"Good." The puppeteer stood up. "Our crew will number four. We go to choose our third member now." And he trotted into the transfer booth.

Louis slipped the cryptic holo into his pocket, and followed. In the booth he tried to read the number on the dial; for it would have told him where in the world he was. But the puppeteer dialed too fast, and they were gone.

* * *

Louis Wu followed the puppeteer out of the booth and into the dim, luxurious interior of a restaurant. He recognized the place by the black-and-gold decor and the space-wasteful configuration of horseshoe booths. Krushenkos, in New York.

Incredulous whispers followed in the path of the puppeteer. A human headwaiter, imperturbable as a robot, led them to a table. One of the chairs had been removed at that table and replaced by a big square pillow, which the alien placed between hip and hind hoof as it sat down.

"You were expected," Louis deduced.

"Yes. I called ahead. Krushenkos is accustomed to serving alien guests."

Now Louis noticed other alien diners: four kzinti at the next table, and a kdatlyno halfway across the room. It figured, with the Umted Nations Building so close. Louis dialed for a tequila sour and took it as it arrived. "This was a good thought," he said. "I'm half starved."

"We did not come to eat. We came to recruit our third member."

"Oh? In a restaurant?"

The puppeteer raised its voice to answer, but what it said was not an answer. "You never met my kzin, Kchula-Rrit? I keep it as a pet."

Louies tequila tried to go down the wrong way. At the table behind the puppeteer, four walls of orange far were each and every one a kzin; and as the puppeteer spoke, they all turned with their needle teeth bared. It looked like a smile, but on a kzin that rictus is not a smile.

The -Rrit name belongs to the family of the Patriarch of Kzin. Louis, downing the rest of his drink, decided that it didn't matter The insult would have been mortal regardless, and you could only be eaten once.