"Well, if only you'd taken a little more time. But not you, not old Pat Travis. By damn, Pat, you came in here like a downhill locomotive, it ain't my fault--" "Hort, straighten it out. What's not your fault?" Horton sighed. "Listen, it's a long story. I've got a buggy over here to take you into town. They're puttin' you up at a hotel so you can look the place over. I'll tell you on the way in." "The heck with that," Dahlinger said indignantly, "we want to see the _man_." "You're not goin' to see the man, sonny," Horton said patiently, "You are, as a matter of fact, the last people on the planet the man wants to see right now." Dahlinger started to say something but Travis shut him up. He told Trippe to stay with the ship and took Dahlinger with him. At the end of the field was a carriage straight out of Seventeenth Century England. And the things that drew it--if you closed your eyes--looked reasonably similar to horses. The three men climbed aboard. There was no driver. Horton explained that the 'horses' would head straight for the hotel. "Well all right," Travis said, "what's the story?" "Don't turn those baby browns on me," Horton said gloomily, "I would have warned you if I could, but you know the law says we can't show favoritism...." Travis decided the best thing to do was wait with as much patience as possible. After a while Horton had apologized thoroughly and completely, although what had happened was certainly not his fault, and finally got on with the tale. "Now this here planet," he said cautiously, "is whacky in a lot of ways. First off they call it Mert. Mert. Fine name for a planet. Just plain Mert. And they live in houses strictly from Dickens, all carriages, no sewers, narrow streets, stuff like that. With technology roughly equivalent to seventeenth century. But now--see there, see that building over there?" Travis followed his pointing finger through the trees. A large white building of blinding marble was coming slowly into view. Travis' eyes widened. "You see? Just like the blinkin' Parthenon, or Acropolis, whichever it is. All columns and frescoes. In the middle of a town looks just like London. Makes no sense, but there it is. And that's not all. Their government is Grecian too, complete with Senate and Citizens. No slaves though. Well not exactly. You couldn't call them slaves. Or could you? Heck of a question, that--" He paused to brood. Travis nudged him. "Yes. Well, all that is minor, next to the big thing. This is one of two major countries on the planet. There's a few hill tribes but these make up about 90 percent of the population, so you have to deal with these. They never go to war, well maybe once in a while, but not very often. So no trouble there. The big trouble is one you'd never guess, not in a million years." He stared at Travis unhappily. "The whole planet's run on astrology." He waited for a reaction. Travis said nothing.