And Cyril came into the council chamber, followed by a limping Raoul. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I trust this is not an intrusion, although I'm quite sure you'll tell us we've broken a whole slue of tabus."
"You!" Bbulas screamed at Skkiru. "You must have used the passage in the hut! You let them follow you!"
Losing control of his own reflexes, he began to whirl madly.
"But regard this!" Raoul exclaimed, staring around him. "To build a place like this beneath the mud—name of a name, these people must have hydraulic engineering far superior to anything on Earth!"
"You are too kind," the former hydraulic engineer said deprecatingly. "Actually, it's quite simple—"
"This is not a primitive civilization at all, Raoul," Cyril explained. "They've been faking it from tapes. Probably have a culture very much like ours, with allowances for climatic differences, of course. Oh, undoubtedly it would be provincial, but—"
"We are not provincial," Larhgan said coldly. "Primitive, yes. Provincial, no! We are—"
"But why should they do a thing like this to us?" Raoul wailed.
"I imagine they did it to get on the trade routes, as Nemeth did. They've been trying not to talk about Nemeth all the while. Must have been rather a strain. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" Cyril told the assembled Snaddrath. "Very bad form!"