"Undone?" Slith whispered. "Trapped here by the treachery of the insidious Soft Ones? But briefly shall you gloat, my Retief!" The Groaci jerked the elaborately ornamented power-gun from the plastic alligator-hide holster at his bony hip, took aim...

"Three and out," Retief said, as Slith stared in goggle-eyed paralysis at the small, coral-toned flower growing from the barrel of the weapon. "Herby appreciates my conversation far too much to let you blow holes in me. Right. Herby?"

"Quite so, Retief, a cricket-sized voice chirped from the dainty blossom.

"My departure, golly whiz!" Okkyokk"s voice blasted from the screen. "Navigationer-full fast ahead!"

"No use, General," Retief said. "Everybody"s grounded. Your field windings are full of vines, I"m afraid."

"So that"s why Renfrew couldn"t leave!" Magnan gulped. "I knew it all along, of course."

"What does this mean?" Slith whispered.

"It means you"ve been conquered single-handed by a population of one," Retief addressed the alien leaders. "So-if you"re ready, gentlemen, I"m sure Herby will be willing to discuss the terms of your surrender."

8.

"Heavens, Retief," Magnan said, adjusting the overlapping puce lapels of his top-formal midmorning cutaway in the gilt-framed mirror outside the impressive mahogany doors of the Undersecretary for Extraterrestrial Affairs. "If we hadn"t seized a moment to transmit a distress call on Slith"s TX while Herby was busy taking the surrender, we might still be languishing in boredom on that dismal island."

"I doubt if we"d have been bored," Retief pointed out, "with several hundred grounded sailors roaming the woods blaming us for their troubles."

"What a ghastly experience, with every bush and bough jabbering away in coloquial Slox and accentless Groaci, carrying on twelve hundred scrambled conversations at once!"

"In time I think Herby would have mastered the knack of segregating his dialogues," Retief said. "Even with a slice missing from that four-mile-long brain the soundings showed, he should be a fast learner."

"He certainly mastered the technique of creative negotiation with record speed," Magnan agreed. "I can"t help feeling a trifle sorry for poor Slith and Okkyokk; their fleets consigned to molder on the ground, the while they supply teams of conversationalists in relays in perpetuity for the diversion of their conqueror."

Retief and Magnan turned as the elevator doors opened behind them. An orderly emerged, pushing a teacart on which rested a handsome teak tub containing a tall, lilylike plant topped by a six-inch flower, glowing a healthy pink and yellow.

"Ah, gentlemen," the blossom greeted them in a mellow tenor voice, "I"m happy to report that new scenes seem to stimulate me-or at least this slice of me!"

Magnan shuddered delicately. "Imagine sprouting a bureaucrat from a wedge of frontal lobe," he said behind his hand. "It makes my head ache just to think of it."

A slender man with thick spectacles thrust his head from the Secretarial suite.

"The Secretary will see you now," he announced, and held the door as the orderly wheeled the cart through.

"Mr. Secretary," Magnan said grandly, "I have the honor to present His Excellency the Herbaceous Amba.s.sador."

"Delighted to meet you, sir or madam," Thunderstroke rumbled, inclining his head graciously to the bloom, which nodded in reply. "Now-do tell me all the details of how you captured two fully armed war fleets..."

Retief and Magnan withdrew, leaving the Undersecretary listening attentively to his visitor"s account of the sapless victory.

"Lobotomy seems to agree with Herby," Magnan observed complacently. "Well, I must hurry along, Retief. I have a modest cutting I plan to infiltrate into the flowerbed under the Groaci Amba.s.sador"s window." He hurried off.

"Tsk," said a tiny voice from the pink boutonniere adorning Retief"s topmost lapel. "The segment of me you left with the Undersecretary is being regaled with a rather gamey anecdote about cross-fertilizing tearose begonias..."

"It"s not considered polite to listen in on private conversations, Herby," Retief pointed out.

"How can I help it?" the blossom protested. "After all, it"s me he"s talking to!"

"Just don"t repeat what you hear. Unless," Retief added as he strolled off toward the Chancery bar, "it"s something you think I really ought to know..."