Xenthl's sanctum sanctorum was an even greater achievement in the architecturally impossible. Kram made a mental note to make a requisition for a replastering job in his own office immediately upon his return to Earth.
Luverduk was impressed, but more with Xenthl's bearded, rotund, pink-skinned majesty than with his surroundings.
"Without the beaver, he'd look just like me, Kram!"
"So he would, Major!"
The seated Xenthl signalled his guards to halt, and the envoys of truce to step forward. His oversized cranium, typical of his race, seemed to nod gently from its own weight.
"You come," he mouthed the Terrestrian language awkwardly, "as couriers of surrender?"
"You are crazier than Luverduk, here, if you think so!" Kram casually folded his arms. "As a personal representative of his Most Excellent Sovereign Worthiness, the Guardian of all Universes in Space and Time, the President of Terra, and also the Bronx, I appear before you to recognize and return the civility displayed by your forces in not attacking an Earth ship radiating a signal of truce. In short, I am here to offer you your life, and the lives of your people, with the alternative of instantaneous annihilation."
"I am amused," purred Xenthl. "But at your expense. For this impertinence, your government shall be given but one month more, instead of six months more, to prepare itself for my rule. And in addition, from this moment forward, it will be under the direct surveillance of my own armed forces. I have, it would seem, grossly overestimated the intelligence of you Earthmen. It had been my thought that, as you say, you knew what was good for you. I have erred."
"That," said Kram, allowing the flicker of a self-indulgent grin to play at the corners of his long mouth, "is something of an understatement, Mr. Xenthl. And to prove what I say—and a man of your intellect would require proof of any statement—I ask that the only armament aboard the ship in which I came, a blast-rifle, be brought here, to be fired as I direct by one of your own marksmen. By directing his aim telescopically, he should have no trouble in sighting on the abandoned cruiser hulls which I have had towed into position for target purposes...."
Xenthl's mouth worked. "This is a trick of some sort," he said icily. "At the very least, a gross misuse of the purposes of truce."