quivered with
the shock of betrayal. "The catalogue was _wrong_."

Ironically, their problem was more pressing now than before. Unless
checked, the Zid would rapidly depopulate the island--and, to check it,
they must break a prime rule of Galactic protocol in asking the help of
a new and untested species.

But they had no choice. They teleported at once into the presence of the
two nearby natives--and met with frustration beyond Ciriimian
experience.

* * * * *

Jeff Aubray glimpsed the Ciriimian ship's landing because the morning
was a Oneday, and on Onedays his mission to the island demanded that he
be up and about at sunrise.

For two reasons: On Onedays, through some unfailing miracle of Calaxian
seamanship, old Charlie Mack sailed down in his ancient _Island Queen_
from the township that represented colonial Terran civilization in
Procynian Archipelago 147, bringing supplies and gossip to last Jeff
through the following Tenday. The _Queen_ would dock at Jeff's little
pier at dawn; she was never late.

Also on Onedays, necessarily before Charlie Mack's visit, Jeff must
assemble his smuggled communicator--kept dismantled and hidden from
suspicious local eyes--and report to Earth Interests Consulate his
progress during the cycle just ended. The ungodly hour of transmission,
naturally, was set to coincide with the closing of the Consul's field
office halfway around the planet.

So the nacreous glory of Procyon's rising was just tinting the windows
of Jeff's cottage when he aligned and activated his little communicator
on his breakfast table. Its three-inch screen lighted to signal and a
dour and disappointed Consul Satterfield looked at him. Behind
Satterfield, foreshortened to gnomishness by the pickup, lurked Dr.
Hermann, Earth Interests' resident zoologist.

"No progress," Jeff reported, "except that the few islanders I've met
seem to be accepting me at last. A little more time and they might let
me into the Township, where I can learn something. If Homeside--"

"You've had seven Tendays," Satterfield said. "Homeside won't wait
longer, Aubray. They need those calm-crystals too badly."

"They'll use force?" Jeff had considered the possibility, but its
immediacy appalled him. "Sir, these colonists had been autonomous for
over two hundred years, ever since the Fourth War cut them off from us.
Will Homeside deny their independence?"

His sense of loss at Satterfield's grim n