"Call me and let me know. Oh, do call me and tell me you've sent him packing."
"Remember Deneb, m'am. I'll do my best."
A few moments later, a furious Nicholson telio'd Channing and informed him that the New York State Junior League was lobbying Congress to pass a law nullifying diplomatic relations with Targoff. That was the root of the evil, they said. The planet itself. We want nothing to do with them. We don't want our children associating with images. Channing swore in silent desperation. You couldn't argue with the Junior League. Qui Dor Enterprises was lowering the standard of living more and more every day, not maliciously, certainly, but lowering it nevertheless. Divorce, malnutrition, illness, crime, decreased birth rate, domestic squabbles....
Which immediately suggested a hopeful but abortive attempt at reconciliation with Ellen. Yes, she was busy. Of course she had kept Stephanie. What was the matter with him, anyway? He could hear the girl wailing, couldn't he? She was so helpless. She had to be cared for. Where was his sense of responsibility? Well, yes, she still loved him, but not if he were going to maintain his pig-headed attitude toward their daughter. What? Yes their daughter. He heard her. Click and fadeout of the picture of his wife, bunting in one hand and a squealing infant with obvious quiddity but questionable essence in the other.
Three quarters of an hour later he stormed into Qui Dor's office on the top floor of an old office building which had been converted into the Targoffian Embassy in the days before anyone anticipated anything but a casual interchange of cultural trivia between the Targoffians and Earthmen. He cooled his heels in the reception room, fighting back an impulse to ask the too-pretty, too-courteous, too-efficient receptionist if she were real. By the time he was admitted to Qui Dor's sanctum sanctorum he presented, at least on the surface, the unruffled appearance of a diplomat on a routine state call.
"Bryan Channing, is it not? You see, I have learned your language with no great difficulty."
In Channing's job, you had to forget human standards. The office was large, with a high-vaulted ceiling where the insulating space beneath the building's roof had been exposed. There were two or three comfortable chairs which would fit Channing. There was a big sign beyond Qui Dor's massive desk, blocking the window and the view of other skyscrapers. It said QUI DOR ENTERPRISES—WE SELL ANYTHING. It faced into the room, and with it as a back-drop, Qui Dor looked like anything but an interstellar ambassador.
Qui Dor was a dozen feet tall and neither reptilian nor mammalian. He defied classification in any terrestrial system, but with the feathery covering, hard, protruding, pointed lips and round, small, jet-black eyes, looked most nearly bird-like. The thin legs added to the illusion; the three sets of thin arms dispelled it.
"I haven't seen you since that day I showed you around the city after Nicholson introduced us," Channing began, settling himself comfortably in a chair and wishing he didn't have to stare at the sign behind Qui Dor's feathery back.