Jones nodded and unbuttoned the jacket of his gray sharkskin suit. Then he unbuttoned the white shirt under it. Then he put his two forefingers into his chest, all the way in, and pulled his chest apart. He kept pulling until there was a great dark hole about ten inches wide.

A black spider squirmed out of the opening. Its round little body was about the size of a man’s fist, its legs about the size and length of pipe stems. It crouched on Jones’s chest, while the body from which it had emerged maintained its position in a kind of paralysis, the fingers still holding the chest apart, the back and legs still resting comfortably in the chair.

“Whew!” said the spider. “That feels good.”

Alfred found he couldn’t stop chuckling. He finally managed to halt the noise from his mouth, but it kept on going in his head. He stared at the spider, at the stiff body from which it had come. Then, frantically, he stared at the others in the room, at Cohen, at Kelly, at Jane Doe.

They couldn’t have looked less interested.

The hum from the briefcase on Kelly’s knees abruptly resolved itself into words. Alfred’s visitors stopped looking bored and leaned forward attentively.

“Greetings, Special Emissaries,” said the voice. “This is Command Central speaking. Robinson, to you. Are there any reports of significance?”

“None from me,” Jane Doe told it.

“Nor me,” from Kelly.

“Nothing new yet,” said Cohen.

The spider stretched itself luxuriously. “Same here. Nothing to report.”

“Jones!” ordered the voice from the briefcase. “Get back into your uniform!”

“It’s hot, chief. And we’re all alone in here, sitting behind what they call a locked door. Remember, they’ve got a superstition on Earth about locked doors? We don’t have anything to worry about.”

“I’ll tell you what to worry about. You get into that uniform, Jones! Or maybe you’re tired of being a Special Emissary? Maybe you’d like to go back to General Emissary status?”