Their world had altered them, even as our worlds have altered you and me. And underground civilization and point six gravities have made of me a pale stick figure of a man, tall and attenuated. The Jinxians we passed were short and wide, designed like bricks, men and women both. Among them the occasional offworlder seemed as shockingly different as a Kdatlyno or a Pierson’s puppeteer.

And so we came to the Camelot.

The Camelot is a low, two-story structure that sprawls like a cubistic octopus across several acres of downtown Sirius Mater. Most offworlders stay here for the gravity control in the rooms and corridors and for access to the Institute of Knowledge, the finest museum and research complex in human space.

The Camelot Bar carries one Earth gravity throughout. We left our travel couches in the vestibule and walked in like men. Jinxians were walking in like bouncing rubber bricks, with big happy grins on their wide faces. Jinxians love low gravity. A good many migrate to other worlds.

We spotted Ausfaller easily: a rounded, moon-faced flatlander with thick, dark wavy hair and a thin black mustache. He stood as we approached. “Beowulf Shaeffer!” he beamed. “How good to see you again! I believe it has been eight years or thereabouts. How have you been?”

“I lived,” I told him.

Carlos rubbed his hands together briskly. “Sigmund! Why did you bomb Bey’s ship?”

Ausfaller blinked in surprise. “Did he tell you it was his ship? It wasn’t. He was thinking of stealing it. I reasoned that he would not steal a ship with a hidden time bomb aboard.”

“But how did you come into it?” Carlos slid into the booth beside him. “You’re not police. You’re in the Extremely Foreign Relations Bureau.”

“The ship belonged to General Products Corporation, which is owned by Pierson’s puppeteers, not human beings.”

Carlos turned on me. “Bey! Shame on you.”

“Damn it! They were trying to blackmail me into a suicide mission! And Ausfaller let them get away with it! And that’s the least convincing exhibition of tact I’ve ever seen!”

“Good thing they soundproof these booths,” said Carlos. “Let’s order.”

Soundproofing field or not, people were staring. I sat down. When our drinks came, I drank deeply. Why had I mentioned the bomb at all?

Ausfaller was saying, “Well, Carlos, have you changed your mind about coming with me?”

“Yes, if I can take a friend.”

Ausfaller frowned and looked at me. “You wish to reach Earth, too?”

I’d made up my mind. “I don’t think so. In fact, I’d like to talk you out of taking Carlos.”

Carlos said, “Hey!”

I overrode him. “Ausfaller, do you know who Carlos is? He had an unlimited parenthood license at the age of eighteen. Eighteen! I don’t mind you risking your own life; in fact, I love the idea. But his?”

“It’s not that big a risk!” Carlos snapped.