seven or eight times. The name of a street would often change in the middle of a block. Other races who had spent a lifetime there still couldn't find their way around the city.[4] As a result the largest single profession on the planet was that of guide.

[4] The Canopusians couldn't either, but they didn't care.

Almost the entire city had been built before other races had descended on Canopus and the buildings showed the same lack of concern. There were sky-scrapers running up seventy and eighty stories in which there were no elevators or in which floors were constructed in such haphazard split-level design that you couldn't find a particular floor without a guide. Many buildings, residential and professional, stood empty because the builders had neglected to include any sort of entrance. All of this had produced two schools of thought; one convinced that Canopusians were pretty stupid and the other contending that they just didn't give a damn.

Canopusia was a thriving city, but almost all industry and commerce was carried on by other races. Similarly, the guides were all foreigners, although limited to those races with phenomenal memories.

Arriving at the hotel, Manning registered and they were escorted to a suite by a Canopusian bellboy, accompanied by an official guide. He could hardly wait until they were inside, and the bellboy and guide were gone, for Fanya had never stopped yakking at him in that shrill voice from the time they had left the spaceport. The shrewish whine finally trailed off as the door closed, leaving them alone.

"How am I doing?" she asked in her normal voice.

It was such a relief that Manning, without thinking, swung a gentle slap at a rounded and attractive portion of her anatomy. It was a mistake for he in turn was slapped silly by ultrasonic waves.

He recovered, cursing J. Barnaby with heartfelt emotion. As he did so, he saw a Canopusian third eye retreating through the keyhole. He laughed in spite of himself.

"As much as I hate to admit it," he said "J. Barnaby did have a good idea. Canopusians being what they are, it won't be an hour before the entire city knows that Mrs. Draco wears some sort of contraption which klobbers her husband every time he tries to touch her and that Mrs. Draco also has a voice that sounds like an atomic saw trying to chew through asteroid ore, and never stops using it. That ought to bring the wife-killer on the 

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