g IC operation was being checked. Even minor
and out-of-the-way spots like Antar were on the list--spots that
normally demanded a cursory once-over by a second-class business
technician.

* * * * *

Superficially, Antar had the dull unimportance of an early penetration.
There were the usual trading posts, pilot plants, wholesale and retail
trade, and tourist and recreation centers--all designed to accustom the
native inhabitants to the presence of Earthmen and their works--and set
them up for the commercial kill, after they had acquired a taste for the
products of civilization. But although the total manpower and physical
plant for a world of this size was right, its distribution was wrong.

A technician probably wouldn't see it, but to an agent who had dealt
with corporate operations for nearly a quarter of a century, the setup
felt wrong. It was not designed for maximum return. The
Vaornia-Lagash-Timargh triangle held even more men and material then
Prime Base. That didn't make sense. It was inefficient, and IC was not
noted for inefficiency.

Not being oriented criminally, Albert found out IC's real reason for
concentration in this area only by absent-mindedly lighting a cigarette
one day in Vaornia. He had realized almost instantly that this was a
gross breach of outworld ethics and had thrown the cigarette away. It
landed between a pair of Vaornese walking by.

The two goggled at the cigarette, sniffed the smoke rising from it, and
with simultaneous whistles of surprise bent over to pick it up. Their
heads collided with some force. The cigarette tore in their greedy grasp
as they hissed hatefully at each other for a moment, before turning
hostile glares in his direction. From their expressions, they thought
this was a low Earthie trick to rob them of their dignity. Then they
stalked off, their neck scales ruffled in anger, shreds of the cigarette
still clutched in their hands.

Even Albert couldn't miss the implications. His tossing the butt away
had produced the same reaction as a deck of morphine on a group of human
addicts. Since IC wouldn't corrupt a susceptible race with tobacco when
there were much cheaper legal ways, the logical answer was that it
wasn't expensive on this planet--which argued that Antar was being set
up for plantation operations--in which case tobacco addiction was a
necessary prerequisite and the concentration of IC population made
sense.

Now tobacco