ishness and accept the Ambassador as our
friend."

"Calm down!" Cercy shouted at the perfectly calm physicist. "You don't
know what you're saying."

"It's strange," Darrig said. "I know how I felt--I just don't feel
that way any more. I think. Anyhow, I know _your_ trouble. You haven't
read the philosophy. You'll see what I mean, once you've read it." He
handed Cercy the pile of papers. Cercy promptly ignited them with his
cigarette lighter.

"It doesn't matter," Darrig said. "I've got it memorized. Just listen.
Axiom one. All peoples--"

Cercy hit him, a short, clean blow, and Darrig slumped to the floor.

"Those words must be semantically keyed," Malley said. "They're
designed to set off certain reactions in us, I suppose. All the
Ambassador does is alter the philosophy to suit the peoples he's
dealing with."

"Look, Malley," Cercy said. "This is your job now. Darrig knows, or
thought he knew, the answer. You have to get that out of him."

"That won't be easy," Malley said. "He'd feel that he was betraying
everything he believes in, if he were to tell us."

"I don't care how you get it," Cercy said. "Just get it."

"Even if it kills him?" Malley asked.

"Even if it kills you."

"Help me get him to my lab," Malley said.

* * * * *

That night Cercy and Harrison kept watch on the Ambassador from the
control room. Cercy found his thoughts were racing in circles.

What had killed Alfern in space? Could it be duplicated on Earth? What
was the regularizing principle? What was the chaos underneath?

_What in hell am I doing here?_ he asked himself. But he couldn't
start that sort of thing.

"What do you figure the Ambassador is?" he asked Harrison. "Is he a
man?"

"Looks like one," Harrison said drowsily.

"But he doesn't act like one. I wonder if this is his true shape?"

Harrison shook his head, and lighted his pipe.

"What is there of him?" Cercy asked. "He looks like a man, but he can
change into anything else. You can't attack him; he adapts. He's like
water, taking the shape of any vessel he's poured into."

"You can boil water," Harrison yawned.

"Sure. Water hasn't any shape, has it? Or has it? What's basic?"

With an effort, Harrison tried to focus on Cercy's words. "Molecular
pattern? The matrix?"

"Matrix," Cercy repeated, yawning himself. "Pattern. Must be something
like that. A pattern is abstract, isn't it?"

"Sure. A pattern can be impressed on an