What's the Big ldea? ・ / e went intO orbit around Planet Dangle. Moments later ground control sent us a ・ / hO - , 人 re - You. That in itself was pretty unusual. Usually an orbital relay station handles that kind of red tape. lt takes t00 long t0 respond t0 problems from planetside. But according t0 the background materi- al l'd been boning up on on your way here, there were only five space stations gle, and all of them were research platforms belong- ing tO the Gravas Foundation. There wasn't a single public station for orbital traffic control. Giant space stations are different from dinky lit- tle satellites. There's a limit tO hOW many you can have in orbit; five is about the 1 れ ax. Seeing hOW planet state Dangle was under the de factO control of the Gravas Foundation, I don't suppose they had any chOice about giving Gravas exclusive rights tO statlon constructlon. 7

Recognizing it, I twisted my neck and 100ked over- head. There was a seat attached tO the end Of a crane. ln the seat sat a 1 沿 an. The seat descended. The man sitting in it was Dr. Teppeus. 。 I ' 1 れ afraid I was rather rude at our last meeting, he said. His VOice sounded far more relaxed than when we had first met. His forbidding face also struck 1 れ e as 1 れ ore at ease. stances, I had no chOice but tO adopt that attitude. " "I quite understand," I said with deliberate calm. "The reason l've called you here today, ” he con- tinued briskly, "was t0 show you something you might find interesting ・ "Like what? ” "LOOk at the main screen, ” he ordered with a jerk of his chin. "Eeek! ” Yuri and I shrieked in duet. The scene unfolding on the screen was a battle between space station Of spaceships. "Merutonan must have notified the police," said the scientist airily. been turning out in droves. He let out a long, dry laugh. There was a ring tO it that made 1 y b100d run COld. For a moment 102

gr appling and punching each other out. NO one had even noticed the flames. "What are we to do about the call. ” I asked. "We don't have any choice, do we?" she squealed. "We go. But more than that, what do we do about the fight, and about Curly, and about the fire?" "We report to headquarters, then. ” I said in a daze. ' This bar's a shambles. ” Yuri? Do you think we should go ? ” thing about this!" As we swam through the whirlpool of fighting people we spotted D0teoka again. He caught sight Of us, t00 , and waved as he smacked his head intO the face Of the customer at his side. We finally slogged our way to the door. The screams and bellows and heat were horrendous. We looked back and surveyed the whole bar, but all we could make out were the fistfights closest tO us. We could also just discern the flames crawling up the far wall. The fire had already spread to the ceiling ・ lt looked bad. The bar wasn't long for this world. For a few moments I stood there, gaping blankly at the spectacle. "Kay, what's wrong? ” asked Yuri. "The chief's waiting for us. 130

power, leaving them lethargic and unresisting. Once Lucifer had gassed the planet, it would be child's play to take over the government and Dan- gle with it. A11 they would need to do would be t0 go t0 the president and demand that he hand it over. Neither the president, nor the citizens whO would become Lucifer's slaves, would put up the slightest resistance. Dangle and the production headquarters of Gra- vas Heavy lndustries would become Lucifer's overnight. "But somehow or Other, miscalculations dO OC- cur," grumbled Teppeus. our case' it was Angaron. "Angaron wasn't bound to Lucifer bY blood. We thought we had no choice but t0 bend our rules and let him in if we were tO complete ou て plans. lt was a gnevous error. "That f001 blew our only ground-based command center right 0 仟 the face 0f the planet. Even worse, he left a message exposing our plOt. lt was serious treason deserving Of death. "But the plan has not been stymied. For our com- mand center we were able tO use Vulcan. We may no longer be able t0 fine-tune the volume 0f gas on the ground, but the plan itself can be pulled 。任 with Vulcan alone. We can get the job done after 107

We agreed t0 go because we just happened t0 be in a disaster zone at the time, but this one clearly belonged tO that category our work rules term If we hadn't wanted to go, we "refusable duties. could have said no without any penalty at all. When the WWWA decides to dispatch a trouble consultant, it first carefully studies the nature and facts Of the case, then selects the consultant pre- sumed to be most suited tO the task from the list of those on A-, B-, or C-Class standby. Agents on D-, E-, or F-Class standby aren't even checked. The rotation schedule comes first. I talk about trouble consultants as if we were all the same, but in fact, our work varies tremendous- ly. Naturally, there are some people wh0 are suit- ed for a assignment, and S01 沿 e WhO aren't. A11 the thousands and thousands of trouble con- sultants are carefully categorized by ability and per- sonality, and those with similar inclinations are listed up into groups. The work schedule is decid- ed within this framework. Of course, this way of d0ing things means that sometimes only the second best, or even the third best chOice for a case actually gets assigned tO it. If anything, that's what h 叩 pens the majority of the time. ln almost every case, the difference in abili- ties falls within the probability of error. Even if it

showed Vulcan. There didn't seem t0 be anything wrong. Except.. "Oh no ! ” My blood froze. . firing.. "lt's... engines... are.. I couldn't tell which nozzles they were. But who cares about that! some Of Vulcan's altitude control rockets were still firing, and they were pushing the space station toward the planet belOW. "Some idiOt must have set them 0 仟 by mistake.. I seemed to hear Yuri's voice wafting up 伝 om hell. 'lt can't be... stopped?" "Not likely. Not with that much mass ・ "But, but it will burn up in the atmcsphere' right?" "Not likely. Not with that much mass ・ "At least crash in the sea!" I shrieked wildly. "lf not, at least crash somewhere where there people! A desert! The savannah! The P01es! You got a11 kinds of choices, don't you! Please! Just please don't crash anywhere inhabited!" But.. I begged in vain. vulcan, with 1 れ OSt Of its mass still intact' crashed on land , smack dab in the middle of Tascopolis CitY on the Erukan continent. According tO eyewitness reportS' awesome 116