d back, "ahead" had become "below"; the
planet had swung an astonishing ninety degrees across the sky, and they
were _falling_!

Murphy leaned against the stanchion. "'The Great Twitch'," he muttered
to himself, "I'd like to get _that_ on two hundred million screens!"

Several hours passed. Cirgamesc grew. The Sampan Range rose up like a
dark scab; the valley sultanates of Singhalut, Hadra, New Batavia, and
Boeng-Bohot showed like glistening chicken-tracks; the Great Rift Colony
of Sundaman stretched down through the foothills like the trail of a
slug.

A loudspeaker voice rattled the ship. "Attention passengers for
Singhalut and other points on Cirgamesc! Kindly prepare your luggage for
disembarkation. Customs at Singhalut are extremely thorough. Passengers
are warned to take no weapons, drugs or explosives ashore. This is
important!"

* * * * *

The warning turned out to be an understatement. Murphy was plied with
questions. He suffered search of an intimate nature. He was
three-dimensionally X-rayed with a range of frequencies calculated to
excite fluorescence in whatever object he might have secreted in his
stomach, in a hollow bone, or under a layer of flesh.

His luggage was explored with similar minute attention, and Murphy
rescued his cameras with difficulty. "What're you so damn anxious about?
I don't have drugs; I don't have contraband ..."

"It's guns, your excellency. Guns, weapons, explosives ..."

"I don't have any guns."

"But these objects here?"

"They're cameras. They record pictures and sounds and smells."

The inspector seized the cases with a glittering smile of triumph. "They
resemble no cameras of my experience; I fear I shall have to impound ..."

A young man in loose white pantaloons, a pink vest, pale green cravat
and a complex black turban strolled up. The inspector made a swift
obeisance, with arms spread wide. "Excellency."

The young man raised two fingers. "You may find it possible to spare Mr.
Murphy any unnecessary formality."

"As your Excellency recommends...." The inspector nimbly repacked
Murphy's belongings, while the young man looked on benignly.

Murphy covertly inspected his face. The skin was smooth, the color of
the rising moon; the eyes were narrow, dark, superficially placid. The
effect was of silken punctilio with hot ruby blood close beneath.

Satisfied with the inspector's zeal, he turned to Murphy. "Allow me to
introduce