"Sire!" A young officer ran back to the anteroom and came back with a stack of blackened boards, one of which he set up in the sand before the monster, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the lance-like tip that quivered in the air above him. "It is a fearsome thing, this killing-tool my body is equipped with," the voice said, "and embarrassing. It is rather as though your good Gandhi had been forced to carry a sub-machine gun through life." The cornet scrambled out of way through the sand, and the giant sting lowered itself to the scratchboard. The words he inscribed into the blackness were written in a delicate italic, hardly larger than human penmanship: "My son, she is lovely." "It is gracious of you, Elder Cousin, to recognize beauty in a form so unlike your own species," Dink said, bowing. There was a mental chuckle. "Her mind, you clod!" the monster sketched in the scratchboard. "Her lovely, lovely mind." "I am pleased that you ratify my choice of wife, Elder Cousin," Dink said. "She will assist you in the most difficult task ever a scion of the Triple Crown had to accomplish, Son and Cousin," Elder Compassion wrote. "She will aid you in preparing the Golden Worlds to accept Coca-Cola." "Your meaning, Elder Cousin, is hidden from my poor understanding," Dink said. "I mean this," Elder Compassion sketched on his scratchboard. "You came for conquest bearing with you the seeds of violence, and thus defeat. You came to subvert Earth by pandering to Earth's greed. You were yourself, through the agent of your greedy brother, rendered impotent. Violence has been done. We must now retreat, making such amends as we can. In the years that will soon be upon us, Earth's men will follow us to the Golden Worlds, where you, as Emperor, and Orison, Empress, will greet them." "To the ship, then?" Dink asked. "What will we do with the rebels? With Kraft, my brother?" "They have earned the payment of exile," Elder Compassion wrote. "We will leave them here." * * * * * Dink turned to the young officer. "Cornet, assist our Elder Cousin to the ship," he ordered. He turned to two of the purple-ears. "Take Kraft to the vault," he said. Orison spoke to the monster. "Sir," she said, "you spoke of making amends for the damage you have done. You must first of all destroy the paper with which you'd hoped to ruin us." "I'll give those orders, Orison," Dink said. "What will be done about the counterfeit money you've already spent, financing your subversion?" she asked. Elder Compassion was writing on his board. "Three miles beneath this city lies a vein of gold," he wrote. "The Microfabridae are this minute plumbing the earth to reach it. We will leave full payment for our fiscal sins." Dink took Orison's hand. "You'll come with us?" he asked. "I will, Dink." "Then I, Rex-Imperator, Son of the Triple Crown, Prince Porphyrogenous of Empire, take you to wife," he said.