From: Censorship Clerk To: The Duchess of Manco, Palace City Your Grace: Crown, His Lordship, when this was called to his attention, directed that this be forwarded to you, under seal, as a matter of personal interest. It was brought in by a routine military survey sent by the Chairman of Intelligence. It was found on a post in a mountain cone. The envelope, as you will note, is simply addressed, "Mister Jet." The date is concurrent with the tenth year of reign of the Emperor Mortiiy. The translation follows: Dear Mr. Jet: This is just to let you know that your penthouse is all ready and waiting when you come back. The clothes in the closets are in good shape but a little out of date. Styles have changed in ten years. Your tailor calls from time to time to see if you need anything new. Mr. Stampi of the Spreeport Speedway calkd and asked if you would like to race in the new American Grand Prix. He said he reinstated all your memberships and you were right out front with him. "Queen" Babe Corleone speaks of you often. Just the other day, at the world board meeting, she said she missed "Prince Charming" and cried a little bit. She said maybe Jerome had never forgiven her after all, because he didn't come back. She is doing fine, though. The American Rifle Association elected her Woman of the Year. There are no other mobs now, only Corleone. She is very popular and her name is up in lights over the UN since she ordered them to pass the Women's Thermonuclear Rights Bill. Vantagio has your portrait in the lobby of the Gracious Palms but I don't think you'd like it with all the ribbons across the chest: it makes you look like some famous politician and that's dangerous. The girls there seem to like it, though, and keep votive candles going in front of it. I think Bang-Bang misses you. He keeps talking about the "good old days with Jet." We made him a five-star general of the army so he could show them how to drill. Bury, I'm sorry to say, showed his true colors. After he disposed of Miss Peace and Miss Agnes, his wife disappeared. She was last seen being introduced to an anaconda at the Bronx Zoo. You may not have heard that the mayor's wife was exiled by Babe to the island of Elba. Well, she escaped. Evidence exists that she had a rendezvous with Bury, also at the zoo. She has not been seen since. Twoey is not around very much. We can barely get him in long enough to sign papers that apply to Rockecenter interests. He's bought all the pig farms in New Jersey and spends most of his time there. He named a new prize-winning sow "The Beautiful Krackle," but please don't tell Miss Joy, as I don't think she'd like it. But he thought she'd be pleased and he plagued us for weeks trying to find out where she was so he could show her all the blue ribbons it won. I doubt you'd bother your important head twice wondering about me. I almost died last month when they gave me an honorary degree at Barvard to signalize the conversion of tJie last government on Earth to a corporation. I needed you to keep me from running away which, I am ashamed to say, I did. I keep your office dusted. Your old baseball cap has about fallen apart where you left it on your desk. I am afraid to touch it. So anyway, Mr. Jet, when you're finished surveying the Moon in depth or whatever is keeping you away, your condo penthouse is still waiting. The gardeners keep the garden up and there isn't even any dust around. I go there now and then and pretend you'll soon come home. It sort, of calms me. I hope you don't mind. Yours very truly, Izzy PS: 1 would ask you to give Miss Joy my best but she probably doesn't remember me. PPS: I do hope she is enjoying her life as Mrs. Jettero Heller and the wife of an officer of the Fleet. «e • Hi I was STUNNED!' I looked at the Duchess and said, "He knew his 'Mr, Jet' was an extraterrestrial all the time! And, just like Izzy, he simply kept his mouth shut! But HOW did he rind out?" Oh, I had Heller now! caught red-handed in a flagrant Code break! "Jettero's name was on a receipt from the Fleet pasted inside the time-sight he was given. And in the Empire State Building office, Jettero had a full library of Voltarian including a Voltarian-English dictionary. Izzy must have recognized the characters and translated the receipt. "But there's something else: Utanc-Colonel Gay-lov-reported to Rockecenter that Afyon was an extraterrestrial base. Those files all fell into the hands of Izzy. He must have put six and six together and even when he found the base was destroyed, he guessed somebody would come again or had contacts and he just left the letter." "Amazing!" I said. I gave her back the translation after making sure I had shot a copy of it. I checked my recorder secretly to make sure it was still running. "Now, I have another on my list: Snelz. What happened to him?" She was looking at me very oddly now. But she said, "Snelz retired as a brigadier general of Fleet marines half a century ago. He's been dead for twenty years. But listen, young Monte, I've just noticed something very odd: the questions you've been asking relate to Earth." She pointed her finger at me. I thought that I was caught. But she said, "Now listen, young Monte, we've shown you all his papers and his logs and you MUST cover Jettero's whole career. It's brilliant! Hightee and I have to nag and nag to even get him to let the papers quote him. He won't even answer questionnaires from the encyclopedia people: he just tells them, 'See last year!' and they take it as an order and publish him as a space racer when he was young! He's quite impossible! He never gets the slightest credit for all he's done. It's VAST! Earth was just a tiny, tiny part of it. In fact, if I were you, I'd sort of shy away from it. It's too unimportant. Good Heavens, even the Colipin invasion is more interesting than that. He gave the Emperor Mor-tiiy an absolute fit! We lost five squadrons and Jettero got so upset he grabbed the creaky old Retribution and went right over there and won the war and had peace in a week. And Mortiiy, who'd gone touring to inspect Calabar, belatedly heard about it and came rushing home thinking he'd have to take over the government and he came storming into the Grand Council hall and Jettero was sitting right there and Mortiiy roared, 'What the blazes do you mean going out risking your life in that confounded war?' and Jettero just smiled and said, 'What war, Your Majesty?' and handed him the treaty of peace. And even Mortiiy had to break out laughing, he looked so innocent. But the papers never even MENTIONED it! We gave you access to the logs and files so you could really tell people about him." I smiled. I was going to. Though not what she expected. I knew that an investigative reporter had to be very cunning, so I said, "I certainly will take your advice, Your Grace." But whether she would have pursued it or not, I would never know. At that moment the cat said "Yowl" and punched her with its paw and then, of all things, pointed out an upper window of the "salon. The Duchess turned and stared. She spotted something in the sky. She leaped up and she said, "Oh, no! Jettero is coming in! He's a day early!" She looked down at her stained leather jumper. "Good Heavens! I'm a wreck! No one's even been told what's for dinner!" She rushed from the salon into the rest of the house. The cat scampered out the door toward the landing target in the Rose Park. I followed the cat. The spaceship came in so fast I was certain that it was going to crash. Then it made a sudden swoop at the last moment and settled on its tail so gently, it hardly bent the grass. Now that it was standing still, I gawped.

The airlock door opened and a safety line was thrown out and a man slid down it gracefully. He was dressed in a pale blue civilian suit, without ornament but of very expensive cut. He hit the bottom with a light-footed bounce and turned. Somebody still in the ship tossed a briefcase, a box and a wrapped bouquet of flowers down to him, each of which he caught. Belatedly, a crew from the nearby hangar was rolling out some steps. But far from being abashed as they should have been, they gave him a wave. I was standing in a rose archway to the house. He was walking straight toward me with an easy step.