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"No. Of course not—neutronium hull."

  "Yes."

  Frank was reminded of his old flying club days in college. But he had never piloted a machine like this! He nosed the big shuttle into the atmosphere and they saw the red flare of particle ionization in the forward windows, as they bored through the thick Iskolian atmosphere. These were neutronium windows, tuned to allow the passage of visible light. They passed through eight thousand meters and were closing fast on the ground when Frank finally pulled back on the stick and went into level flight.

  "Do not deter from course." came a voice over the microset.

  "What was that?" Frank looked at his imager and saw that the little patrol craft was following him.

  "We wish to tour your planet before we land."

  "Permission denied. You must return to original course."

  "We only want to look around—sight-see. Give me fifteen minutes."

  "Negative. Return to course."

  "No."

  The weapons console popped up between Frank and Anna, and the starship's computer made an announcement, "Defensive systems are activated."

  "Why'd it do that," Frank asked.

  "Apparently, we're being attacked," Anna said.

  "I didn't feel anything."

  "Maybe they didn't hit us very hard. Are you sure you still want to survey this planet?"

  "If I'm going to be arrested, I want to have a look around first."

  "But they'll continue their attack. Two more craft have joined the first one."

  "That's okay, we just won't fight back unless we have to. Computer, damage report."

  "No damage."

  "Computer, arm laser, fire only at incoming torpedoes and missiles. Withhold fire from the attackers unless there is imminent danger to us. Also, warn me first, if possible."

  "Compliance."

  "The three patrol craft continued to fire on Frank's shuttle as he and Anna had a look at the lay of the land. Iskol was an industrial world, with light blue skies, and green parks below. Everywhere could be seen skyscrapers and industrial plants, along with places that seemed to be the homes of the Iskolians.

  Frank made a fast sweep over an ocean and lost the, now twelve, Iskolian patrol craft that had been chasing him. Several had fired missiles, but the weapons computer disabled those with its laser.

  They reached the second continent, and began receiving ground-fire from missile bases. The weapons computer was doing its job, so Frank slowed the shuttle to take in the view. Here, as on the other continent, was heavy industry mixed with occasional parklands. Iskol was a filled planet. Every inch of land on this world was used for something.

  On the second continent, Frank saw farms, and he zoomed his imager to look more closely at these, seeing that machines worked the farms with people at their controls. How barbaric, he thought. The twelve patrol craft finally caught up with the shuttle and three more had joined them, but they no longer fired on him. They were hailing him.

  "Please return to coordinates, emissaries await!"

  "I didn't know the computer could translate panic," Frank said.

  "Apparently, you've impressed them." Anna had taken all of this stolidly. She had also wanted to see this world from the sky, but would prefer to have done it with the Iskolians' blessings.

  "Do you think they’re still going to arrest me?" Frank asked, grinning.

  "They ought to. It's a wonder they haven't pulled out some secret weapon by now and blown us out of the sky."

  "You're right. Maybe I’d better cooperate." Frank keyed a switch, "Okay friend, lead the way. I'll follow wherever you go."

  "You're not going to use Dyna's coordinates?"

  "Naw. Then the shuttle'll speed up and we'll miss everything. This way, we'll go a little slower."

  The patrol craft moved in front of the shuttle and started on a new course heading. Frank steered the shuttle to follow. Frank and Anna watched as the little craft began to glow red.

  "I think it's at top speed Anna. It's gonna blow up if it doesn't slow down. The heat of the atmosphere must be burning it up."

  Shortly thereafter, another patrol craft appeared from below and took over the lead spot as the first craft slowed and descended.

  "Follow me please," came from the second craft as it turned on a red flashing light for Frank and Anna to follow.

  "Computer, assume flight controls and follow the craft with the red flashing light" Frank ordered.

  "Compliance."

  Frank released the controls and gazed at the imagers as the land and oceans below went past. Anna also watched her imagers and looked out the windows occasionally. As tourists went, they were typical. This went on for fifteen minutes until they arrived at, what Frank and Anna both agreed, was a spaceport. The shuttle landed itself at the original coordinates given.

  Five

  The spaceport was enormous and bustled with activity as Frank and Anna peered out their windows. Spacecraft bearing all manners of sizes and shapes sat around them. One or two ships landed or took off every few minutes. This was a busy shipping port. Small and large vehicles alike scurried about everywhere, and a few vehicles stopped near his shuttle, apparently waiting for him to emerge.

  After a few minutes, they were hailed and asked if they required refueling, the question seeming to come from a vehicle sitting near them bearing resemblance to a tanker truck. Anna answered, declining. After another minute or so, a recording began listing off available services and their respective prices, including landing fees and rental charges, but was abruptly cut off.

  "Emissaries await," Frank said, looking at Anna.

  "I'm ready. Let's go."

  "Trong and Kong."

  "Sir?" Trong and Kong answered in unison, as they powered up and stepped out of their storage cubicles in a fluid motion. Their mirror-like neutronium armor gleamed and their marble-black eyes stared as they moved two steps in front of Frank and faced him. He felt pride in the robots' unintentional ability to seem menacing.

  "All communications will be encrypted. Everything else will be standard procedure."

  "Compliance," came over the microset.

  "Follow and protect," Frank said to the two as he and Anna walked toward the shuttle doors. The shuttle door opened and they walked through the shimmering field that separated the two worlds.

  "What is it?" Frank asked.

  "Protection against intruders whenever the doors are open," Anna answered.

  The four walked down the ramp together as Frank and Anna saw their first aliens. It was broad daylight outside and Frank's skin-suit quickly responded to the glare from the young and potent star. He observed six aliens waiting fifteen meters from the end of the ramp, and looked them over, glancing down at the ramp as he did so. The creatures were tall and thin, with large eyes on small, but skinny, long faces, which shown bluish white in the sunlight.

  Frank was happy to see that they each had two arms and two legs. They were dressed in bright red garments that must have been dress uniforms.

  Frank and Anna walked towards the party and stopped two meters from them. One of the aliens took a step forward, raised his six-fingered right hand, and spread his fingers out in a circle, each of his fingers evenly spaced apart.

  "Welcome to Iskol," he said, "I am Lord Traaka of the Zembee Province in Loclyn. I've been directed to escort you to the Imperial Palace for introductions. I'll be your guide. We sincerely hope that our hospitality will please you." The creature's voice came in deep over the microset translator.

  "I am Frank Jameson," he spoke the words, but they came out in another language, and this is Anna Kiruna. We come in peace and we most graciously and humbly accept your kind hospitality. Please accept our apologies for our discourtesies—we lack the knowledge of protocol on your world.

  "Apologies noted and accepted. Please follow me."

  Lord Traaka signed to the others in his group and they turned and walked toward the waiting vehicle. Four of the aliens entered the vehicle first while the o
ther two held back waiting for Frank's group to enter. As Frank boarded the vehicle, he noticed that it floated in midair, bobbing up and down as people got in. Once everyone was inside, they were seated in bright red, plush chairs, and offered refreshments. Frank and Anna declined, but asked that the refreshments be given to Trong and Kong.

  Frank told them over the microset, "Politely accept and analyze."

  Trong and Kong both took the drinks and moments later they returned their analyses’. Frank had to reinstruct them after they finished their analyses, because after they explained the chemical makeup of the drinks, he still had no idea whether it was safe for Anna and him to drink them.

  To this, Trong answered, "This is safe for human consumption, and would taste like a dry earth wine. It would also have a mildly intoxicating affect."

  "This would be tasteless and odorless, and would kill an adult human in ten to fifteen seconds after consumption," Kong replied.

  Frank and Anna made careful mental notes of which was which, and ordered two of what Trong was drinking. Frank had Trong check both of the drinks before he or Anna touched them.

  The vehicle was moving rapidly across the ground at about three hundred kilometers an hour, but it was still sufficiently high up to get a good look at the surroundings. Apparently, they were getting the grand tour. Occasionally, the craft would slow down while Lord Traaka explained what things were.

  "Please forgive this most forward question," Lord Traaka said, interrupting his own oratory, "I see that you have brought two machines with you. Would you be so kind as to explain?" he said, looking at Frank.

  "Yes, they're our… protectors." Frank wondered if he had said the right thing. If the Iskolians were eventually to turn out unfriendly, they would surely know now that the two warbots would have to be disabled before they could get to him and Anna. But worse than that, he had sewn mistrust between himself and the Iskolians. If nothing else, he had been honest and that should count for something. By now, if there was an expression on the Lord's face, Frank did not know what it meant.

  The trip to the Imperial Palace lasted forty minutes. Frank and Anna both dressed up for their first meeting with aliens, but neither was certain about what would be proper or impressive. Tia and Suni had spent a couple of hours designing what they had thought would be reasonable and decorative uniforms for Frank and Anna to wear. The hover-car stopped in front of the most incredible piece of architecture that Frank had ever seen. Nothing he remembered from Earth could even rival the beauty and expanse of what Lord Traaka described as the Imperial Palace. It was at least two hundred stories high, and two kilometers in diameter. He wondered why he had not seen it from the ground when he had done his fly-by. Lord Traaka was the first one out of the hover-car and waited as they evacuated it.

  Apparently, it was protocol for Iskolians to introduce themselves, because Lord Traaka stepped to the side along with his five assistants, allowing another Iskolian group to meet with Frank and Anna. They stood on the steps of the Imperial Palace where another group of fifteen well-dressed Iskolians waited for them. The leader of the group stepped forward and introduced himself.

  "I am Lord Wellum, Imperial Secretary and cousin of the Emperor of Iskol," he said haughtily, then somewhat dryly he added, "In the name of the mighty Emperor Deetknarl the Twenty-Second, I welcome you as his guests. Please follow me."

  Frank introduced himself and Anna, but no more questions were asked of or about the two warbots, and most of the Iskolians kept their distance from them. Apparently, Lord Traaka had gotten a message through about the warbots, via some means beyond Frank's perception.

  Lord Wellum spoke as they walked up the steps towards, and finally into the great palace.

  "If there is anything that is not to your satisfaction, please let us know and we'll correct the situation immediately. Do you require separate apartments for yourselves or your servants?" Lord Wellum asked, as he eyed the two warbots.

  "No, we don't, thank you," Frank answered.

  Entering a great hall, Frank looked up to see the ceiling towering thirty meters above him. Its width was sixty meters, while its length was unguessable, but seemed to go on for quite a ways. Lord Traaka dismissed four of his aides and trailed along with one assistant. In the great hall, Frank gazed at the other people in the hall that were not of his group. Most of them were unquestionably Iskolian, but others dressed in a wide array of finery were undoubtedly from other worlds. He stared at them, and some of them stared back, each having never seen the likes of the other before.

  Lord Wellum gave an oratory while they waited, and soon, another hover-car arrived which was large enough for the entire group. This car was nothing more than an opened-top platform upon which to stand. There were side rails around the perimeter of the platform that kept people from falling off the edge. Everyone got onto the big hover-car and shortly, they were three meters in the air, moving down the great hall. It came to an intersection of another great hall and turned. It continued down this hall and finally stopped moving forward, but then began rising. Frank looked up at the solid ceiling and worried that they were going to get crushed under it. But the Iskolians did not move or flinch. The hover car continued to rise slowly and the ceiling showed no signs of giving way. Frank started to get concerned and looked at Anna, who did not seem worried at all.

  The car finally came up to the ceiling and continued to ascend through it.

  Frank was relieved when he realized that the ceiling above them was a hologram. He looked around and noted that the Iskolians had been watching them.

  "It was a test," Anna said to him over the microset, "they wanted to see if we're civilized."

  The second floor hall was not quite as large as the first, but still large. They continued to rise above hall after hall, and Frank began taking note of something very odd. People were walking or moving along the halls of the higher floors, but not falling through. These floors and ceilings were undoubtedly more than just holograms.

  They finally arrived and stopped at, what Frank guessed was forty floors up. Several of the Iskolian envoy were off the hover car before it landed itself on the plush, deep carpeting. It remained there as Frank and Anna were shown to their apartment. They walked into the room and Anna released a gasp as she looked around seeing the spaciousness and ornate beauty surrounding them. The ceiling, as in the hallway, was twenty meters high, and the room itself was twenty meters wide and forty meters long. The walls were decorated with curtains and holographic imagery of strange and exotic places. A large window dominated the far wall. Doors led to other rooms, and the furnishings seemed ideally suited to human needs.

  "If it suits you, the Duke will meet you this evening at a formal dinner reception to begin discussing negotiations for formal contact of our respective governments and peoples," said Lord Wellum, "Lord Traaka will provide whatever assistance you require. Please, be at ease and make yourselves comfortable."

  Lord Wellum left and took his troupe with him. Lord Traaka and his aide remained behind, and watched as Frank and Anna began 'investigating’ their suite. They both headed in different directions and their respective warbots followed but did not get in their way as they peered into rooms and corners, examining furniture and appliances. There were instructions for most everything mechanical, but they were written in a strange script that Frank was unable to read. He asked Lord Traaka about this.

  "If you wish to know how a device works, simply touch it, and it will provide you with complete aural instructions of its use," he explained.

  Frank tried this, placing his hand on a strange box sitting next to a large couch. At once the box began speaking to him. Then he removed his hand, and the box stopped talking. Since his microset translated, he understood everything the box said to him. Frank smiled at this and told Anna. Soon, they were both going around touching everything in the room. Lord Traaka watched this amusingly, but finally interrupted them.

  "Do you require anything of me at the present time?"

>   "Yes, Lord Traaka, we do. We're not familiar with your customs and have need of instruction," Frank answered.

  "I'll be happy to oblige. Please be seated, if that is more comfortable to you, and I'll discuss a few of our basic customs."

  They spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Lord Traaka, as he went through a long discourse on the Iskolian rules of protocol and courtesy. Food and drinks were brought in for an afternoon snack, and Frank and Anna ate only after Trong and Kong tested the food that was offered. Later, Frank and Anna gazed out the large window as Lord Traaka explained what everything was. Frank realized, after a while, that no one as yet, had asked him a single thing about his home world or where he had come from. He asked Lord Traaka about this.

  "It is not customary for me to ask those questions. It's my place to answer your questions. However, the Duke will ask many questions about you and your kind."

  Later that evening, they were called to dine with the Duke. Lord Traaka and his aide escorted them and Lord Wellum returned with a smaller hovercar, and only two aides this time. They stepped onto the hover platform and it rose through many more floors of the palace. No one seemed to guide the hover platform as it wound its way through the halls. Frank could only guess how the platform knew its way. It finally came to rest in front of a large set of double doors that were six meters across ten meters high. Here, the ceiling was a thirty meters high, as on the first floor of the palace. They stepped off the hover platform and the giant doors opened widely.

  "Your machines must remain here," Lord Wellum insisted.

  "What?" Anna said. Frank saw concern on her face.

  "It's okay, Anna," Frank said over the microset, "they'll be right outside the door, they can bust through if we need them."

  "We'll comply," he said.

  Frank gave Trong and Kong some quick orders and then he and Anna walked into the large reception room with their Iskolian escorts, leaving the two warbots behind. This room appeared to be two rooms rather than one; the first was obviously where emissaries, lords and ambassadors gathered to meet and socialize. Large windows adorned two walls of this room, while holographic images set them off. It was dark outside, and light filled the room from an indefinable source. Looking out the windows, Frank could see the lights of the city, but was still unable to pinpoint the source that illuminated the room.