is arrival in the city.

Kemmer closed his eyes and let a smile cross his keen features. Under
his administration, there would be a sharp rise in the mortality curve
for spies detected in the Vaornia-Lagash-Timargh triangle. With the
native judiciary firmly under IC control, the Corporation literally had
a free hand, providing it kept its nose superficially clean. And as for
spies, they knew the chances they took and what the penalty could be for
interfering with the normal operations of corporate business.

Kemmer yawned, stretched, turned his attention to more important
matters.

* * * * *

Albert Johnson fumbled hopefully in the empty food container before
tossing it aside. A plump, prosaic man of middle height, with a round
ingenuous face, Albert was as undistinguished as his name, a fact that
made him an excellent investigator. But he was neither undistinguished
nor unnoticed in his present position, although he had tried to carry it
off by photographing the actions of the local Sanitary Processional like
any tourist.

He had been waiting near the Vaornia Arm on the road that led to Lagash
since early afternoon, and now it was nearly evening. He cursed mildly
at the fact that the natives had no conception of time, a trait not
exclusively Antarian, but one which was developed to a high degree on
this benighted planet. And the fact that he was hungry didn't add to his
good temper. Natives might be able to fast for a week without ill
effects, but his chunky body demanded quantities of nourishment at
regular intervals, and his stomach was protesting audibly at being
empty.

He looked around him, at the rutted road, and at the darkening Vaornia
Arm of the Devan Forest that bordered the roadway. The Sanitary
Processional had completed the daily ritual of waste disposal and the
cart drivers and censer bearers were goading their patient daks into a
faster gait. It wasn't healthy to be too near the forest after the sun
went down. The night beasts weren't particular about what, or whom, they
ate.

The Vaornese used the Vaornia Arm as a dump for the refuse of the city,
a purpose admirably apt, for the ever-hungry forest life seldom left
anything uneaten by morning. And since Antarian towns had elaborate
rituals concerning the disposal of waste, together with a nonexistent
sewage system, the native attitude of fatalistic indifference to an
occasional tourist or Antarian being gobbled up