I calmed myself. Now, let’s see: Lombar had told me that Heller would be sending in reports to the Grand Council. I was supposed to intercept them, learn how to forge them and send them on. Only then could I safely do away with Heller!

Ah, well. I was all right, then. I was doing my duty. This was simply Heller’s first report. He was stupidly using me as part of his line to Roke and, in fact, he had no other line to use. So, all was well!

It was double-sealed. But that was nothing. Using methods known only to the Apparatus and tools specially provided for the purpose, I undetectably opened the envelope.

The sheet inside was big, but so are all official communications.

After the usual formal greetings, it said: As we agreed, if you cease to authentically hear from me each month, only then should you advise His Majesty to embark upon the second alternative. And then it rambled on, saying the mission may take a while, that the tug had run well, that he was grateful for some of the tips Captain Tars had given him about polar shifts. And then it went on to recall a lecture Captain Tars had given once about molten planetary cores being generators. And did the captain remember old Boffy Jope, the student who believed planets should turn slower so people would have more time to sleep? And he thought he would get along all right but keep an eye on things, please.

First, I suddenly realized that Heller had been one of Captain Tars Roke’s students in the Astrographic College where the captain often lectured. The tone clearly indicated that Heller had been one of those abominable students who are favored by their teachers!

Next, I realized that this clearly meant Heller had a direct line to His Majesty, Cling the Lofty!

Wait! There was something funny about this letter!

I sat down. I spread it out on a desk. I turned a light on it.

It was not written the way you write a letter! It had gaps between words! It had uneven spaces between the lines!

The words could have occupied half the space they did occupy!

I broke out in a cold sweat. Forge? I had almost put my foot directly into a trap!

This letter was a platen code!

The way that is done, you take an opaque sheet of material that fits exactly over the sheet of writing paper. You cut long slots in the opaque sheet.

Everything is then covered except a few words.

Those platen words are the REAL message! The rest is just junk.

One would have to lay the platen on this sheet to read it.

I didn’t have Heller’s platen!

Unless I had that platen, I could forge nothing! The hidden message would not match Tars Roke’s platen!

You can tell these codes because, in order to get words to appear in the platen holes, you have to write them in exact places on the sheet and that makes spaces and lines uneven!

Sometimes it makes goofy sense, trying to fill in around the key words. But Heller was clever. He’d made up some story about somebody called Boffy Jope so he would have enough words.

It had long been daylight in Turkey, of course. I had had no sleep. Unlike that (bleepard) in America who was lying in bed slumbering peacefully without a single care, I was a real slave of duty.

Besides, I was worried sick.

Sleep or no sleep, I worked right on. In every conceivable way I could, I tried to figure out the hidden message so I could get the platen.

I tried to find “Gris is doing me in.” That didn’t work. I tried “The Earth base is full of opium.” But that didn’t work. Actually, they couldn’t work as the applicable words didn’t appear in the letter.

I tried “Lombar is going to use drugs to cave in Voltar,” but the name of Lombar and the word drugs… Wait! Maybe the platen only picked out letters! Maybe not full words!

Two hours I spent on it, feeling worse and worse.

I decided I needed air. I went outside and walked around the garden. Several staff ran away when they saw me but even that didn’t cheer me up.

I went back in. Courageously, I tackled it all again.

And at length, I had it figured out. This was a key sentence platen!

The operative word was “authentically.” Heller had written, “If you cease to authentically hear from me…”

He and Roke must have ducked into the tug — yes, they had been gone a bit — and conspired to arrange a key sentence such as “Cores are molten” and exchanged platens. If the platen, placed over the letter, did not show up the agreed upon sentence, “Cores are molten” or whatever it was, the message was not authenticated and was a forgery.

If an authenticated message did not arrive periodically on schedule, it said right there that Roke was to advise His Majesty to embark upon the second alternative! A FLAT-OUT, RIGHT NOW, BLOOD-AND-FLAME INVASION OF THE PLANET EARTH!

If they didn’t get Heller’s reports regularly, it would mean he had been interfered with and had failed. No reports equalled Earth would be a slaughterhouse!

But to Hells with Earth. If that invasion took place, every plan Lombar had would go up in smoke! As the Grand Council knew nothing of the Earth base, it would go splat, too!

But far more important than that, I would be killed! Lombar’s hidden agent would see to that even if I escaped everything else!

Heller’s reports MUST GO THROUGH!

Hey, wait!

If Heller were successful, then all Lombar’s lines and planning on Earth would be ruined! For his closest associates would be bankrupted!

If it even looked like Heller was going to win in improving this planet, Lombar’s hidden agent would kill me!

My head began to ache.

Heller lose, Heller win, there was one thing certain: Gris would be dead!

I made myself sit down. I made myself stop tearing at my hair.

I must calmly work this out!

So, gnawing on the sira glass until I threw it against the wall, I worked it out.

I must get hold of Heller’s platen! Then I could forge reports that would make the Grand Council — via Roke — think Heller was doing his job, while in fact, Lombar was protected in that Heller would be doing nothing at all. He would be dead.

But wait. I didn’t have the platen. Until I got the platen, NOTHING MUST HAPPEN TO HELLER!

And there the idiot was with a marked car, police in several states alert, carrying a name that would get him sent to the pen as an imposter, a totally untrained agent in deadly danger of being scooped up!

I started praying.

Oh, my Gods, let nothing happen to Heller until I got my hands on that platen! Please, Gods, if anything happens to him at all, Soltan Gris is a dead man! To Hells with the slaughter of Earth! We’ll just disregard that. Think of Soltan Gris! Take pity. Please?

There is a seven-hour time difference between Eastern Standard Time, where Heller was, and Istanbul time, which I was near. So you can imagine how keeping check on Heller was a strain. When he was rising, all refreshed, at 7:00 A.M., I was hanging on the viewer at 2:00 P.M., an exhausted wreck.

He got up quietly and took a shower. Raht, to help his own personal finances, had not brought him any change of clothes so he put on what he had, swearing under his breath as he donned the shoes. He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head. Indeed, he did look funny with that green-banded, too-small Panama, that purple shirt, the red and white check jacket with sleeves three inches too short, the blue and white striped pants that didn’t come down to the ankles, the orange suede, too-tight shoes.

I groaned. He stood out like a searchlight! A cinch for even the most myopic cop to spot. And he didn’t even realize it! His main concern would be with aesthetics, not with being unspottable.

Mary was tumbling about restlessly but still asleep. Heller softly closed the door and, with a glance at the car, trotted out of the motel grounds.