sh you'd have it dyed one color," she told him. "Either
black or gray--or why not a bright puce?"

"What's for dinner?" he asked, adding, "If I can still eat after that."

* * * * *

The regional vice-chancellors were awaiting him in the
next-to-the-innermost office when Bliss arrived at World
Capital the next morning. Australia, Antarctica, Patagonia, Gobi,
Sahara-Arabia--they followed him inside like so many penguins in the
black-and-white official robes. All were deathly serious as they stated
their problems.

Gobi wanted annual rainfall cut from 60 to 45 centimeters.

Sahara-Arabia was not receiving satisfactory food synthetics--there had
been Moslem riots because of pork flavor in the meat.

Patagonia was suffering through a species of sport-worm that was
threatening to turn it into a desert if biology didn't come up with a
remedy fast.

Antarctica wanted temperature lowered from a nighttime norm of 62 deg.
Fahrenheit to 57.6 deg. It seemed that the ice in the skating rinks,
which were the chief source of exercise and entertainment for the
populace, got mushy after ten p.m.

Australia wanted the heavy uranium deposits under the Great Central
Desert neutralized against its causing further mutations.

For a moment, Bliss was tempted to remind his viceroys that it was not
going to make one bit of difference whether they made their spoiled
citizens happy or not. The last man on Earth would be dead within fifty
years or so, anyway. But that would have been an unpardonable breach of
taste. Everyone _knew_, of course, but it was never mentioned. To state
the truth was to deny hope. And without hope, there was no life.

Bliss promised to see that these matters were tended to at once, taking
each in turn. This done, they discussed his making another whirlwind
trip through the remaining major dominions of the planet to bolster
morale. He was relieved when at last, the amenities concluded, the
penguins filed solemnly out. He didn't know which he found more
unattractive--Gobi's atrophied third leg, strapped tightly to the inside
of his left thigh and calf, or Australia's jackass ears. Then, sternly,
he reminded himself that it was not their fault they weren't as lucky as
himself.

Myra came in, her three eyes aglow, and said, "Boss, you were wrong for
once in your life."

"What is it this time?" he asked.

"About that Martian ship," she repeated. "It just landed on the old
spacep