“What you got there in that great big carton? A picnic lunch for a hovel of Martian colonists?”

“Ceramics,” Hnatt said.

“I’ll bet you fire them just by sticking them outdoors at high noon.” The businessman chuckled, then picked up his morning ‘pape, opened it to the front page. “Ship from outside the Sol system reported crash-landed on Pluto,” he said. “Team being sent to find it. You suppose it’s things? I can’t stand those things from other star systems.”

“It’s more likely one of our own ships reporting back,” Hnatt said.

“Ever seen a Proxima thing?”

“Only pics.”

“Grisly,” the businessman said. “If they find that wrecked ship on Pluto and it is a thing I hope they laser it out of existence; after all we do have a law against them coming into our system.”

“Right.”

“Can I see your ceramics? I’m in neckties, myself. The Werner simulated-handwrought living tie in a variety of Titanian colors—I have one on, see? The colors are actually a primitive life form that we import and then grow in cultures here on Terra. Just how we induce them to reproduce is our trade secret, you know, like the formula for Coca-Cola.”

Hnatt said, “For a similar reason I can’t show you these ceramics, much as I’d like to. They’re new. I’m taking them to a Pre-Fash precog at P. P. Layouts; if he wants to miniaturize them for the Perky Pat layouts then we’re in: it’s just a question of flashing the info to the P.P. disc jockey—what’s his name?–circing Mars. And so on.”

“Werner handwrought ties are part of the Perky Pat layouts,” the man informed him. “Her boyfriend Walt has a closetful of them.” He beamed. “When P. P. Layouts decided to min our ties—”

“It was Barney Mayerson you talked to?”

“I didn’t talk to him; it was our regional sales manager. They say Mayerson is difficult. Goes on what seems like impulse and once he’s decided it’s irreversible.”

“Is he ever wrong? Declines items that become fash?”