l personally conduct you through the fish-hatcheries. We
want you to know we're doing a great job out here on Singhalut."

"I'm sure you are," said Murphy uncomfortably. "However, that isn't
quite the stuff I want."

"No? Just where do your desires lie?"

Ali-Tomas said delicately. "Mr. Murphy took a rather profound interest
in the sjambak displayed in the square."

"Oh. And you explained that these renegades could hold no interest for
serious students of our planet?"

Murphy started to explain that clustered around two hundred million
screens tuned to _Know Your Universe!_ were four or five hundred million
participants, the greater part of them neither serious nor students. The
Sultan cut in decisively. "I will now impart something truly
interesting. We Singhalusi are making preparations to reclaim four more
valleys, with an added area of six hundred thousand acres! I shall put
my physiographic models at your disposal; you may use them to the
fullest extent!"

"I'll be pleased for the opportunity," declared Murphy. "But tomorrow
I'd like to prowl around the valley, meet your people, observe their
customs, religious rites, courtships, funerals ..."

The Sultan pulled a sour face. "We are ditch-water dull. Festivals are
celebrated quietly in the home; there is small religious fervor;
courtships are consummated by family contract. I fear you will find
little sensational material here in Singhalut."

"You have no temple dances?" asked Murphy. "No fire-walkers,
snake-charmers--voodoo?"

The Sultan smiled patronizingly. "We came out here to Cirgamesc to
escape the ancient superstitions. Our lives are calm, orderly. Even the
_amoks_ have practically disappeared."

"But the sjambaks--"

"Negligible."

"Well," said Murphy, "I'd like to visit some of these ancient cities."

"I advise against it," declared the Sultan. "They are shards, weathered
stone. There are no inscriptions, no art. There is no stimulation in
dead stone. Now. Tomorrow I will hear a report on hybrid soybean
plantings in the Upper Kam District. You will want to be present."

* * * * *

Murphy's suite matched or even excelled his expectation. He had four
rooms and a private garden enclosed by a thicket of bamboo. His bathroom
walls were slabs of glossy actinolite, inlaid with cinnabar, jade,
galena, pyrite and blue malachite, in representations of fantastic
birds. His bedroom was a tent thirty feet high. Two wall