"Why—why, Monitor Quamodian, that's frightful! We'll send a survey team at once. Who is this deranged monitor?"
"Me!" snapped Andy Quam, and severed the connection.
They left the flyer grumbling to itself in the middle of the square before the transflex gate. "Stupid thing to do," it was saying resentfully. "They'll take you off the roll of Monitors sure. Then what will become of me? Some menial job ferrying tourists . . ."
The boy's house was only minutes away, and there Andy Quam showered, ate, drank thirstily of the cold, rich milk the kitchen machines produced for him. He braced himself for the arrival of the emergency survey team. "How long, preacher?" the boy demanded. "How long before they get here?"
Quamodian considered. "Twenty minutes to think things over. Half an hour to assemble a team. Ten minutes to get their transflex priorities approved—a few seconds to travel. I'd call it an hour."
"Gee! Why, that's only twenty minutes from now. Just think, in twenty minutes I'll be seeing all those crazy three-headed beings, and green-shelled beetles, and . . ."
"We do not comment on the physical peculiarities of any citizen," Andy Quam said firmly. "Didn't your parents teach you that?"
"Well, yes," the boy admitted.
"Come to think of it," Quamodian went on, "where are your parents? Aren't they ever home?"
The boy shuffled his feet. "Sure, preacher. They're just, uh, busy."
"Rufe!"
"Yes, preacher?" His face was angelically innocent.
"Rufe, let's cut out the nonsense. You're hiding something. I can't imagine what, or why—but let's have it!"
"Aw, preacher. It's nothing. It's—" he looked up at Andreas Quamodian anxiously. Quamodian gazed implacably back. "Well," said the boy, "it's just that they were acting a little funny. They've gone off in a flyer to Nuevo York."
"Nuevo York! Why, that's two thousand miles away!"
"A little more, preacher. Figured it'd take them a day or two each way."
"Why?"
"Well, that's the part that's kind of funny. I mean—gee, preacher, there's nothing wrong with my parents! They're not crazy or anything. They just, well, said the same kind of thing you were saying. About some sort of rogue intellect loose on the earth, and the robot inspector here wouldn't listen to them and they didn't have the right of direct contact with Almalik, like you. So they figured they'd better report it to Nuevo York, where people might be more interested."
Quamodian sat up alertly. "You're still hiding something," he accused. "Why would you be ashamed of their knowing about the rogue star? It's true, you know."
"Sure, preacher. Only. . ."
"Only what?"
The boy flushed. "It's just that they were talking about it two days ago. That's when they left."
Quam said, "But that can't be! The rogue star wasn't even created then! Oh, I see!"
The boy nodded unhappily. "That's the part that's got me a little mixed up, preacher. They thought there was one when there wasn't"
They were back at the transflex cube with minutes to spare, but the emergency survey team was early. Evidently they had wasted no time. The control dome cried, through Quamodian's flyer radio: "Stand back! Keep the area clear for a party from Almalik Three, now arriving!"
"Gosh!" whispered Rufe. His eyes were round as Saturn's rings, his worries about his parents temporarily out of his mind. "Where are they, preacher? Shouldn't they be coming through? What's keeping them? Oh»
A dozen grass-green spiral beings, like tiny coils of springs, emerged from the cube. They were twisting in orbit around each other, approaching the man and the boy with a whistle of high-frequency sound. "What in tarnation is that, preacher?" demanded the boy.
"It is not courteous to stare. I don't recognize the species; a multiple citizen of some kind."
"And that! And—oh, gosh, look at that one!"
"All citizens, I'm sure." But even Quamodian drew his breath sharply, as from behind a foamy, almost translucent bubble of pink there appeared the shark's fangs and slitted eyes of a citizen of clearly carnivorous ancestry. The rest of the citizen was no improvement; it loped on enormously powerful clawed legs like a kangaroo's, possessed two pairs of upper limbs that seemed boneless and lithe as an elephant's trunk, terminating in vivid blue manipulating organs that were almost the duplicate of the snout of a star-nosed mole.
But the fourth member of the group, and the one who advanced on Andy Quam,« looked human in a way that made him stare. She wore the garb of a somewhat too sophisticated galactic citizen, her face made up beyond the point of recognition, her dark hair piled into a perfumed tower. But change her clothes and makeup, he thought, put a simple dress of Molly's on her instead of the mirror-bright tights, the fluffed bodice and shoulders, the painted diamonds of bare skin; scrub her face of the two-inch angled eyebrows and the bright blue eye shadow and rouge—and she would be a perfect duplicate of Molly Zaldivar.
Striding toward him, she abruptly stopped. Her shadowed eyes flew wide, like a startled doll's. A crimson flush showed around the edges of her makeup. Her bright lips parted as if gasping, "Andy!" But no sound came. Slowly the exposed patches of skin drained chalk-white. At last she tossed her tall coiffure and swept on toward him.
"Monitor Quamodian—" momentarily, her voice held a breathless quiver. "If you really don't recognize me, I'm Senior Monitor Clothilde Kwai Kwich. You may be interested to know that I was able to return with my subordinates to Companion Headquarters, where we have begun a new analysis of our collected data on rogue stars."
Andy Quam swallowed twice. He wiped the palm of his hand on his tunic and extended it for shaking.
"I'm delighted that you got away," he bubbled breathlessly. "I've been trying to learn what happened, but nobody would tell me anything . . ."
"Never mind the small talk," she snapped. "Please speak briefly and responsively, when it is necessary for you to speak at all. Your idiotic meddling here has forced me to leave more interesting work at headquarters. I'm assigned to clean up the mess you've made. What the devil are you up to now?"
Quamodian stiffened resentfully. "I'm not meddling. . ."
"The traffic safety inspectors say you are," she cut him sharply off.
"If you want it explained in baby talk, the rogue star that Cliff Hawk contacted is trying to protect the infant rogue from your officious interference. That's why it sent Solomon Scott to keep you from coming to Earth. That's why it trapped you on its own planet. The inspectors predict that it will be forced to take additional action, unless you restrain yourself."
She gave him no time to inquire what that additional action might be.
"These other citizens and I have little time to waste. We wish to use it effectively. I suppose our best first move is to make an on-site investigation of the totally needless events that your stupidity has brought about."
"I had nothing to do with what has happened here." Rushing, Andy Quam dropped his unshaken hand. "Why, I couldn't even get out of town . . ."
"Let's get moving." She ignored his feeble protest. "My associates can provide their own transport, but I require a vehicle."
"Of course." Helplessly, he shrugged. "Here's my flyer."
Without a word, Senior Monitor Clothilde Kwai Kwich brushed past him to enter the flyer. Dazed, Andy Quam turned to follow. The boy caught his arm.