Chapter I

It could almost be an unfamiliar part of Earth, Dr. Roy Auckland was thinking as he looked out of the picture window on the right wall of the prefab headquarters unit. In fact, many parts of Earth presented far more alien and other-wordly appearance than what first met the eye here on Carolus. A blue sky with white clouds--but not quite the blue of Earth; green ground-covering that could pass for close-mown grass until you saw that this was more of a hairy type of moss; flowers which suggested terrestrial flowers, but weren't quite right--were those pansies or violets? No, not quite either; and they had center dots more suggestive of black-eyed Susans. Then Ekem-ve came into view, with another native Carolinian, and Auckland stopped thinking of the resemblances of this Earth-type planet to his own world.

"Mister Five-by-Five," he murmured.

"Won't do, Roy," said Shirley Mason without interrupting the rhythm of her typing. "You're describing a fat Earthman, and no Earthman ever lived who was as agile and quick on his feet as any of the Vaec. Sometimes I think their bones must be made of rubber."

"Of course," he agreed. "And some men have large eyes, but no man's pupils expand and contract as much, in response to feelings as well as light. No human beings have eight fingers; and while some of us may look cherubic, all these Carolinians look that way."

He marvelled at the way she could carry on a conversation without either faltering at the keyboard or turning out less than flawless copy. "And no Earthman, however bald, sports a single hair in the exact center of his skull."

"Don't know whether you'd really call it a hair, Shirl. It's more like a tentacle--sometimes it looks short and thick, sometimes long and thin, sometimes curled, sometimes straight, sometimes wriggling around their heads."

"It shows how they feel even more than their eyes," she said.

"And the final touch," he added, "is that you can tell males from females on Earth, especially when the custom is to wear no clothes above the waist. I wonder how they can tell themselves, when two strangers meet."

"Scent. They all smell just sort of pleasant to us, but there's aromatic differences between the sexes, and any Vaec can tell within smelling distance."

Auckland sighed and wondered again why Dr. Howard James had asked him to join this expedition some months after work had started here on Carolus. If a communications expert had been needed enough for James to come back to Earth (with the supply ship which covered both the expedition and the colony on Laud--the only other habitable planet in this system) there were other men better qualified. Roy Auckland could see that without self-deprecation; he was good, but not the very best in the field.

"You can handle relations with the Vaec, get to know them better than we can," James had said. "And you solved the Sparks case. I need a man who is also something of a detective." He wouldn't explain why and only talked about the report he was making. And in the few days he had been here, Auckland had discovered undercurrents in the relations of expedition members which might or might not be disturbing--but he couldn't yet see where they were leading.

"Is the Ambassador around?" Shirley asked as she took a sheet out of the typewriter and arose to walk over to the filing cabinet. Auckland turned to look at her, and his blood pressure arose at the expanse of tanned skin visible.

"Ekem-ve's outside, talking to a colleague." He smiled. "Are you going Vaec, Shirl?"

She smiled and glanced down at the short slit skirt she was wearing; except for girth, a good replica of the costume all the Carolinians sported. "Not quite." She grinned and added, "I know you'd like me to discard the halter, but have you thought of the effect on the Vaec?

"I'm sure they're already curious about the function of these bumps up front, but they might find them unaesthetic," she added. "They consider the differences between Earthly males and females strange enough, as it is, since they're egg-layers."

Auckland chuckled. "Bumps, is it? Understatement of the decade. But you know, I think the Vaec are far more curious about the contrast between tanned and untanned epidermis. I've seen Ekem-ve look curiously at Dr. Glamis when we're inside, no doubt wondering why he's so pale while the rest of us are the color of walnuts--particularly when he saw how quickly I tanned out in this sun. More ultraviolet must get through this atmosphere."

She nodded. "Ken would be a bright red in no time at all, if he went out without protective clothing, except at night. Used to sunburn terribly on Earth, he told me, and was allergic to all the lotions."

Auckland's eyes ran over the black lines with orange shadings in spots that covered Shirley's skirt. "Did Ekem-ve help you with the designs?"

She opened a file and brushed back blonde hair from her face. "No, I just tried to reproduce some of the effects I've seen on Vaec clothes. Ekem-ve brought me some dye, but I must have muffed the process somehow. Or perhaps it's only good on Vaec fabrics. There's a riddle for you to solve, Roy. We've never seen any trace of industry on their part, yet they have fine cloth, their own dyes, and a very good variety of colored inks which don't run."

"They also have artifacts, but no sign of anyone making them, I'm told. About all anyone sees them do is fish, play Earth-type games which they adapt to suit their pleasure, play practical jokes on each other, and gather food.... What color are you using?"

"The light blue.... But they _can_ work, Roy. I've seen them out at the diggings; they're as industrious and efficient as beavers."

Auckland smiled faintly. Just simple observation could give you the reputation of being a detective at times. "Haven't you noticed, Shirl? The blue tints wash out under fluorescent light. Which reminds me, we don't need them on now. I've been up since dawn." He reached over to the wall and switched the lights off. "There. Now you can see your pale blue background. Goes very nicely with your eyes."

She didn't answer and he sensed that she was both pleased and disturbed at flattery. "What's going on outside?" she asked, looking through the window. "Are Ekem-ve and Hcent playing jokes on each other?"

Auckland swung his chair around sidewise to check. The Vaec could be distinguished from each other easily, if you took the trouble to look. Hcent's face was narrower than Ekem-ve's, and though a roly-poly when seen alone, she was slimmer than the Vaec's liaison agent to the Earthmen.

Hcent was handing Ekem-ve one of the small, decorated boxes that Auckland had seen another Carolinian carrying a day or so before. Hcent's hair was short and thick now, while Ekem-ve's was long, thin, and looping and unlooping slowly. Now Hcent's hair followed suit.

"No. If Ekem-ve were about to play a joke, he wouldn't give himself away like that. Hcent must have told him a pun, or something else funny. What's the _ve_ stand for, Shirl?" I should have found this out days ago, he thought.

"Sort of title," she said. "It approximates our idea of _ambassador_ and _chief_ at the same time. He's as close to a status of authority in the clans as they ever get."

Hcent had turned and was about to stroll away. Now Ekem-ve dipped a hand into the pouch that all Vaec wore at their belts, just before he gave Hcent the traditional slap of farewell. When his hand left the other Vaec's shoulder, there was a sticker attached to Hcent.

"What does it say--_Kick me_?"

Auckland shrugged and thought of the stickers that had been attached to him when he was a boy. It was hard to realize that practical jokes were a way of life among the Vaec and that Hcent would feel no resentment on discovering what had been done--although Hcent would try and score with Ekem-ve, if this jest left him behind. No, left _her_ behind. Hcent was female. "More likely something insulting," he said. "The Vaec don't seem to go for directly violent horseplay. They prefer more subtle jokes."

Shirley frowned, and he realized that she had been looking more sober than usual this morning. "They're like children," she said slowly. "Only they aren't. I can't make them out, Roy. Their sense of humor seems to be virtually at the moronic level; practical jokes and puns. They 'assist' us in return for toys and games. Even Ekem-ve, who seems to have a lot of natural dignity, was immediately fascinated when he saw a pad of gummed labels. For mirth, as he calls it."

"They love poker," Auckland agreed, "and especially all the variations with wild cards. They like games with boards and equipment and complicated methods of scoring, although one of their favorites is a childish variation of whist called 'Red Mustache,' in which everything is twisted around. You have to lose to win, and you have to knock on the table before you make any kind of play at all. Most of the game consists of the players yelling 'Red Mustache' when they call penalties on someone who has forgotten to knock--real bedlam.

"Yet," he went on, "they're highly intelligent. Really on a par with us, I'd say."

"Long-lived, too," she agreed. "Ekem-ve and a couple of others we see around submitted to the language-transfer apparatus when Leitfred first discovered Carolus, and that was over thirty years ago. But now all the Vaec know our language, even if their manner of expression sounds like a cross between broken English and the pseudo-Confucian manner you found in the old fiction that Leitfred was so fond of. I wonder just how much more they picked up from the transfer apparatus than the language itself.

"Perhaps it was just a joke," she murmured as she replaced a folder in the files. "Perhaps someone didn't realize...."

"Didn't realize what, Shirl?"

She turned around and faced him. "I shouldn't tell you, Roy, but really I think you ought to know. Phrecle just brought back Doc James' thermos container with a note. Doc thinks that someone is trying to poison him. Phrecle smelled _dodlig_ right through the container and told Doc that the soup would made him sick."

"Sick! Just one drop of _dodlig_ juice to a gallon would kill any man." Auckland bit his lip. "And you think one of the Vaec did it for a joke, Shirl?" He shook his head. "No, that's out of character. They don't go in for that sort of humor. If someone put _dodlig_ in the soup, that person wasn't joking!"