and lied to her,
coerced her all-powerful goodness to their own evil interests, preparing
for the day when they could persuade her to cast your land into the
fiery furnace of a ten-year-drought--"

Somebody in the middle of the court burst out laughing. One by one the
natives nudged one another, and booed, and guffawed, until the rising
tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's words. "The defendant is obviously
lying," roared the prosecutor over the pandemonium. "Any fool knows that
the Goddess can't be bribed. How could she be a Goddess if she could?"

Zeckler grew paler. "But--perhaps they were very clever--"

"And how could they flatter her, when she knows, beyond doubt, that she
is the most exquisitely radiant creature in all the Universe? And _you_