“Wait a minute,” I snapped my fingers. “I saw you, yesterday… or was it the day before… nosing around an alley near the city gate. Just before crewman Wems appeared and gave me a whack—” I reached up and felt one of the many bumps on the back of my head.

“Recruit Wems was supposed to take you to a holding cell for questioning. But apparently he had something else in mind. I’d like to know where he took you. And why.”

“You aren’t the only one. I don’t suppose Wems is available, to provide answers?”

“He has gone missing.”

“Hm, yes. Wems apparently has a knack for doing that. Well, okay then, officer. I mean inspector. You say that I am under arrest. What’s the accusation?”

Despite affecting a casual slouch, the fellow had been keeping his stake-thrower leveled at my chest. Now he jutted it forward a bit.

“Alien invasion.”

Ah. I blinked. That accusation.

Keeping a blank expression, I pondered my options. On the basis of technological achievement alone, Oxytocin was over sixteen on the Turgenev scale, so I could admit the truth without violating their innocence, under the Consent Imperative. On the other hand, innumerable botches and disasters have ensued, whenever fools rush in to say “Take me to your leader.” And this society seemed fragile enough, without taking another shock.

Hence, I felt some reluctance. An impulse to evade.

“Alien…invasion?”

“That’s right.”

“And… that’s an official crime?”

“Oh, yes,” Dr. Katske answered, while keeping his little gun aimed at my midriff. “I can show it to you in the law books.”

“Fascinating. Do aliens invade often?”

“As far as I know, this is the first time. At least where there’s proof.”

“But if it never happened before, how could there be a law?”

“Ah, good question!” Grinning, the little man clearly enjoyed any opportunity to show off erudition. “It was the infamous Paranoid Congress of 30952 that passed eight thousand, three hundred and twelve just-in-case ordinances, banning everything from time travel to summoning demons from the planet’s core. From turning yourself invisible to spontaneous combustion. From national totem-burning to making mountains out of molehills.”

How much of this absurdity was being mistranslated by my badly programmed ear-nanos? A lot, I figured, adding that I really must speed up learning this local dialect, the old-fashioned way, in order not to depend on them.

“Of course,” Katske added, “the very next year, the people rose up en masse, throttled the congress members and voted to declare legislation an act of extreme moral turpitude. But those laws were never repealed. They remain on the books.”

“Including the one against aliens landing without permission,” interjected Inspector Coalshack.

“And you think I have committed this crime, because—”

“Because I told them.”

A figure stepped through the far doorway. And I let out a low sigh.

“Aw. Nuts.”