They gulped the drinks and Netath stared down into his empty glass.
"We're quite fortunate that the Western Cluster's aspirations are
extending to this sector."
"As long as we can be sure that there won't be any _military_
advances." Bataul added the qualification with misgiving.
"Oh, there's no danger of that. Actually, we're lucky we didn't try to
get on the Eastern Cluster's gravy train. We'd have had to make a lot
of concessions."
Heralding its own approach with a sputtering rumble, the station
'copter came in low over the trees and dropped down on the lawn. Netath
walked over as his chauffeur climbed out of the cab and used antigrav
grapples to float a large crate out of the freight compartment.
"Just picked it up at the space terminal," the man explained. "Must be
that aid shipment."
Bataul laughed. "You mean the first batch of credit certificates,
maybe."
The chauffeur pressed the "unpack" stud. The sides of the crate fell
outward.
"What _is_ it?" Netath drew back, surveying the ivory, tanklike thing
with its sparkling fixtures and flexible appendages.
Bataul bent and read the words on the inscription plate: "Deluxe
Automatic Bather--4678-25C."
By then, Netath had found the torn, soiled delivery tag. He read the
part of the writing that was still legible:
"... _sincerely hope this expression of Western amity meets with
your satisfaction. If we can serve you again, please don't
hesitate._..."
Infuriated, he imparted a vindictive kick to the crate and crumpled the
paper.
"_That's_ the cosmic aid we were expecting?" Bataul sputtered.
"Capitalist Western dogs!" Netath exclaimed. "They were just trifling
with our planetary honor!"
"It's an insult against our racial character!" the foreign minister
said severely. "They _know_ we have no use for a bather, shedding our
skin as we do once a day."
Netath forced restraint into his features. "We will not lose our
diplomatic poise. There is always the chance a mistake has been made."
He drew the contacter out of his pocket and shouted into its grid,
"Miss Yalera?"
"Yes, sir?" came the instant answer.
"Take a space-o-gram to Solaria."