d and hard, and several of the others look
sick, especially Lennie. Lennie has his eyes fixed on the colonel; it
is not prescience, but a slight sideways movement of the colonel's eye
causes him to blurt out, "What is _he_ doing here?"

Meaning Mr. Yardo who seems to have been asleep for some time, with
his eyes open and grinning like the spikes on a dog collar. The
colonel gives him another sideways look and says, "Mr. Yardo is an
expert on the rehabilitation of space-packed materials."

This is stuff transported in un-powered hulls towed by
grappling-beams; the hulls are open to space hence no need for
refrigeration, and the contents are transferred to specially equipped
orbital stations before being taken down to the planet. But--

Mr. Yardo comes to life at the sound of his name and his grin widens
alarmingly.

"Especially meat," he says.

* * * * *

It is maybe two hours afterwards, Eru having adjourned the meeting
abruptly so that we can ... er ... take in the implications of the new
data. Lennie has gone off somewhere by himself; Kirsty has gone after
him with a view to Mothering him; Eru, I suspect, is looking for
Kirsty; Pavel and Aro and Dillie and the Crow are in a cabin arguing
in whispers; Nick and P. Zapotec are exploring one of the Hoppers,
cargo-carrying, drop-shaped, and I only hope they don't hop through
the hull in it.

B and I having done a tour of the ship and ascertained all this have
withdrawn to the Conference Room because we are tired of our cabins
and this seems to be the only other place to sit.

B breaks a long silence with the remark that However often you see it
M'Clare's technique is something to watch, like choosing my statement
to open with, it broke the ice beautifully.

I say, "Shall I tell you something?"

B says Yes if it's interesting.

"My statement," I inform her, "ran something like this: The best hope
of inducing a suspension of the aggressive attitude of both parties,
long enough to offer hope of ultimate reconciliation, lies in the
intrusion of a new factor in the shape of an outside force seen to be
impartially hostile to both."

B says: "Gosh. Come to think of it Liz you have not written like that
in years, you have gone all pompous like everyone else; well that
makes it even _more_ clever of M'Clare."

Enter Cray Patterson and drapes himself sideways on a chair,
announcing that his own thoughts begin to weary him.

I say thi