CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

THE RENUION WITH his Mantis team was brief and wild.

Munin even rose to its hind legs and licked Sten's face. Hugin, the other, and Sten felt brighter animal, purred once, then jumped on the top of the table and inhaled an entire platter of saltfish.

"Y'see. you overstrong lump of suet," Ida rumbled to Alex,

"you can't get along without me?"

Alex choked on his grain dish, but admitted that he was, indeed, quite glad to see the hulking Rom woman.

Bet pulled Sten aside. Concern on her face. "What went wrong?"

"We had to move too fast," Sten said grimly. "I'll give you the full briefing in a minute."

Doc was oddly subdued. Sten managed to hug Bet twice, which brought up some interesting thoughts about what they did in the earlier days of their relationship, then he walked over and knelt to get eye-level with the koalalike Altairian.

"Your revenge is a terrible one, Sten," Doc said glumly.

Sten looked puzzled.

"Do you know what Mahoney had us doing after you were detached? Do you know what his idea of On His Majesty's Imperial Stupidity consists of?" Doc's voice was rising toward a falsetto.

Sten knew Doc would tell him.

"Easy duty," the team's anthropologist went on. "Perfect for an understrength team, Mahoney told us. A tropic world whose government some local humanoids were about to overthrow. All we had to do was guard the embassy."

"Mahoney said the Emperor thoroughly approved the revolution," Bet went on. "We were supposed to keep all the Imperial servants—and their families—from getting fed down the same grinder the government was about to disappear into."

"We did it," Ida added. "For one thing there was no comscan I could figure out that wasn't monitored. Do you know how many credits I lost? Do you know how many of my investments—our investments—have turned to drakh because we were stuck on that armpit?"

"That was not the worst," Doc continued. "We were disguised as Guards security—and we even managed to convince those clots who call themselves Foreign Service people that Hugin and Munin are normally part of a Guards team.

"Pfeah," he sneered, ladling an enormous steak down his maw. And chewing.

"It was hilarious." Bet took over as Doc glumly chewed. She was trying, without much success, to keep from laughing.

"The indigenes took the palace. Besieged the embassy. Usual stuff. We fired some rounds over their heads and they went home to think about things."

Through a rapidly disappearing mouthful that looked more suitable for Hugin, Doc said, "We had, of course, prepared an escape route—out the back gate, through some interconnected huts, into the open, through an unguarded city gate and then walk twelve kilometers to a Guard destroyer."

"So," Sten wondered, "what was the problem?"

"The children," Doc said. "Ida. who somehow has time-in-grade on me, ordered me to be in charge of embassy dependents. Nasty, carnivorous, squeaky humanoids."

"They loved him," Ida put in. "Listened to his every word.

Made him sing songs. Fed him candy. Patted him."

"With those sticky paws of theirs." Doc grunted. "It took me three cycles to comb out my fur. And they called me"— he shuddered—"their teddy bear."

Sten stood up, keeping his face turned away from Doc, and thumped Hugin off the table. He composed himself and turned.

"Now that you've had your vacation, would you like to get back to work on something nice and impossible?"

Doc levered himself another steak, and the team squatted, listening as Sten began the back-briefing.