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a squirrel. The boy chirped back and said: ‘I, Knafti, commend you on your effective work, but stop it.’
     
    ‘By which,’ rumbled Colonel Peyroles, ‘he means knock it off.’
     
    ‘Go fight a space war, Peyroles. Timmy - I mean, Knafti, this is the job I’m paid to do. The Arcturan Confederacy itself hired us. I take my orders from Arthur S. Bigelow, Jr, and I carry them out whether Knafti likes it or not.’
     
    Chirp and chitter between Knafti and the pale, limping boy. The Arcturan left his twining-tree and moved to the window, looking out into the sky and the copter traffic. Timmy Brown said: ‘It does not matter what your orders may be, I, Knafti, tell you that your work is harmful.’ He hesitated, mumbling to himself. ‘We do not wish to obtain our base here at the cost of what is true, and -’ he turned imploringly to the Arcturan - ‘and it is apparent you are attempting to change the truth.’
     
    He chirped at the Arcturan, who took his blind black eyes from the window and came towards us. Arcturans don’t walk, exactly. They drag themselves on the lower part of the thorax. Their limbs are supple and thin, and what are not used for support are used for gestures. Knafti used a number of his now, as he chirped one short series of sounds at the boy.
     
    ‘- Otherwise,’ Timmy Brown finished off, ‘I, Knafti, tell you we will have to fight this war over again.’
     
    ~ * ~
     
    As soon as I was back in my room I messaged Chicago for orders and clarification and got back the answer I expected: Hold everything. Referring matter to ASB-jr. Await instructions.
     
    So I awaited. The way I awaited was to call Candace at the office and get the latest sitrep. I told her about the near-riot in the Truce Team’s suite and asked her what it was all about. She shook her head. ‘We have their appointments schedule, Gunner. It just says “Meeting with civic leaders.” But one of the leaders has a secretary who goes to lunch with a girl from Records & Accounting here and—’
     
    ‘And you’ll find out. All right, do that, and now what’s the current picture?’
     
    She began reading off briefing digests and field reports. They were mixed, but not altogether bad. Opinion sampling showed a small rise in favourability towards the Arcturans, in fact. It wasn’t much, but it was the first plus change I had seen, and doubly puzzling because of Knafti’s attitude and the brawl with the civic leaders. I asked, ‘Why, honey?’
     
    Candace’s face in the screen was as puzzled as mine. ‘We’re still digging.’
     
    ‘All right. Go on.’
     
    There were more pauses. The Flower Fair had yielded surprisingly big profits in attitudes - among those who attended. Of course, they were only a tiny fraction of the population of Belport. The Arcats were showing a plus for us, too. Where we were down was in PTA meeting resolutions, in resignations from Candace’s Arcturan-American Friendship League, in poor attendance at neighbourhood coffee-klatsches.
     
    Now that I knew what to look for, I could see what the Children had done to us. In every family-situation sampling, the attitudes were measurably worse than when the subjects were interviewed in a non-family environment - at work, stopped on the street, in a theatre.
     
    The importance of that was just what I had told Connick. No man is a simple entity. He behaves one way when his self-image is as head of a family, another when he is at a cocktail party, another at work, another still when a pretty girl sits down beside him on a commutercopter. Elementary truths. But it had taken the M/R boys half a century to learn how to use them.
     
    In this case the use was clear: Play down family elements, play up play. I ordered more floats, torchlight parades and a teenage beauty contest. I cancelled the fourteen picnic rallies we had planned and ordered a hold on the coffee-klatsches.
     
    I was not exactly obeying Chicago’s orders. But it didn’t matter.