desperate. They wouldn't be fooled by anything that crude."

"Well, you're calling it," said Bal.

"All right," said Ethaniel. "You take one side and I the other. We'll
tell them bluntly what they'll have to do if they're going to survive,
how they can keep their planet in one piece so they can live on it."

"That'll go over big. Advice is always popular."

"Can't help it. That's all we have time for."

"Special instructions?"

"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing craft. You
can talk with me any time you want to through our communications, but
don't unless you have to."

"They can't intercept the beams we use."

"They can't, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to do with our
language. I want them to think that we don't _need_ to talk things
over."

"I get it. Makes us seem better than we are. They think we know exactly
what we're doing even though we don't."

"If we're lucky they'll think that."

* * * * *

Bal looked out of the port at the planet below. "It's going to be cold
where I'm going. You too. Sure we don't want to change our plans and
land in the southern hemisphere? It's summer there."

"I'm afraid not. The great powers are in the north. They are the ones we
have to reach to do the job."

"Yeah, but I was thinking of that holiday you mentioned. We'll be
running straight into it. That won't help us any."

"I know, they don't like their holidays interrupted. It can't be helped.
We can't wait until it's over."

"I'm aware of that," said Bal. "Fill me in on that holiday, anything I
ought to know. Probably religious in origin. That so?"

"It was religious a long time ago," said Ethaniel. "I didn't learn
anything exact from radio and TV. Now it seems to be chiefly a time for
eating, office parties, and selling merchandise."

"I see. It has become a business holiday."

"That's a good description. I didn't get as much of it as I ought to
have. I was busy studying the people, and they're hard to pin down."

"I see. I was thinking there might be some way we could tie ourselves in
with this holiday. Make it work for us."

"If there is I haven't thought of it."

"You ought to know. You're running this one." Bal looked down at the
planet. Clouds were beginning to form at the twilight edge. "I hate to
go down and leave the ship up here with no one in it."

"They can't touch it. No matter how they develop in the next hundred
years