Around and around they went. Dozens of times, Pah-Chi-Luh, going frantically through the Pluto Headquarters law library, would come up with a nasty little wrinkle of an ordinance, only to have L’payr point out that the latest interpretation of the Supreme Council put him wholly in the clear. I can myself vouch for the fact that the Gtetans seem to enjoy total recall of all judicial history.

“But you do admit selling pornography yourself to the Earthman Osborne Blatch?” the stellar corporal bellowed at last.

“Pornography, pornography,” L’payr mused. “That would be defined as cheaply exciting lewdness, falsely titillating obscenity. Correct?”

“Of course!”

“Well, Corporal, let me ask you a question. You saw those pictures. Did you find them exciting or titillating?”

“Certainly not. But I don’t happen to be a Gtetan ameboid.”

“Neither,” L’payr countered quietly, “is Osborne Blatch.”

I do think Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh might have found some sensible way out of the dilemma if the extradition party had not just then arrived from Gtet on the special Patrol ship which had been sent for it. He now found himself confronted with six more magnificently argumentative ameboids, numbering among them some of the trickiest legal minds on the home planet. The police of Rugh VI had had many intricate dealings with L’payr in the Gtetan courts. Hence, they took no chances and sent their best representatives.

Outnumbered L’payr may have been, but remember, Hoy, he had prepared for just these eventualities ever since leaving Earth. And just to stimulate his devious intellect to maximum performance, there was the fact that his was the only life at stake. Once let his fellow ameboids get their pseudopods on him again, and he was a gone protozoan.