And so Billy waited in the reception room uncomfortably. A large room to Tlemban thinking, its dimensions were proportionally small, and the thirty by forty feet—Tlemban—shrunk to fifteen by twenty, Terran.
The formal "court" was of more ample proportions. The proscenium arched forty feet high and the entire room was a full hundred feet in diameter. A vast room to Tlemban standards, but not much larger than a very tiny theater to the hulking Terran that had tripped over a table in one of the minute corridors.
Billy had been equally hard on the ceiling fixtures, and the doors had been somewhat of a pinch, too. But he was now in where he could take a full breath without fracturing the plaster on both sides of the room, and he took one, in relief. He felt very much like making a few pleasantries about his difficulties, but he realized that the little man on the dais before him would not appreciate any inference to size.
So Billy merely saluted formally and waited for the tiny monarch to speak first.
"You are Billy Thompson of Terra."
"I am."
"You are the man who directed the Battle for Sol?"
"I am."
"And the man responsible for the destruction of all hope for civilization."
"That I deny."