He entered at the appointed evening hour. Under Commander Abdullah’s fishy eye, he saluted the Emperor’s portrait not with his usual vague wave but with a snap that well-nigh dislocated his shoulder. And a heel click to boot, he reminded himself. Several persons being in line ahead of him, he had a minute for taking stock. Its tables removed except for one bearing refreshments—and its chairs, in deference to the guests—the room stretched dreary. Pictures of former personnel, trophies and citations for former accomplishments, seemed to make its walls just the more depressing. An animation showed a park on Terra, trees nodding, in the background the skyward leap of a rich family’s residential tower and airborne vehicles glittering like diamond dust; but it reminded him too well of how far he was from those dear comforts. He preferred the darkness in the real window. It was open and a breeze gusted through, warm, laden with unearthly odors.

The Merseians were a more welcome sight, if only as proof that a universe did exist beyond Irumclaw. Forty of them stood in a row, enduring repeated introductions with the stoicism appropriate to a warrior race.

They resembled especially large men…somewhat. A number of their faces might have been called good-looking in a craggy fashion; their hands each had four fingers and a thumb; the proportions and articulations of most body parts were fairly anthropoid. But the posture was forward-leaning, balanced by a heavy tail. The feet, revealed by sandals, were splayed, webbed, and clawed. The skin was hairless and looked faintly scaled; depending on sub-species, its color ranged from the pale green which was commonest through golden brown to ebony. The head had two convoluted bony orifices where man’s has external ears. A ridge of serrations ran from its top, down the spine to the end of the tail.