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“I wish," said the Young Captain, police chief of High Chicago, the turbulent satellite that hangs over the meridian of the mid-western groundside city, "I wish that sometimes the telepathic races of the Galaxy weren't such consistent truth-tellers and silence-keepers. "

"Your four suspects are all telepaths?" the- Old Lieutenant asked.

"Yes. I also wish I had more than half an how to decide which one to accuse; But Earth-side has muscled into the case and the pressure is on. If I can't reason it out, I must make a guess. A bare half-hour they give me. "

"Then perhaps you shouldn't waste it with a pensionedoff old louey. "

The Young Captain shook his head decisively. "No. You think. You have time to now. "

The Old Lieutenant smiled. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't. And I doubt if I can give you any special angles on telepaths, Jim. It's true I've lately been whiling away the time on informal study of alien thought systems with Khla-Khla the Martian, but—"

"I didn't come to you looking for a specialist on telepathy," the Young Captain asserted sharply.

"Very well then, Jim. You know what you're doings Let's hear your case. And give me background. I don’t keep up with the news. '

The Young Captain looked skeptical. "Everyone in High Chicago has heard about the murder—not two furlongs from here—of the representative of the Arcturian peace party. '

"I haven't,” the Old Lieutenant said.

"No. The Arcturians are the first non-related humanoid race to turn up in the Galaxy. Non-related to Earth humans, that is. True, they have three eyes, and six fingers on each hand, but they are hairless mammalian bipeds just the same. One of their females is the current burlesque sensation of the Star and Garter. "

"The police found that a good spot to keep their eyes on in my day too," the Old Lieutenant recalled, nodding. "Are the Arcturians telepaths?"

"No. I'll come to the telepathy angle later. The Arcturians are split into two" parties: those who want to enter the Commerce Union and open their planets to alien starships, including Earth's—the peace party, in short—and those who favour a policy of strict non-intercourse which, as far as we know, always intimately leads to war. The war party is rather the stronger of the two. Any event may tip the balance. "

"Such as a representative of the peace party coming quietly to Earth and getting himself bumped before he even gets down from High Chicago?" <^

"Exactly. It looks bad, Scan. It looks as if we wanted war. The other member peoples of the Commerce Union are skeptical enough already about the ultimate peacefulness of Earth's intentions toward the whole Galaxy. r. They look on the Arcturian situation as a test. They say that we accepted the Polarians and Antareans and all the rest as equals simply because they are so different from us in form and culture—it's easy to admit theoretical equality with a bumblebee, say, and then perhaps do him dirt afterward.