can

as badly as Galactic Zones is right now! That was forty-two thousand two hundred and thirty-eight individual mission-schedules we had to re-plot!” he said, still somewhat aghast at the completeness of the jam. “Only a third of it’s done! And afterwards, I’ll have time to worry about finding a replacement for Zamm. There’s nothing so scarce as a really good Peripheral Agent! That’s all I got out of it—”
Bropha looked sympathetic.
“I talked to that boy, and I’ve got some hopes for him,” the Co-ordinator added glumly. “If she keeps her promise, that is, and lets him come to Jeltad, by and by. But he’ll never be like Zamm!”
“Give him time,” Bropha said consolingly. “They grow up slowly. They’re a long-lived race, the Daya-Bals.”
“I thought of that, too!” the Co-ordinator nodded. “She’ll raise a dozen now before she’s done; and among them there might be one, or two— But, by the way she talked, I knew right then Zamm would never let any of the others go beyond fifty light-years of Betelgeuse!”


Other Stories


The Custodians
McNulty was a Rilf. He could pass for human if one didn’t see him undressed; but much of the human appearance of the broad, waxy-pale face and big hands was the result of skillful surgery. Since the Rilf surgeons had only a vague notion of what humans considered good looks, the face wasn’t pleasant, but it would do for business purposes. The other Rilf characteristic McNulty was obliged to disguise carefully was his odor—almost as disagreeable to human nostrils as the smell of humans was to him. Twice a day, therefore, he anointed himself with an effective deodorant. The human smells he put up with stoically.
Probably no sort of measures could have made him really attractive to humans. There was nothing too obviously wrong about his motions, but they weren’t quite right either. He had an excellent command of English and spoke four other human languages well enough to make himself understood, but always with an underlying watery gurgle which brought something like a giant bullfrog to mind. To some people McNulty was alarming; a