Kavula relayed the order and scores of hatches swung open, baring to space the glistening intensifiers of high-powered weapons. The ship reverberated with the hiss-click articulation of military command and response. Pivoting on his massive tail, Mittich went over to the teleview screen. "I have your permission, of course, to take a look at the alien vessel?" "Suit yourself," the Chancellor grumbled. The screen hunted out and steadied upon the alien ship. "It's clean!" Mittich exclaimed. "They're _not_ armed!" "Nonsense," Vrausot said, coming over to see. "They've got to be. Why else would they come here?" "The hull is sleek." The Assemblyman pointed with his long snout. "I see no gun-hatch outlines." The Chancellor produced the Tzarean equivalent of a humorless laugh. "They're aliens, Mittich--with an alien technology. Perhaps we wouldn't even recognize their weapons if we saw them." "But, as if they were hostile and furtive, would they have exposed themselves helplessly on that plain--like sitting _uraphi_?" Vrausot's eyes intensified with resolution. "We're going to strike them--_now_! We're not going to wait and take the chance of having them slip from our grasp." Appalled, the Assemblyman drew back. "But that's just what we're _not_ supposed to do! We might touch off a war that will annihilate either or both of two cultures!" "If we don't strike now it'll be _our_ culture that will be annihilated. I wouldn't want that, Mittich. Just think of the glory and honor and tradition of conquest that would be lost forever. What we do here is being watched, indeed, by our ancestors who gave their lives in the final battle for total consolidation of the Tzarean Shoal!" "But--" "Our opportunity now is to live up to the finest military examples set by all Tzarean heroes who ever aimed an intensifier out of love for homeworld. Mittich--_This is a time for empire!_" It was no use, the Assemblyman saw. Vrausot would have his way. He would wear his shining, imaginary medals and order his attack and bring doom to--oh, how many worlds? And the Curule Assembly could only give his leadership the support it would need after he presented them with the _fait accompli_ of this treacherous deed. "Kavula!" the Chancellor hissed. "Order the gunners--" But Mittich nudged him in the back. "It could be a seine." "I--what?" "We may be swimming into a seine. Perhaps they're just toying with us--waiting to see if we are foolhardy enough to attack." The scales above the Chancellor's eyes stood on edge as he pondered the ramifications of the other's suggestion. Finally, "We'll hold off a while, perhaps." Mittich had put him off for a moment. But no gain against Vrausot, political or otherwise, was ever more than temporary. The Assemblyman was jarred from speculation as one of his major scales split with aridity. He hurried off to his isotonic saline tank. IV