pieces. Last time, you were cold, stiff, rigidly formal, and polite. So
this time it'll be me, and I'll be hot and bothered, dirty, low, coarse,
lewd, and very, very rough."

Belle threw back her head and laughed. "Rough? Yes. Vicious,
contemptuous, or ugly; yes. A master of fluent, biting, and pyrotechnic
profanity; yes. But low or dirty or coarse or lewd, Clee? Or any one of
the four, to say nothing of them all? Uh-uh. Ferber's a filthy beast, of
course; but even he knows you're one of the cleanest men that ever
lived. They'd _know_ it was an act."

"Not unless I give 'em time to think--or unless you do, before he fires
Jim--in which case we'll lose the game anyway. But how about you? If I
can knock 'em too groggy to think, will you carry on and keep 'em that
way?"

"Watch my blasts!" Belle giggled gleefully. "I never tried anything like
that--any more than you have--but I'll guarantee to be just as low,
dirty, coarse, lewd, and crude as you are. Probably more so, because in
this particular case it'll be fun. You see, you're a man--you can't
possibly despise and detest that slimy stinker either in the same way or
as much as I do."

"This ought to be good. Cut the rope, Jim."

Even before the starship came to rest, Garlock drove a probe into the
_sanctum sanctorum_ of the Chancellery--an utterly unheard-of act of
insolence.

"Foster! This is the _Pleiades_ coming in. Garlock calling. Hot up the
tri-di and the recorder, Toots. Put Fatso on, and snap into it.... I
said shake a leg!"

"Why, I.... You...."

"Stop stuttering and come to life, you half-witted bag! Gimme Ferber and
hurry it up--this ship's tricky."

"Why, you ... I never...." Ferber's outraged First Secretary could
scarcely talk. "He ... he is...."

"I know, Babe, I know--I could set that to music and sing it, with
gestures. 'Chancellor Ferber is in conference and cannot be disturbed,'"
he mimicked, savagely. "Put him on now--but _quick_!"

* * *

The tri-di tank brightened up; Chancellor Ferber's image appeared. He
was disheveled, surprised and angry, but Garlock gave him no chance to
speak.

"Well, Fatso--at last! Where the _hell_ have you been all morning? I
want some stuff, just as fast as God will let you get it together," and
he began to read off, as fast as he could talk, a long list of highly
technical items.

Ferber tried for many seconds to break in, and Garlock finally allowed
him to do so.

"Are