"Why, I'll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to Rhogom
Foundation. It's likely that there is some clue among them as to whom
her discoveries may have antagonized. I'm going to be a Venusian
_zerfa_-planter, a friend of her father's; I'll want full hypno-mech
indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I'll want to
familiarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. I
think that will be all, chief."

* * * * *

The last of the tall city-units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight as
the ship passed over them--shaft-like buildings that rose two or three
thousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, one
at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each
of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five miles
square; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from its
nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown of
ripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals and
dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall,
stacklike granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the
fifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted
back and forth on different levels, depending upon speed and
direction. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Sea
and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.

Verkan Vall--the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily--stood at the
glass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a different
Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the
latter's office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists had
worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft