"Exactly. My telling you won't make any difference, either. The pattern is always the same. An Ambassador lands and delivers his message to a high-spirited, wild young race like yours. There is frenzied resistance against him, spasmodic attempts to kill him. After all these fail, the people are usually quite crestfallen. When the colonization team arrives, their indoctrination goes along just that much faster." He paused, then said, "Most planets are more interested in the philosophy I have to offer. I assure you, it will make the transition far easier." He held out a sheaf of typewritten pages. "Won't you at least look through it?" Darrig accepted the papers and put them in his pocket. "When I get time." "I suggest you give it a try," the Ambassador said. "You must be near the crisis point now. Why not give it up?" "Not yet," Cercy replied tonelessly. "Don't forget to read the philosophy," the Ambassador urged them. The men hurried from the room. * * * * * "Now look," Malley said, once they were back in the control room, "there are a few things we haven't tried. How about utilizing psychology?" "Anything you like," Cercy agreed, "including black magic. What did you have in mind?" "The way I see it," Malley answered, "the Ambassador is geared to respond, instantaneously, to any threat. He must have an all-or-nothing defensive reflex. I suggest first that we try something that won't trigger that reflex." "Like what?" Cercy asked. "Hypnotism. Perhaps we can find out something." "Sure," Cercy said. "Try it. Try anything." Cercy, Malley and Darrig gathered around the video screen as an infinitesimal amount of a light hypnotic gas was admitted into the Ambassador's room. At the same time, a bolt of electricity lashed into the chair where the Ambassador was sitting. "That was to distract him," Malley explained. The Ambassador vanished before the electricity struck him, and then appeared again, curled up in his armchair. "That's enough," Malley whispered, and shut the valve. They watched. After a while, the Ambassador put down his book and stared into the distance. "How strange," he said. "Alfern dead. Good friend ... just a freak accident. He ran into it, out there. Didn't have a chance. But it doesn't happen often." "He's thinking out loud," Malley whispered, although there was no possibility of the Ambassador's hearing them. "Vocalizing his thoughts. His friend must have been on his mind for some time." "Of course," the Ambassador went on, "Alfern had to die sometime. No immortality--yet. But that way--no defense. Out there in space they just pop up. Always there, underneath, just waiting for a chance to boil out." "His body isn't reacting to the hypnotic as a menace yet," Cercy whispered. "Well," the Ambassador told himself, "the regularizing principle has been doing pretty well, keeping it all down, smoothing out the inconsistencies--"