He came back to the projector. He made absolutely sure it was not projecting something else. He put, “This is Lord Schleim!" on the disc and put it into the machine.

Did his ear detect a far-off whine in the sky?

Chapter 8

Lord Schleim felt there would be no diamond and slash beacon in the picture that would, in a moment, be shown. Only Tolnep eyes would ever detect that and only a Tolnep modified picto-recorder could film it. He would use this moment to distract the others.

Yes! That was a whine in the sky. The fleet would be over them in moments.

The timing was just right. How clever of him. But he had a well-deserved reputation as a slippery diplomat. Formidable in fact.

He walked over to his chair, made very sure his hamper was well within reach. He glanced back at the assembled emissaries. They were all craning forward tensely, waiting for the picture to come on– totally off guard. He spotted exactly where the devil was standing, slightly in front of them all and well clear of the projector. Schleim fingered the bottom ring of the scepter.

“Turn on the latest picture of your fake model!” jeered Schleim.

Jonnie hit the buttons. Off went the mine spotlights. On went the three-dimensional picture of Asart.

It was a new angle. It showed the back side of the moon as well as some of the front. Filtration gave it a bluish hue, but it was Asart. It seemed to float hugely before them.

And right there in the center, massive and unmistakable, was the diamond and slash insignia of Tolnep, jet-black on the surface of the moon.

Schleim gasped. It was real. That really was Asart.

One of the ends of the slash was supposed to point to a hangar door. And even as they looked, that door finished opening. The huge, yawning mouth of a Tolnep-made cavern!

The moon had deflated further now. It resembled a blue balloon with one side being poked relentlessly in, a great pucker that was growing bigger now and at a more rapid rate.

What appeared to be black gases were eddying up to fill the sunken part.

And then out of that yawning hangar bolted a war vessel! Although it must have been traveling very fast, the enormous size of it caused it to seem to move in slow motion. At least thirty thousand tons of Tolnep capital ship was seeking to escape into space.

But it was too late. It had already been touched by the pucker within the moon. A whole back section of the ship was gone!

Before the fixated eyes of the delegates, the vast space vessel was eaten up from tail to nose, its massive metal turned to gases.

Other hangar doors were starting to open.

But that was the extent of the picture. One last puff of black gas as the final bit of capital ship was overtaken by disaster and the recorded voice said “This is Lord Schleim!"

Schleim screamed! Then he acted.

He popped his earplugs shut. He leaped up. He wrenched at the bottom ring of the scepter and, as though it were a machine gun, swept it in an arc from left to right to freeze them all.

“Paralyze!” screamed Schleim. “Stand dead! Damn you, stand dead!”

It wasn't happening fast enough! There was a surge of emissaries away from him, some falling.

He snatched the other scepter from the basket. He twisted the bottom ring and swept it all around, taking in guards in rifle pits.

They were not falling quickly enough.

Schleim dove into the hamper and came up with three grenades. With all his considerable might he hurled one into the open door of the ops room. He sent another at the bowl entrance. He hurled the third at the devil.

Before they could even land, such was his speed of reaction, he had the gun out of the hamper. He lined it up on the devil, square at his face thirty feet away. With joy he pulled the trigger.

It did not fire.

Lord Dom, a bulbous creature from a mostly liquid world, was bouncing to his feet and coming at him.

Schleim raised the pistol on high, preparing to bring it down on Dom and splatter him. A Tolnep could physically smash them all.

Straight as a sizzling arrow, Jonnie threw his knobkerrie. The hard butt end smashed into Schleim's eye filters.

Lord Browl, the massive tree-like emissary who had sat behind him, wrapped Schleim in foot-diameter arms and held him from behind in a creaking vise.

“Hold him still!” shouted Fowljopan. “Don't let him touch his body!” With a flick of his wrist, Fowljopan snapped a beaklike knife into his right claw and advanced upon Schleim.

The Tolnep struggled but the huge arms held. Fowljopan peered with beady eyes all around the steel-like neck of the Tolnep. “Ah!” he said finally. “There is the half-healed incision!” His knife moved in and began to cut. Grey drops of Tolnep blood oozed from the shallow gash that was being made. Fowljopan squeezed the wound and a fragile glassine capsule popped out of it. It was intact.

“His suicide capsule,” said Fowljopan. “All he had to do was strike the side of his neck and he would have been dead.” He looked reprovingly at Jonnie. “Had you hit this with that throwing stick, we would have had no defendant!”

It was Jonnie's first intimation that all was not going to go exactly as planned, and that all was not well.

Fowljopan turned to the others now crowding around. He shouted in a squawling voice, “Is it the will of the conference that this emissary be under conference arrest and be brought to trial?”

They thought. They pondered. They looked at one another. One said something about “invoking Clause 32.”

Jonnie could only think of getting in there and getting the war stopped now. Didn't these lords realize people were dying? And as for Schleim, hadn't they seen him try to use weapons on all of them? But he had collided with the ponderous idiocies for which governments and courts were renowned. There was even a growing whine in the sky. It threatened their own safety.

“I move that he be properly tried,” a lord at the back called out.

“All those in favor?” shouted another. All noncombatant lords said “Aye.”

The combatant ones said “No!”

“I hereby declare,” said Fowljopan, “that the emissary of Tolnep is a prisoner of the conference and is to be duly tried under Clause 32, threatening physical violence to the conference!”

That whine in the sky was much louder now. Jonnie shouldered his way through. He got right in front of the Tolnep. He pushed a scepter at his face.

“Is this what you were looking for, Schleim? This is the real one. The others were just copies we made. Duds like the rest of your weapons.”

Schleim was struggling and screaming. “Get me some chains!” shouted Fowljopan.

Jonnie came close to the Tolnep's face. But Fowljopan was prying in among Schleim's teeth to make sure there were no other capsules to bite down on. The moment that was done, Jonnie spoke again.

"Schleim! Tell your captain up there to draw off! Talk or I’ll shove this radio down your throat!”

Lord Dom tried to push Jonnie away. “This is a conference prisoner! He may not be communicated with until tried. Clause 51, governing trial procedures-”

Jonnie somehow controlled his temper. “Lord Dom, this conference is at this very instant under threat of bombing! For its own safety, I demand that Schleim-'

“Demand?” said Fowljopan. “Here now, those are very strong words! There are certain procedures that must be observed. And you are hereby officially informed that you yourself threw an object at an emissary. The conference-”

“To save his life!” cried Jonnie, pointing at Dom. “This Tolnep would have crushed his skull!”

“You were acting then,” said Fowljopan, “as master-at-arms of this conference? I do not recall any appointment-”

Jonnie took a breath. He thought fast.

“I was acting as the appointee of the host planet which is responsible for protecting the lives of invited delegates.” He knew of no such procedure.