"... authority will advise him on the question of trade with Earth. He will be freed one hour thereafter. Your ship must remain in the same position meanwhile. The ambassador from Earth will leave your ship in precisely eighteen minutes proceeding directly downward. He will be picked up by our ship within the clouds. In this ship a representative of fifth authority will advise him on the question of trade with Earth. He will be freed one hour thereafter. Your ship must remain in the same position meanwhile. The ambassador from Earth will leave your ship in precisely eighteen minutes proceeding directly—"
The Ambassador snapped the stud, his teeth gritted hard against a trembling. He was not even to land upon the alien planet, then. Not even to talk to the head of government but with "a representative of fifth authority." It was so condescending, so contemptuous—and so deserved, of course, he thought, staring at the captain who stared wild-eyed. You wanted to run. You wanted to hide. Already you felt them inside your mind ruthlessly peering, destroying. As crazy as an ambassador.
Contemptuous time limit of eighteen minutes! They'd been told that it took a minimum of sixteen minutes to get into a space suit.
"My suit! The dressers!" shouted the Ambassador. Remembering the Ten-year men who waited to reassure him, and badly needing one last contact—"Bring everything to the Earth screen!"
As he fled the room he saw, in the screen which showed Venus, a vast silvery ovoid lift momentarily to the surface of the vapor, then sink slightly and remain in a suggestion of menace neither in sight nor out of sight, waiting to engulf him.
When he faced the Earth screen two expert dressers flung themselves upon him with the pneumatic pads whose donning before the space suit took care and time. In Center Room, all the perfectly sane, shielded men attempted to convey by smiles their confidence in the shuddering creature being lapped in weirdness. The Ambassador strove with all his considerable mental power to hold the impression of those reassuring smiles.
And that doddering fool, Hoag, with his one arm waving unwanted friendliness, said, "Ahoy Ambassador! Now we can get to the point of that story."
A story about superior merciless beings, calculated to break the last weak thread of a man's confidence! "Shut up!" the Ambassador wanted to scream across space. And would have, had not the dressers jammed his mouth closed, at that moment, as they adjusted a throat pad.
On Earth, too, they tried to shut up Hoag but they couldn't. "I'm not the old fool you think I am," he said. "Listen! Ambassador—gentlemen, High Privilege!—Ambassador," he said urgently, "I told you I've been saving this story to tell an Ambassador at the last minute when he's in the spot you're in. I've been waiting fifty years. Listen!