Welcome, Gurgurk," Harrington gibbered through his false palate. "The
Company is honored by this visit."

"I come in the name of my royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable
Majesty, Jaikark the Seventeenth, King of Konkrook and of all the
lands of the Konk Isthmus," Gurgurk squeaked and clicked. "I have the
honor to bring with me the Lord Ghroghrank, Ambassador of King Orgzild
of Keegark to the court of my royal master."

"And I," Ghroghrank said, after being suitably welcomed, "am honored
to be accompanied by Prince Gorkrink, special envoy from my master,
his Royal and Imperial Majesty King Orgzild, who is in your city to
receive the shipment of power-metal my royal master has been honored
to be permitted to purchase from the Company."

More protocol about welcoming Gorkrink. Then Gurgurk cleared his
throat with a series of barking sounds.

"My royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty, is prostrated
with grief," he stated solemnly. "Were his sorrow not so overwhelming,
he would have come in His Own Sacred Person to express the pain and
shame which he feels that people of the Company should be set upon
and endangered in the streets of the royal city."

If he weren't doped to the ears, von Schlichten substituted mentally.
There was a native drug which had, on its users, the combined effects
of hashish, heroin and yohimbine; Jaikark and all his court circle
were addicts. He probably hadn't even heard of the riot.

"The soldiers of His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty came most promptly
to the aid of the troops of the Company, did they not, General von
Schlichten?" Harrington asked.

"Within minutes, Your Excellency," von Schlichten replied gravely.
"Their promptness, valor, and efficiency were most exemplary."

Gurgurk spoke at length, expressing himself as delighted, on behalf of
his royal master, at hearing such high praise from so distinguished a
soldier. Eric Blount then contributed a short speech, beseeching the
gods that the deep and beautiful friendship existing between the
Chartered Uller Company and His Sublime etcetera would continue
unimpaired, and that His Sublime etcetera would enjoy long life and
peaceful reign, managing, by a trick of Konkrookan grammar, to imply
that the second would be conditional upon the first. The Keegarkan
Ambassador then spoke his piece, expressing on behalf of King Orgzild
the deepest regret that the people of the Company should be so
molested, and managing to hint that