Achernarian Embassy.

It was considerably larger than any other building he had seen, extending back from the street almost twice as far as the average Regulusian building.

Having the driver wait, Manning stood in front of a viewing plate and requested an interview with Seero Sna, Ambassador from Achernar. He identified himself as a political observer from the government and tried to imply that he was completely non-partisan. After a moment the door clicked open and a voice invited him to take the elevator to the lowest floor.

In terms of storeys, the building was also larger than the average. Manning counted twelve floors before the elevator stopped. As he stepped out, a voice asked him to walk through the house and into the garden.

It was then that he discovered that in one respect the house was smaller than he'd thought. From the street level it had seemed to be twice as long as the ordinary house; actually it was narrow, extending back the length of one room. Beyond that was the garden.

The garden was the biggest surprise of all. For a moment after stepping into it he could have sworn he was on the Achernarian planet. It was filled with the flowering shrubs and trees native to Achernar and the air was heavy with the scent of the blossoms. Above, it extended for the full twelve storeys. At the very top there was a transparent container in which there was a small nuclear machine creating subatomic energy. It was an exact duplicate of the Achernarian sun, built to scale so that the heat from it felt the same as if he had been standing under the real thing on Achernar. Although he could not look directly at it, its appearance seemed to be in perfect scale, too. Small artificial clouds floated lazily over the garden.

"Well, what do you want?" an irritable voice asked. This time there was no evidence of amplification, so he knew it was coming directly from the Ambassador. He looked around until he located the Achernarian stretched out in a sort of hammock beneath one of the trees.

Achernarians belong to the Hymenoptera order. That is to say that they are bees, in much the same sense that Terrans are primates. But quite different from any bees which Terrans had seen prior to space flight. The average Achernarian—and the Ambassador was considered an average political-type Achernarian[9]—was about two feet from end to end. He could walk upright or in the manner usually expected of insect life, being equipped with four feet, of 

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