But at that moment they were startled when a hazy image appeared on all their screens. It was a gray black-haired and bearded human visage. The eyes were blue. The being seemed to be wearing an old cloak.

"If you will turn up your transmission to planetary strength,” this newcomer said in Psychlo, “I would like to discuss returning your members to you. The two Bolbods are shaken up but not hurt. The four Hockners are just stunned, though one has a broken arm.”

They turned up to planetary strength, but their response was an emphatic uniform no!

The Tolnep half-captain managed to get his voice above the uproar. “So you can capture the rescue party? Emphatically, no!”

“We can put them all out on a slope-over by that black volcanic cone. All in the open and no ships of ours in the air.” The terrestrial was persuasive. “Call it a truce. Your pickup ship will not be fired upon or molested.”

“You haven't interrogated them that fast,” said the Jambitchow, “so they must be dead!”

“They are quite all right,” said the terrestrial. “Are you sure you won't pick them up?”

Emphatically, no!

“Very well,” said the terrestrial with a shrug of his shoulders. “At least tell us what they eat.”

The Tolnep gave a signal on his screen to the others. Let him speak. “Why, of course,” he said smoothly, smiling.

“We will make up a food package and send it down.”

They went off planetary. “I told you,” said the Tolnep, “that those incidents were a lure. Now two of you have bungled, so let me handle this.”

Presently a rocket-borne package went out of an airlock of the Tolnep ship. It was very well aimed and its parachute burst open below the overcast. It went drifting down and landed just short of the lake shore.

Presently a vehicle went speeding away from the compound toward it. The faces on the viewscreens smiled. If those were Psychlos down there, or whoever they were, they were in for a surprise!

Then suddenly the Hockner super-lieutenant, who had been leafing hurriedly through a recognition book, said, “Oh, I say! That's a Basher 'Bash

Our Way to Glory' tank! Totally armored!”

The tank went down near the package, lowered a turret gun, and fired a mild stun shot into it. The package, being a bomb of course, exploded in a geyser of flame. The tank fired a second shot at the remains. Then somebody got out of it and collected the hot fragments.

“We even gave them bomb fragments for analysis!” shouted the Hawvin.

They held a hasty conference. The small gray man listened to them. Military minds, he thought to himself, could be quite remarkable at times. They decided that anything those terrestrials did was just a lure; that the strategy of those people was to take the invader to bits piecemeal and then pulverize him; that they should now wait for the courier the small gray man said was coming sometime, the one that might tell them if the one had been found; meanwhile only the safest type of probes should be attempted in areas obviously not guarded or covered. Then the moment they knew, one way or the other, whether this was the one, they would plunge in with a mass war-vessel attack and defeat and gut the place.

All the commanders agreed except the Tolnep. He was still in a rage about his bomb failing.

“I should go down there right now,” hissed the Tolnep, “and bite the lot of them to death!”

“We think that's an excellent idea,” drawled the Hockner, adjusting his monocle.

“Yes, why don't you do that!” the rest agreed. And, “We're sure you should.”

The Tolnep realized they would only be too happy to get rid of him. He subsided

for now. Later would be another matter.

Jonnie had gone on his trip to look at bases but he found himself looking at people.

The flight had been pleasant enough. A new pilot had thought he would be flying Jonnie, but the very idea of having to be flown about amused him: he didn't have a broken arm! But an escort of three Mark 32 battle planes, long-range ones that also were designed to carry a squad of Psychlo marines or employees, got into the air behind him when he took off and stayed right with him. He had flown northeast over Africa, the Red Sea, and the Middle East and into Russia, making good time two hundred thousand feet up and looking for a pattern of lakes and rivers Colonel Ivan had showed him with a finger in sand. He had expected to find snow, but although it was late autumn, the only snow was on towering peaks below and to the east. He found his landmarks, found his preplanned landing space, and found himself in the middle of a sea of surging people! Colonel Ivan was holding them back with a dozen mounted lancers so that he had a place to land. There must be five hundred people in that throng.

He opened the door and was blasted with sound. They were cheering themselves hoarse! He couldn't even understand what they were saying, such were the rolling waves of sound. He couldn't really distinguish individual faces among so many.

Colonel Ivan dismounted as Jonnie got down from the plane. The Colonel was a little stiff and too formal, thinking possibly Jonnie blamed him because of Bittie-the Colonel was wearing a black band around his sleeve. But Jonnie threw an arm around his shoulders and it was abruptly all right.

They had brought him a horse, a golden-colored stallion with a sheepskin saddle, and he swung up. The crowd cheered. He only knew one word of Russian and that was "zdrastvuitye," which meant “How do you do, hello.” So he called it loudly and the crowd cheered.

Jonnie looked around. They were close to, in fact right up against the mountains, fairly high mountains...fourteen thousand feet?

They had snow on them. The ancient Russian base must be nearby. He had thought they would go right to it and he could get his observation and estimation done right away. But no, everybody seemed to have other ideas. There were some skin and felt tents, and fires put their smoke in the air, and suddenly Jonnie realized this crowd was in their best clothes. This was a holiday! And the way they pressed in upon him, he certainly was the reason. He wondered fleetingly whether Thor had been up here, for if he had then a lot of these people would think he knew them. Well, his one word of Russian would have to get him by.

The Colonel's horsemen were opening the way. Every time Jonnie raised his hand and nodded there was a new ear-bashing burst of cheering. Colors, faces! He knew the sound of Russian well enough to know it was Russian, but he was also hearing scattered words like “Bravo!” and "Bueno!" and “Viva!” Sounded like the Llaneros. Yes! There was a flat-crowned, black-leather hat. Several of them. And some huge straw hats.

The smell of roasting meat and the tang of dung fires was in the air. A band made up of balalaikas and Spanish guitars and Andean flutes and Mongol drums was splitting the air.

The colonel got him to a skin tent that had been set up for him and with a final wave of the hand and his one word of Russian– now no longer adequate– he got inside.

A Coordinator had also come in and through him Jonnie wanted to know, couldn't they go to the base now?

The colonel was aghast. Nyet, nyet, there was time for all that. One had to think of the people! Many of them, in fact most of them, had never met Jonnie before, had never even seen him.

Jonnie said he was thinking of the people! To get them safe from possible harm.

Well, harm was always around, according to the colonel, but not every day was an opportunity to meet Jonnie. Vyehrnah? (Right?)

At that, Jonnie was glad to get out of his heavy flight suit for it was much less cold here than he had thought. The colonel had brought his kit in but he ignored it. He had a near-white buckskin suit he had had made– not quite like the one on the credit bank note– those loops there on each side of the breast were cartridge loops-but the village girls had done very well. Those moccasins should fit, but here were some military boots and red baggy pants if he preferred. This gold helmet? Well, it wasn't really gold. It was a lightweight Russian helmet, armor-proof aluminum no less, and somebody flying through here had taken it down to the old minesite at Grozny and plated it with beryllium. See? It didn't have any star or ornament on it, but this chin strap with the heavy ear pads, and the colored beads all over it, had been done by one of the Siberian tribes, and wasn't it nice? And besides Dr. MacKendrick had told Jonnie to be careful of his head after the fractures. So wear it! Jonnie said he couldn't hear with it buckled. Wear it!