“Since there is no body of water on this planet,” Gossim said gratingly, “we could hardly put a marine biologist to use in his stated profession.”

“But you advertised, eight years ago, for a marine biologist,” Mary Morley pointed out. This made Gossim scowl even more profoundly. “The mistake was yours.”

“But,” Gossim said, “this is your home. All of you—” He gestured at the group of kibbutz officials crowded around the entrance of the office. “We all built this.”

“And the cheese,” Seth Morley said, “is terrible, here. Those quakkip, those goat-like suborganisms that smell like the Form Destroyer’s last year’s underwear—I want very much to have seen the last of them and it. The quakkip and the cheese both.” He cut himself a second slice of the expensive, imported Gruyère cheese. To Niemand he said, “You can’t come with us. Our instructions are to make the flight by noser. Point A. A noser holds only two people; in this case my wife and me. Point B. You and your wife are two more people, ergo you won’t fit. Ergo you can’t come.”

“We’ll take our own noser,” Niemand said.

“You have no instructions and/or permission to transfer to Delmak-O,” Seth Morley said from within his mouthful of cheese.

“You don’t want us,” Niemand said.

“Nobody wants you,” Gossim grumbled. “As far as I’m concerned without you we would do better. It’s the Morleys that I don’t want to see go down the drain.”

Eying him, Seth Morley said tartly, “And this assignment is, a priori, ‘down the drain.’

“It’s some kind of experimental work,” Gossim said, “As far as I can discern. On a small scale. Thirteen, fourteen people. It would be for you turning the clock back to the early days of Tekel Upharsin. You want to build up from that all over again? Look how long it’s taken for us to get up to a hundred efficient, well-intentioned members. You mention the Form Destroyer. Aren’t you by your actions decaying back the form of Tekel Upharsin?”