I opened my mouth to speak to her in Turkish. And then, with a shock, I came to my senses. I had actually seenthe girl! I had heard the coins clink! I had smelled the food!

I knew I was going crazy.

How I knew this was very simple. But I had better explain it. While I didn't do well in the Royal Academy, when I went to the Apparatus schools I was a whiz, especially in languages.

Of course, they have very good teachers there. They have to. They must teach about four hundred languages just to cover the 110 planets of the Voltar Confederacy. Although Voltarian, imported from the home galaxy, is standard in the schools everywhere, the work of the Apparatus takes one too often into the back country where Standard Voltarian is unknown. And then there are at least ten thousand languages of enemy planets or planets marked for invasion.

They have a cunning system of gradual approach. It graduates upwards from child's blocks to primers and then higher. In the case of Blito-P3, the route for English is blocks, "kindergarten primers," comic books, technical books.

The comic book I chose was one called Bugs Bunny.Actually, I recall with a smile the first error I made. I thought the actor named Bugs Bunny was the true shape and behavior of the people of Earth where I had not yet been. How my professor laughed! He pointed out that the true shape and behavior of Earth people was to be found in the same comic book. He was called "Elmer Fudd." But Bugs Bunny, I must say, has a way with him. Bugs is cunning. And he certainly can handle people. So it was obvious to me that they knew how to handle people on Earth. And when some of the scientists around the school told me there was not much difference between Earth's comic books and their technical books, I took the hint. One can choose his own technical subjects for reading so I chose a subject they call, down there, "psychology." It is a government monopoly but it is taught in their universities. They claim everybody is evil. They say sentient beings are animals and have no soul. And while this last is unique to Earth and is not believed on any other planet anywhere, I so often fervently hope that I will never live another life anywhere that I was eager to accept it. And naturally, like Lombar, I believed everybody was evil.

So here I had a real gold mine. I read and read those textbooks. Like Bugs Bunny does, the psychologist teaches you how to get around everybody.

It is really due to this extensive study that I owe my remarkable ability to handle people.

I was diffident about writing this down in this work for two reasons: people will think I am a nut; and it is really the trade secret on which I operate in the Apparatus on Voltar. Even primitives have secret wisdoms.

So when I saw that Turkish girl, I knew exactly what had happened: I was experiencing "psychogenic hallucination based on fulfillment-denial." From this, I naturally understood that I wanted to get the Hells out of here. It came as a flash.

However, although I now had the proper label and understood it completely, I still sat there thinking from time to time I was at the Turkish base on Earth and even reached out a time or two to take some of the cakes the girl had put on the desk.

This got me to wondering how I would cope with all the paper stamping I would have to do when I was on Earth. And this led me to wonder how the bales of forms would get to Earth and back. I couldn't imagine them coming as heavily abused freight. Bawtch would have a fit if the corners were wrinkled.

Then, as the day crept on and I got hungrier and thirstier and any hopes of eating seemed postponed at least a year until I could draw pay again – unless I lost my paychecks, which would make it five years and maybe never – I got more and more worried.

On Blito-P3, I would be cut off absolutely. I would not be able to snoop around. I would have no master console to steal time at. My fantasy of being on Earth in peaceful plenty began to have a dark core of not knowing what the Hells was going on on Voltar.

I considered what Bugs Bunny would have done in a similar circumstance. He would have approved of the caper of the toilet escape route I had just ordered. But, although my memory is superb, I could not remember a single strip that solved this uninformed situation except one where he takes a telescope on a platform he has gotten onto and, by means of many curves and levers, looks in on somebody who was chasing him in a police car. I obviously had no telescope that long.

Surmounting my hunger, I made a supreme effort and, being well endowed with wits, suddenly solved it.

Endow was the crossroads of information between the Apparatus and the Grand Council. Lombar had to take up everything with Endow. Endow had a weakness: pretty boys!

I got out my blackmail folders, local office.

I pushed buzzers. I got one to work and very shortly I had two of the Section 451 clerks in there looking slightly amused and tolerant.

These two boys were nicknamed "Too-Too" and "Oh Dear." Their real names are Twolah and Odur. They were from Endow's home planet, Mistin. They were promising children, doted upon by their separate mothers, spoiled rotten and totally dominated. They had entered the University of Mistin with high marks and had proceeded upon brilliant scholastic careers. They were excellent students. They fell in love, one with an elderly male professor of cellology, the other with the dean of males. They were caught. They were expelled. They were ruined. They were eminently fitted for my purpose: they were very pretty. I would shortly wipe the amusement from their girlish faces.

"You, Twolah, and you, Odur, have just been promoted." They liked that but were wary.

"By the powers vested in me as Section Chief, you two are appointed alternate couriers to Blito-P3. At intervals comparable to the time it takes to make a round trip to Blito-P3, you will relieve each other. One of you will bring me all the paper I have to sign and return. Then the other will do so." They looked uneasy. I have something of a reputation in the office. They knew this was not all. Three months of travel, followed by three months layoff, even though space travel in a freighter is not that comfortable, was a bit of a plum.

"On your off-time at home," I said, "you will take messages to Endow personally. Any kind of a message from here you can dream up. And you will hang around for answers. And you will pretty yourselves up and display yourselves so that each one of you, by turns, becomes his beloved. And you will pump him for all current news about Blito-P3 and bring it to me." Too-Too minced coyly, "And what if Lord Endow refuses to slip into the trap?"

"I don't think he will refuse. Because you are each of you going to make sure that he doesn't. Have you ever heard of a magic mailing?" It is tradecraft. They were trained as spies but not in the higher levels of the art. "I will explain," I said.

"I am sure you will," lisped Oh Dear.

"A magic mailing is a message or order which is held in place in a postal chute. It sticks there in the chute for a determined time, in this case three months. A separate card with a frequency stamped on it has to be mailed past it before the stick expires. If it is, the magic mail stays unmailed another three months. But if at any time the renewing card isn't mailed, the magic mail drops into the post and gets delivered." They were getting white. Pretty. But white.

"Each time you deliver a batch of forms to me on Blito-P3, you will also deliver allthe news there is on the subject from the Apparatus, the Grand Council, Endow and Lombar Hisst. IF I consider you are not making it up, that you are really diligent in doing your espionage job in your off-period here, I will give you a receipt with a frequency and you can mail it. It will hold up the magic mail." They were whiter and not prettier.