s to 'cast-time.

He snapped on the communication screen in front of him, and Harry Walsh,
the news editor, looked out of it at him from the office in Bluelake,
halfway across the continent. He wanted to know how things were going.

"Just about finished. I'm going to look in at a couple more native
villages, and then I'm going to Sanders' plantation to see Gonzales. I
hope I'll have a personal statement from him, and the final
situation-progress map, in time for the 'cast. I take it Maith's still
agreeable to releasing the story at twelve-hundred?"

"Sure; he was always agreeable. The Army wants publicity; it was
Government House that wanted to sit on it, and they've given that up
now. The story's all over the place here, native city and all."

"What's the situation in town, now?"

"Oh, it's still going on. Some disorders, mostly just unrest. Lot of
street meetings that could have turned into frenzies if the police
hadn't broken them up in time. A couple of shootings, some
sleep-gassing, and a lot of arrests. Nothing to worry about--at least,
not immediately."

That was about what he thought. "Maybe it's not bad to have a little
trouble in Bluelake," he considered. "What happens out here in the
plantation country the Government House crowd can't see, and it doesn't
worry them. Well, I'll call you from Sanders'."

He blanked the screen. In the seat in front, the native pilot said:
"Some contragravity up ahead, boss." It sounded like two voices speaking
in unison, which was just what it was. "I'll have a look."

The pilot's hand, long and thin, like a squirrel's, reached up and
pulled down the fifty-power binoculars on their swinging arm. Miles
looked at the screen-map and saw a native village just ahead of the dot
of light that marked the position of the aircar. He spoke the native
name of the village aloud, and added:

"Let down there, Heshto. I'll see what's going on."

The native, still looking through the glasses, said, "Right, boss." Then
he turned.

His skin was blue-gray and looked like sponge rubber. He was humanoid,
to the extent of being an upright biped, with two arms, a head on top of
shoulders, and a torso that housed, among other oddities, four lungs.
His face wasn't even vaguely human. He had two eyes in front, close
enough for stereoscopic vision, but that was a common characteristic of
sapient life forms everywhere. His mouth was strictly for eating; he
breathed through separate intakes and