"What do you mean by that?" Kemridge demanded as the beers were drawn and set on the bar.
"Just one moment, please." The alien curled two tentacles gently around the beers and poured one into each of the two feeding-mouths at the sides of his face. "Marvelous liquid, your beer. The one point where Earth is clearly superior to Domerang is in brewing."
"To get back to the lights -- " Kemridge prodded.
"Oh, yes," the alien said. "The lights. Well, they"re a pretty fair job -- as good as we could have hoped for from a second-rate technology."
"Now hold on a minute!" Marner said hotly, and that was how it started.
"I wish we"d kept our mouths shut," Marner said glumly. He stared balefully at the spotless ceiling of the hotel room in which the Domerangi had installed them.
Kemridge whirled and glared down at the smaller man. "Listen, Justin: we"re here and we"re going to show them up and go home rich and famous. Got that?"
"Okay," Marner said. He ran a finger along his thin lower lip. "I"m sorry I keep popping off like this. But it does seem screwy to have gone to this extent just to prove a point that came up in a barroom debate."
"I know. But we wouldn"t have come here if the State Department hadn"t heard about the argument and thought it needed settling. The Domerangi have been acting lordly about their technology as long as we"ve known them. I think it"s a great idea to send a couple of honest-to-Christmas Terran engineers up here to show them once and for all who"s got what it takes."
"But suppose we _don"t_ show them?"
"We will! Between the two of us, we can match anything they throw at us. Can"t we?"
Marner smiled gloomily. "Sure we can," he said without conviction. "I haven"t doubted it for one minute."
Kemridge walked to the door and, with a swift searching motion of his fingers, found the plate that covered the door mechanism. He unclipped it.
"Look in here, for example," he said, after a moment"s scrutiny. "Simple cybernetic mechanism. I don"t quite figure the way this green ceramic relay down here controls the power flow, but it"s nothing we couldn"t dope out, given a screwdriver and a little spare time."
Marner stood on tiptoes and peered in. "Perfectly understandable gadget," be commented. "Not nearly as efficient as our kind, either."
"That"s just the point," Kemridge said. "These Domerangi aren"t half the sharks they think they are. We stipulated that we could duplicate anything they gave us, right? With our natural savvy and a little perspiration, we ought to be able to match the best gadget they test us with. If we follow through up here and those two Domerangi engineers on Earth mess up their half of the test, then we"ve done it. The State Department"s counting on our versatility. That"s all we need, Justin -- cleverness!"
Marner"s eyes lit up. "Dave, I"m sorry I was so pig-headed a minute ago. We"ll give them the business, all right!"
He stood up a little higher and gingerly extended a hand into the gaping servomechanism in the wall.
"What are you doing?" Kemridge asked.
"Never mind. Get on the phone and tell Plorvash that we"ll be ready to get to work tomorrow. While you"re doing that, I want to fool with this relay. Might as well get some practice now!" He was radiant with new-found enthusiasm.
When Plorvash knocked on the door the following morning, the mood was still on them. They were clear-eyed, wide awake, and firmly convinced they could master any problem.
"Who"s there?" Marner asked loudly.
"Me," the Domerangi said. "Plorvash."
Instantly the door flew open and the dumbfounded alien charge d"affaires was confronted with the sight of the two Earthmen still snug in their beds. He peered behind the door and in the closet.
"Who opened the door?" he asked suspiciously.
Marner sat up in bed and grinned. "Try it again. Go outside and call out "Plorvash" the way you just did."
The alien lumbered out, pulling the door shut behind him. When he was outside, he said his name again and the door opened immediately. He thundered across the threshold and looked from Marner to Kemridge. "What did you do?"
"We were experimenting with the door-opener last night," Kemridge said. "And before we put it back together, we decided it might be fun to rig up a modified vocoder circuit that would open the door automatically at the sound of the syllables "Plorvash" directed at it from outside. It works very nicely."
The alien scowled. "Ah -- yes. Very clever. Now as to the terms of this test you two are to engage in: We"ve prepared a fully equipped laboratory for you in Central Sqorvik -- that"s a suburb not far from here -- and we"ve set up two preliminary problems for you, as agreed. When you"ve dealt with those -- _if_ you"ve dealt with those -- we"ll give you a third."
"And if we don"t deal with them successfully?"
"Why, then you"ll have failed to demonstrate your ability."
"Reasonable enough," Marner said. "But just when do we _win_ this thing? Do you go on giving us projects till we miss?"
"That would be the ultimate proof of your ability, wouldn"t it?" Plorvash asked. "But you"ll be relieved to know that we have no such plans. According to the terms of the agreement between ourselves and your government, the test groups on each planet will be required to carry out no more than three projects." The alien"s two mouths smiled unpleasantly. "We"ll consider successful completion of all three projects as ample proof of your ability."
"I don"t like the way you say that," Kemridge objected. "What"s up your sleeve?"
"My sleeve? I don"t believe I grasp the idiom," Plorvash said.
"Never mind. Just a Terran expression," said Kemridge.
A car was waiting for them outside the hotel -- a long, low job with a pulsating flexible hood that undulated in a distressing fashion, like a monstrous metal artery.
Plorvash slid the back door open. "Get in. I"ll take you to the lab to get started."
Marner looked at the alien, then at Kemridge. Kemridge nodded. "How about one for the road?" Marner suggested.
"Eh?"
"Another idiom," he said. "I mean a drink. Alcoholic beverage. Stimulant of some kind. You catch?"
The alien grinned nastily. "I understand. There"s a dispensary on the next street. We don"t want to rush you on this thing, anyway." He pointed to the moving roadway. "Get aboard and we"ll take a quick one."
They followed the Domerangi onto the moving strip and a moment later found themselves in front of a domed structure planted just off the roadway.
"It doesn"t look very cozy," Kemridge commented as they entered. A pungent odor of ether hit their nostrils. Half a dozen Domerangi were lying on the floor, holding jointed metal tubes. As they watched, Plorvash clambered down and sprawled out on his back.
"Come join me," he urged. "Have a drink." He reached for a tube that slithered across the floor toward him and fitted it into his left feeding mouth.
"This is a bar?" Kemridge asked unhappily. "It looks more like the emergency ward of a hospital."
Plorvash finished drinking and stood up, wiping a few drops of green liquid from his jaw. "Good," he said. "It"s not beer, but it"s good stuff. I thought you two wanted to drink."
Marner sniffed the ether-laded air in dismay and shook his head. "We"re not -- thirsty. It takes time to get used to alien customs, I suppose."
"I suppose so," Plorvash agreed. "Very well, then. Let"s go to the lab, shall we?"
The laboratory was, indeed, a sumptuous place. The two Earthmen stood at the entrance to the monstrous room and marveled visibly.
"We"re impressed," Marner said finally to the Domerangi.
"We want to give you every opportunity to succeed," Plorvash said. "This is just as important for us as it is for you."
Marner took two or three steps into the lab and glanced around. To the left, an enormous oscilloscope wiggled greenly at him. The right-hand wall was bristling with elaborate servomechanisms of all descriptions. The far wall was a gigantic toolchest, and workbenches were spotted here and there. The lighting -- indirect, of course -- was bright and eye-easing. It was the sort of research setup a sane engineer rarely bothers even to dream of.
"You"re making it too easy for us," said Kemridge. "It can"t be hard to pull off miracles in a lab like this."
"We are honest people. If you can meet our tests, we"ll grant that you"re better than we are. _If_ you can, that is. If you fail, it can"t be blamed on poor working conditions."
"Fair enough," Kemridge agreed. "When are you ready to start?"
"Immediately." Plorvash reached into the bagging folds of his sash and withdrew a small plastic bubble, about four inches long, containing a creamy-white fluid.
"This is a depilator," he said. He squeezed a few drops out of the bubble into the spoonlike end of one tentacle and rubbed the liquid over the thick, heavy red beard that sprouted on his lower jaw. A streak of beard came away as he rubbed. "It is very useful." He handed the bubble to Marner. "Duplicate it."
"But we"re engineers, not chemists," Marner protested.
"Never mind, Justin." Kemridge turned to the alien. "That"s the first problem. Suppose you give us the second one at the same time, just to make things more convenient. That way, we"ll each have one to work on."
Plorvash frowned. "You want to work on two projects at once? All right." He turned, strode out, and returned a few moments later, carrying something that looked like a large mousetrap inside a cage. He handed it to Kemridge.
"We use this to catch small house pests," Plorvash explained. "It"s a self-baiting trap. Most of our house pests are color-sensitive and this trap flashes colors as a lure. For example, it does this to trap vorks -- " he depressed a lever in the back and the trap glowed a lambent green -- "and this to catch flaibs." Another lever went down and the trap radiated warm purple. An unmistakable odor of rotting vegetation emanated from it as well.
"It is, as you see, most versatile," the alien went on. "We"ve supplied you with an ample number of vermin of different sorts -- they"re at the back of the lab, in those cages -- and you ought to be able to rig a trap to duplicate this one. At least, I hope you can."
"Is this all?" Kemridge asked.
Plorvash nodded. "You can have all the time you need. That was the agreement."
"Exactly," Kemridge said. "We"ll let you know when we"ve gotten somewhere."
"Fine," said Plorvash.
After he had left, Marner squeezed a couple of drops of the depilatory out onto the palm of his hand. It stung and he immediately shook it off.
"Better not fool with that till we"ve run an a.n.a.lysis," Kemridge suggested. "If it"s potent enough to remove Domerangi beards, it"s probably be a good skin-dissolver for Earthmen. Those babies have tough hides."
Marner rubbed his hand clean hastily. "What do you think of the deal in general?"
"Pretty soft," Kemridge said. "It shouldn"t take more than a week to knock off both these things, barring complications. Seems to me they could pick tougher projects than these."
"Wait till the final one," warned Marner. "These are just warm-ups."
Four days later, Marner called Plorvash from the lab. The alien"s bulky form filled the screen. "h.e.l.lo," he said mildly. "What"s new?"
"We"ve finished the job," Marner reported.
"Both of them?"
"Naturally."
"I"ll be right over."
Plorvash strode into the lab about fifteen minutes later, and the two Earthmen, who were busy with the animal cages at the back of the lab, waved in greeting.
"Stay where you are," Kemridge called loudly. He reached up, pressed a switch, and thirty cages clanged open at once.
As a horde of Domerangi vermin came bounding, slithering, crawling, and rolling across the floor toward Plorvash, the alien leaped back in dismay. "What kind of trick is this?"
"Don"t worry," Marner said, from the remotest corner of the lab. "It"ll all be over in a second."
The animals ignored Plorvash and, to his surprise, they made a beeline for a complex, humming arrangement of gears and levers behind the door. As they approached, it began flashing a series of colors, emanating strange odors, and making curious clicking noises. When the horde drew closer, jointed arms suddenly sprang out and scooped them wholesale into a hopper that gaped open at floor level. Within a moment, they were all stowed away inside.
Marner came across the lab, followed by Kemridge. "We"ve improved on your model," he said. "We"ve built a better trap. Your version can deal with only one species at a time."
Plorvash gulped resoundingly. "Very nice. Quite remarkable, in fact."
"We have the schematics in our room," said Kemridge. "The trap may have some commercial value on Domerang."
"Probably," Plorvash admitted. "How"d you do on the depilator?"
"That was easy," Marner said. "With the setup you gave us, chemical a.n.a.lysis was a snap. Only I"m afraid we"ve improved on the original model there, too."
"What do you mean?"
Marner rubbed the side of his face uneasily. "I tried our stuff on myself, couple of days ago, and my face is still smooth as a baby"s. The effect seems to be permanent."
"You"ll submit samples, of course," Plorvash said. "But I think it"s fairly safe to a.s.sume that you"ve pa.s.sed through the first two projects -- ah -- reasonably well. Curiously, your counterparts on Earth also did well on their preliminaries, according to our Consul in New York."
"Glad to hear it," Marner lied. "But the third problem tells the tale, doesn"t it?"
"Exactly," said Plorvash. "Let"s have that one now, shall we?"
A few minutes later, Marner and Kemridge found themselves staring down at a complicated nest of glittering relays and tubes that seemed to power an arrangement of pistons and rods. Plorvash had carried it in with the utmost delicacy and had placed it on a workbench in the middle of the vast laboratory.
"What is it?" Marner asked.