flat by the golop?"

"You've _seen_ one? I never have, but of course I've studied it. Slow,
but not too difficult. After killing, the stuff weathers down in a few
years--wonderful soil it makes--what makes it slow is that you have to
wait fifty or a hundred years for the mountains to get built up again
and for the earthquakes to quit...."

"Excuse me, please--I've got a call--we have to leave, right now."

The call was from the Inspector. The nearest planet, Clamer, was being
invaded by the Ozobes and needed all the help they could get.

* * *

In seconds the _Pleiades_ was at the Port of Entry.

"Where is this Clamer?" Garlock asked.

The Inspector pointed a thought; all four followed it.

"Let's go, Jim. Maybe...."

"Just a minute!" Lola snapped. She was breathing hard, her eyes were
almost shooting sparks as she turned to the old Arpalone and drove a
thought so forcibly that he winced.

"Do you so-called 'Guardians of Humanity' care at all about the humanity
you're supposed to be protecting?" she demanded viciously, the thought
boring in and twisting, "or are you just loafing on the job and doing as
little as you possibly can without getting fired?"

Belle and Garlock looked at each other and grinned. James was surprised
and shocked. This woman blowing her top was no Brownie Montandon any of
them knew.

"We do everything we possibly can," the Inspector was not only shocked,
but injured and abused. "If there's any one possible thing we haven't
done, even the tiniest...."

"There's plenty!" she snapped. "Plain, dumb stupidity, then, it must be.
There must be _somebody_ around here who has been at least exposed to
elementary biology! You should have exterminated these Ozobe vermin ages
ago. All you have to do is find out what its life cycle is. How many
stages and what they are. How the adults get into space and where they
go," and she went on, in flashing thoughts, to explain in full detail.

"Are you smart enough to understand that?"

"Oh, yes. Your thought may be the truth, at that."

"And are you interested enough to find out whose business it would be,
and follow through on it?"

"Yes, of course. If it works, I'll be quite famous for suggesting it.
I'll give you part of the credit...."

"Keep the credit--just see to it that it gets _done_!" She whirled on
James. "This loss of human life is so _appallingly_ unnecessary! This
time we're going to Clamer, and nowhere el