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Blynn was haggard and anxious-looking “I’ve been wondering when you’d show up. Afraid maybe they’d got you—”

“I’m all right,” Clarey interrupted. “But what are we going to do?”

Blynn laughed without stopping for a full minute. “Do? I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to sit tight and wait for the staff ship.”

Two months later the staff ship came. Blynn radioed for the general and the secretary to come in a closed ground car.

“But why?” the general’s voice crackled plaintively over the com-unit. “I thought we didn’t want them to know about ground cars—”

“They know,” Blynn said crisply. “They’ve got one of their own now, maybe more. Crazy-looking thing, but it works. You’ll see it outside Headquarters when you get here. The letters on the side mean ‘Earthmen, Go!’ Form imperative impolite emphatic.”

Han Vollard strode into Headquarters, eyes ablaze. “Why didn’t you send a report before trouble started? How could you allow an emergency situation to happen?”

Neither Blynn nor Clarey said anything.