when the initial error was made at the hyper-spatial relay station, a pattern had been set. committed categorically to the memory banks were the false associations between the state department's ganymede extension and potentate mcworther, between premier netath and rear-sobucks.
thus, it was somewhat to be expected that undersecretary hoverly should find himself chewing on the under-bristles of his mustache as he read the latest space-o-gram.
dear sir:
needless to say, we are somewhat disappointed over the western cluster's meager response to our desperate need.
perhaps ambassador summerson misrepresented our agreement. in that event, we feel sure that consultation with his excellency will set the record straight.
we would appreciate prompt attention to this detail. otherwise, in the interest of our people, we shall feel compelled to seek satisfaction elsewhere.
respectfully yours,
titus mcworther,
potentate
hoverly tossed the message on his desk, punched the audio-com button and called for his assistant. when mallston arrived, the undersecretary was still pacing.
"did you take care of the mcworther world aid consignment?" he asked.
mallston nodded. "delivery should have been made day before yesterday. full class a schedule."
"well, it wasn't enough!" hoverly extended a stiff finger toward the space-o-gram. "read that."
looking up finally, mallston said, "evidently we dropped the ball."
"indeed we did. ambassador summerson must have promised the potentate the whole works."
hoverly resumed pacing. "i should have guessed as much. president roswell only last week hinted that the western cluster should level its galactic commerce sights on that entire sector."
mallston pondered the gravity of the space-o-gram. "maybe we should lay the mcworther development before the president."
bristling, the undersecretary said, "and call attention to our own incompetence? we'll straighten this matter out by doing what we should have done in the first place—by putting the potentate on the double-a priority list. full and immediate delivery under class b through k schedules."
mallston started out, but paused at the door. "how about cultural exchange?"
"we'll play it safe by assuming summerson shot the works in that category too. round up every uncommitted cultural group in the cluster."
shaking his head deprecatingly, the twenty-seventh vice-president stood before the desk of the next highest official in the rear-sobucks hierarchy.
"well, wheeler," v.r. clipped without looking up. "what is it this time?"
"i'm afraid netath didn't take too kindly to our gesture."
"netath? netath?" v.r. milked the name for its significance.
"ogarm netath. the prime minister of that gauyuth place. the automatic bather."
"oh, that one."
wheeler handed over the space-o-gram and v.r. muttered through the message:
dear sir:
i'm sure you made a mistake filling my order. you've got to come pick up your shipment right away. we're up to our ears and it's shaking us to pieces.
yours in disappointment,
ogarm netath,
prime minister
growling, v.r. dropped an effervescent pill into a glass of water. "you can't get anywhere with these back-planet bumpkins. i doubt that this netath ever had a bath. send him a supplementary manual of operating instructions."
wheeler started for the door.
but v.r. called after him. "and bill the prime minister for that article. it'll teach him to show a little bit of appreciation."
titus winced before the persistent tremors that came through the floor of his cellar. he made another adjustment on the gravity control deflecting the planetoid's center of pseudomass another few feet. the ground beneath him finally quieted.
"three days," he mumbled, dragging himself up the stairs.
edna received him with hands on hips. "three days—what?"
"getting things balanced again."
"what are you going to do about all that stuff cluttering up our beautiful planetoid?" she was near tears.
with edna dogging his steps, he returned to the veranda, where his julep was now quite thin and warm in the rays of the setting sun.
"we'll have to find out where it came from first," he said, staring dismally over the mountains of machinery and grain, the tumbled stacks of crates and barrels and kegs, the lesser rows of wheeled and winged vehicles.
"seems to me," edna persisted, "that the invoices will show that." she gestured at what remained of the stacks of printed forms.
the rest of the slips were strewn over the ground as far as he could see. "only the first sheet will show the origin—if we could ever find it," titus explained.
he went out to the air car, warmed it up and sent it churning skyward. near the attenuated top of the atmosphere, he was able to see exactly how much extraneous stuff had been dumped on his world. the main area of disposal seemed to have been within a two-mile radius of the house.
an ever-widening helical course, wending its way alternately from night to day, eventually brought him on a great circle that sliced over both poles. then, with his searchlights still burning, he spiraled inward, covering the other hemisphere. the rest of his world was in primal order.
he started for home around the daylight side.
but even above the noise of his own rotorjets, the stridence of descending freighters erupted in a pandemonium of sound all around him. great clouds of rockets, clustered in fleets, were darkening the sky and raining down onto the surface.
he barely managed to pull out from under one of the formations before it could pinch him against the ground. swearing in oaths that he had not used in years, he headed for the nearest group of ships. before he could close in, they had discharged their cargoes and thundered off into space again.
he altered course for another detachment of freighters, only to meet with the same frustrating results. by the time he had aimed his craft at a third group, all the ships had blasted away, leaving everywhere great, gleaming mounds and stacks and irregular rows of crates and containers that completely obscured the surface.
enraged, titus gunned the craft for home. he picked his way between several monstrous peaks of grain, some of them soaring nearly all the way up through the six-hundred-foot-thick atmosphere, and threw on his brakes to avoid collision with a tremendous pyramid of what looked like corn kernels.
with stark apprehension, he envisioned his world shaking apart under the eccentric forces. but he quelled his fears with logic: this new addition of mass, apparently distributed evenly over all but the four square miles that had already served as a dumping ground, would be unbalanced only to a negligible degree.
titus flicked on his landing lights as he headed into the night. but from over the horizon came a glare considerably stronger than the candlepower of his own electrical system. as he pulled up to the mooring pylon, the explanation was evident.
scores of pullman crafts were packed so tightly around his house that the blunt noses of several were sticking out over the veranda.
he cut off the idling jets. the militant strains of a venurian march, blaring from the instruments of a hundred-piece symphony, swelled up mightily all around him. the orchestra itself was wedged between two residential crafts while the roof of mcworther's generating house served as the conductor's podium.
on the veranda, a full troupe of simalean ballet dancers swirled and caracoled, not seeming to mind that they were occasionally overflowing the tiles and flouncing not so lightly through edna's caladiums.
his wife stood helplessly by, still gripping the autobroom which she had evidently wielded without success in an attempt to rout the intruders.
dismayed, titus elbowed his way through a dedicated choral group that was patriotically rendering the "fayothian anthem," sidestepped a tumbling foursome obviously from one of the lesser javapa planets and pushed aside a debating team which was having little luck making itself heard above the general cacophony.
edna swept out to meet him. "titus, they just won't leave!"
"who are they? what do they want?"
"i don't know." she was having a difficult time restraining herself. "they asked for the ministry of something or other. then they said they were cooped up so long that they had to get some practice."
titus bellowed for attention. but nobody turned an ear, except a pirouetting ballerina who whirled to a stop nearby, glissaded over in front of him and made a theatrical display of bending over and planting a set of lip-prints on his forehead—a gesture that fed considerable fuel to edna's vexation.
"you're cute," the dancer tittered. "you got the word on this place, pudgy? what is it—a stopover station?"
before he could answer, one of the tumblers shouted, "it's snowing!"
the choral group broke reverently into the ancient carol "noel" while the orchestra paused on an upbeat and swung into a jazzed-up "jingle bells."
perplexed, titus stared at the dancing snowflakes. but that was impossible! it never snowed here on mcworther's world!
then he remembered the grain peak he had skirted on the way home. it had extended high above the infrared and ultraviolet shields—into the naked, hot zone where restless winds had wafted the kernels eastward.
he picked up one of the "flakes."
popcorn!
