“Because it doesn’t dare fight a war,” snapped Korvash.

They didn’t answer. Perhaps they were thinking of the cities that would not be bombed and the young men that would not go out to be killed. Perhaps they were simply enjoying a victory.

Flandry poured wine. “To our future amiable enmity,” he toasted.

“I still don’t see how you did it,” said Korvash.

“Aline did it,” said Flandry. “Tell them, Aline.”

She shook her head. She had withdrawn into a quietness which was foreign to her. “Go ahead, Dominic,” she murmured. “It was really your show.”

“Well,” said Flandry, not loath to expound, “when we realized that Aycharaych could read our minds, it looked pretty hopeless. How can you possibly lie to a telepath? Aline found the answer — by getting information which just isn’t true.

“There’s a drug in this system called sorgan which has the property of making its user believe anything he’s told. Aline fed me some without my knowledge and then told me that fantastic lie about Terra coming in to occupy Alfzar. And, of course, I accepted it as absolute truth. Which you, Aycharaych, read in my mind.”

“I was puzzled,” admitted the Chereionite. “It just didn’t look reasonable to me; but as you said, there didn’t seem to be any way to lie to a telepath.”

“Aline’s main worry was then to keep out of mind-reading range,” said Flandry. “You helped us there by going off to prepare a warm reception for the Terrans. You gathered all your forces in the valley, ready to blast our ships out of the sky.”

“Why didn’t you go to the Sartaz with what you knew — or thought you knew?” asked Korvash accusingly.

Aycharaych shrugged. “I realized Captain Flandry would be doing his best to prevent me from doing that and to discredit any information I could get that high,” he said. “You yourself agreed that our best opportunity lay in repulsing the initial attack ourselves. That would gain us far more favor with the Sartaz; moreover, since there would have been overt acts on both sides, war between Betelgeuse. and Terra would then have been inevitable — whereas if the Sartaz had learned in time of the impending assault, he might have tried to negotiate.”

“I suppose so,” said Korvash glumly.

“Aline, of course, prevailed on Bronson to mine the valley,” said Flandry. “The rest you know. When you yourselves showed up—”

“To tell the Sartaz, now that it was too late,” said Aycharaych.

“ — we were afraid that the ensuing argument would damage our own show. So we used violence to shut you up until it had been played out.” Flandry spread his hands in a gesture of finality. “And that, gentlemen, is that.”

“There will be other tomorrows,” said Aycharaych gently. “But I am glad we can meet in peace tonight.”

The party lasted well on toward dawn. When the aliens left, with many slightly tipsy expressions of good will and respect, Aycharaych took Aline’s hand in his own bony fingers. His strange golden eyes searched hers, even as she knew his mind was looking into the depths of her own.

“Goodbye, my dear,” he said, too softly for the others to hear. “As long as there are women like you, I think Terra will endure.”

She watched his tall form go down the corridor and her vision blurred a little. It was strange to think that her enemy knew what the man beside her did not.

It pleased Ruethen of the Long Hand to give a feast and ball at the Crystal Moon for his enemies. He knew they must come. Pride of race had slipped from Terra, while the need to appear well-bred and sophisticated had waxed correspondingly. The fact that spaceships prowled and fought, fifty light-years beyond Antares, made it all the more impossible a gaucherie to refuse an invitation from the Merseian representative. Besides, one could feel delightfully wicked and ever so delicately in danger.

Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, allowed himself a small complaint. “It’s not that I refuse any being’s liquor,” he said, “and Ruethen has a chef for his human-type meals who’d be worth a war to get. But I thought I was on furlough.”

“So you are,” said Diana Vinogradoff, Right Noble Lady Guardian of the Mare Crisium. “Only I saw you first.”

Flandry grinned and slid an arm about her shoulders. He felt pretty sure he was going to win his bet with Ivar del Bruno. They relaxed in the lounger and he switched off the lights.

This borrowed yacht was ridiculously frail and ornate; but a saloon which was one bubble of clear plastic, ah! Now in the sudden darkness, space leaped forth, crystal black and a wintry blaze of stars. The banded shield of Jupiter swelled even as they watched, spilling soft amber radiance into the ship. Lady Diana became a figure out of myth, altogether beautiful; her jewels glittered like raindrops on long gown and heaped tresses. Flandry stroked his neat mustache. I don’t suppose I look too hideous myself, he thought smugly, and advanced to the attack.

“No … please … not now.” Lady Diana fended him off, but in a promising way. Flandry reclined again. No hurry. The banquet and dance would take hours. Afterward, when the yacht made its leisured way home toward Terra, and champagne bubbles danced in both their heads … “Why did you say that about being on furlough?” she asked, smoothing her coiffure with slim fingers. Her luminous nail polish danced about in the twilight like flying candle flames.

Flandry got a cigaret from his own shimmerite jacket and inhaled it to life. The glow picked out his face, long, narrow, with high cheekbones and gray eyes, seal-brown hair and straight nose. He sometimes thought his last biosculp had made it too handsome, and he ought to change it again. But what the devil, he wasn’t on Terra often enough for the girls to get bored with his looks. Besides, his wardrobe, which he did take pains to keep fashionable, was expensive enough to rule out many other vanities.

“The Nyanza business was a trifle wearing, y’know,” he said, to remind her of yet another exploit of his on yet another exotic planet. “I came Home for a rest. And the Merseians are such damnably strenuous creatures. It makes me tired just to look at one, let alone spar with him.”

“You don’t have to tonight, Sir Dominic,” she smiled. “Can’t you lay all this feuding aside, just for a little while, and be friends with them? I mean, we’re all beings, in spite of these silly rivalries.”

“I’d love to relax with them, my lady. But you see, they never do.”

“Oh, come now! I’ve talked to them, often, and—”

“They can radiate all the virile charm they need,” said Flandry. For an instant his light tone was edged with acid. “But destroying the Terrestrial Empire is a full-time job.”

Then, quickly, he remembered what he was about, and picked up his usual line of banter. He wasn’t required to be an Intelligence agent all the time. Was he? When a thousand-credit bet with his friend was involved? Ivar del Bruno had insisted that Lady Diana Vinogradoff would never bestow her favors on anyone under the rank of earl. The challenge was hard to refuse, when the target was so intrinsically tempting, and when Flandry had good reason to be complacent about his own abilities. It had been a hard campaign, though, and yielding to her whim to attend the Merseian party was only a small fraction of the lengths to which he had gone.

But now, Flandry decided, if he played his cards right for a few hours more, the end would be achieved. And afterward, a thousand credits would buy a really good orgy for two at the Everest House.

Chives, valet cum pilot cum private gunman, slipped the yacht smoothly into berth at the Crystal Moon. There was no flutter of weight change, though deceleration had been swift and the internal force-field hard put to compensate. Flandry stood up, cocked his beret at a carefully rakish angle, swirled his scarlet cloak, and offered an arm to Lady Diana. They stepped through the airlock and along a transparent tube to the palace.