"High," said Bryan Channing. "Go ahead."
"Deaths from malnutrition and disease continue at an even more alarming rate. These figures—" And the under-secretary began to remove a sheaf of papers from her briefcase.
"My secretary," Bryan Channing said again. "Can you pin these things directly on Qui Dor?"
"Qui Dor?"
"The Targoffian Ambassador."
"I can only go by his advertisements and what our field workers report after interviews. Qui Dor or whatever his name is, is to blame, it appears. Tell me, Mr. Channing, is it quite regular for a planetary Ambassador to—well, to go into business like that?"
"Yes and no," Bryan Channing told her, launching himself on his favorite subject. "We don't make the laws, m'am. Fifty different planetary cultures nurtured on fifty different sets of laws with a heritage as rich as our own Roman one—you don't merely stamp out all the existing laws and arbitrarily distribute a new code. All you can do is hope that in some fields at least there is a common meeting point for the planets."
"You've failed to answer my question."
"Sorry. The Lurane Ambassadors are primarily businessmen, out to make a buck for their planet, as the expression goes. The Specixes Ambassador is a glorified emcee trooping around with a bunch of acrobats, dancers and singers. There are no laws which would prohibit Qui Dor—"
"But he's threatening our entire way of life!" cried the under-secretary, no longer prim and diplomatically correct.