ot much, but I tried. "How could you know, Mr.
Thrombley? You did the natural, the normal, the proper thing, on a call
from one Ambassador to another."

I turned to the others, who, like me, preferred not to look at
Thrombley. "They must have had a spy outside who told them the
Ambassador had left the Embassy. Alone, right? And that was just what
they'd been waiting for.

"But what's this about the watch, though. There's more to this than a
simple favor from one Ambassador to another."

"My turn, Mr. Ambassador," Stonehenge interrupted. "Mr. Cumshaw had been
trying to get one of the things at my insistence. Naval Intelligence is
very much interested in them and we want a sample. The z'Srauff watches
are very peculiar--they're operated by radium decay, which, of course is
a universal constant. They're uniform to a tenth second and they're all
synchronized with the official time at the capital city of the principal
z'Srauff planet. The time used by the z'Srauff Navy."

Stonehenge deliberately paused, let that last phrase hang heavily in the
air for a moment, then he continued.

"They're supposed to be used in religious observances--timing hours of
prayer, I believe. They can, of course, have other uses.

"For example, I can imagine all those watches giving the wearer a light
electric shock, or ringing a little bell, all over New Texas, at exactly
the same moment. And then I can imagine all the z'Srauff running down
into nice deep holes in the ground."

He looked at his own watch. "And that reminds me: my gang of pirates are
at the spaceport by now, ready to blast off. I wonder if someone could
drive me there."

"I'll drive him, boss," Hoddy volunteered. "I ain't doin' nothin' else."

I was wondering how I could break that up, plausibly and without
betraying my suspicions, when Parros and Captain Nelson came out and
joined us.

"I have a lot of stuff here," Parros said. "Stuff we never seemed to
have noticed. For instance--"

I interrupted. "Commander Stonehenge's going to the spaceport, now," I
said. "Suppose you ride with him, and brief him on what you learned, on
the way. Then, when he's aboard, come back and tell us."

Hoddy looked at me for a long ten seconds. His expression started by
being exasperated and ended by betraying grudging admiration.

CHAPTER VII

The next morning, which was Saturday, I put Thrombley in charge of the
routine work of the Embassy, but first instructed him to answer