half-occupied planet like
that?" He beams round, pleased at being able to contribute.

B says, "The thing is," and stops.

We wait.

We have about given up hope when she resumes, "The thing is, it will
have to be neutral ground of course, only that might easily become a
thingummy ... I mean a, a _casus belli_ in itself. So the _other_
thing is it ought to be a place which is very hard to get at, so
difficult that neither side can really get to it first, they'll have
to reach an agreement and co-operate."

"Yeah," says Dillie "that sounds fine, but what sort of place is
that?"

I am sorting out in my head the relative merits of mountains,
deserts, gorges, et cetera, when I an seized with inspiration at the
same time as half the group; we say the same thing in different words
and for a time there is Babel, then the idea emerges:

"Drop her into the sea!"

The colonel nods resignedly.

"Yes," he says, "that's what we're going to do."

He presses a button and our projection-screens light up, first with a
map of one pole of Incognita, expanding in scale till finally we are
looking down on one little bit of coast on one of the polar islands. A
glacier descends on to it from mountains inland and there is a bay
between cliffs. Then we get a stereo scene of approximately the least
hospitable of scenery I ever did see--except maybe when Parvati Lal
Dutt's brother made me climb up what he swore was the smallest peak in
the Himalayas.

It is a small bay backed by tumbled cliffs. A shelving beach can be
deduced from contour and occasional boulders big enough to stick
through the snow that smothers it all. A sort of mess of rocks and mud
at the back may be glacial moraine. Over the sea the ice is split in
all directions by jagged rifts and channels; the whole thing is a bit
like Antarctica but nothing is high enough or white enough to uplift
the spirit, it looks not only chilly but kind of mean.

"This place," says the colonel, "is the only one, about which we have
any topographical information, that seems to meet the requirements.
Got to know about it through an elementary planetography. One of the
observers had the sense to see we might need something of the sort.
This place"--the stereo jigs as he taps his projector--"seems it's the
center of a rising movement in the crust ... that's not to the point.
Neither side has bothered to claim the land at the poles...."

I see their point if it's all like this--

"... A