"For the love of Heaven," he pleaded with a secretary to the Karfiness, "they won't even wait for the ultimatum to elapse. There's going to be a space-war in two hours if I don't get to see her Serene Tentaculosity!" The title he bestowed on her was sheer whimsy; he wasn't half as upset as he was supposed to be. It was all for effect. He rushed away, distrait by the information that he couldn't possibly see the Karfiness and aware that the munitions interests of Mars would by now be rubbing their chelae with glee. He reached a phone and rang up the Ambassador. "Okay," he informed him. "Stop short!" The Ambassador, badly overworked and upset, stopped short with the messages. Venus and Earth were baffled again, this time because there was nothing to be baffled by. The strange silence that had fallen on the F. O.'s was alarming in its implications. The diplomatic mind had already adjusted itself to the abnormal condition; restoration of normality created almost unbearable strain. Messages rushed to the Embassy; the Ambassador left them severely alone and went to bed. From that moment anybody who touched a transmitter would be held for treason, he informed his staff. It was as though the Mars Embassy had been blown out of the ground. "They are now," brooded Weems, "ready for anything. Let us hope that Venus hasn't lost her common sense along with her temper." With that he set himself to the hardest job of all--waiting. He got a couple of hours of sleep, on the edge of a volcano, not knowing whether the lined-up Venus fleet would fire on the opposite Earth fleet before he woke. If he did it would be all over before he really got started. * * * * * Even Weems hadn't imagined how well his plan was taking root. Back on Earth the whole F. O. had gone yellow, trembling at the gills lest they should actually have to fight. And it was perfectly obvious that they would, for when planetary integrity directs no mere individual might stand in the way. There was a great dearth of news; there had been for the past few hours of the crisis. Since that God-awful business from the Mars Embassy stopped and the entire staff there had--presumably--been shot in the backs while hard at work fabricating incredible dispatches there was a mighty and sullen silence over the air, ether and sub-etheric channels of communication. On Venus things were pretty bad too. A lot of Earthmen had been interned and the whole planet was sitting on edge waiting for something to happen. It did happen, with superb precision after exactly seven hours of silence and inactivity. There was a frantic call from--Jupiter! _Jupiter claimed that the whole business was a feint and that the major part of the Earth fleet was even now descending on the Jovians to pillage and slay._ The official broadcast--_not_ a beam-dispatch--from Jupiter stated this. Earth promptly denied everything, in a stiff-necked communique.