that Mr. Zytztz was watching him.

Healey looked hard, but evidently there were no eyes.

"Sir," said Healey, "the admiral wishes to see you—only you," he said.

Of course Healey did not expect them to understand.

He just didn't know what else to do, and maybe if he went through the words, his motions or something would give the general idea.

Well, they understood—so well that it scared Healey half to death. Mr. Zytztz started to shuffle toward him. The other two did not move. Healey wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned and led the way down the corridor to the bridge. Mr. Zytztz followed, bending and weaving considerably to keep his leaves from scraping against the ceiling.

He stood patiently in the center of the room and faced the admiral. That gave Healey a start. How did Mr. Zytztz know which was the ranking officer? Nobody had said a word. How did he know there was anybody in the room? How did he even know this was the room? Maybe it was an accident.

Presently everybody was walking around him, looking him over and talking about him in a way that would have been very impolite if he had been human, but Mr. Zytztz stood very calm and patient on his stalk and did not even resist when the botanist felt of his "leaves."

Once in a while, after somebody made a remark, that strange rustling would come from Mr. Zytztz, almost as if he was trying to answer.

Well, they got back to Earth in fourteen days. They delivered the three Zytztzes to the World Council, which during their absence had been re-named the Inter-World Council, and already the video-casters called it the IWC.

There was a great banquet, at which three Zytztzes were treated as formally as if they were diplomats from a powerful nation. They were at the banquet table, but they stood; they didn't sit. They listened to the speeches, or at least they were quiet during the talking, even when old Senator Philipuster rolled sonorous phrases like "the dawn of a new era in interplanetary good will" off his tongue for two hours and a half in his official capacity of U.S. Delegate at Large to the IWC. But after the senator sat down and everybody was thinking, "Thank goodness," Mr. Zytztz's top leaves dipped toward the floor and he 

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