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he’s doing,” Darzek said. “I’m telling you. I’m going to Kamm. I’m going to try to find Rok Wllon. I’m going to try to find out what happened to those nine missing agents. I’m going to see exactly what this wood, non-electrical device is that the Department of Uncertified Worlds calls a pazul. While I’m doing all that, I’ll send back reports—for your eyes only. They aren’t to be discussed with anyone, not even the other councilors, except in this room and under a pledge of secrecy. I don’t want Supreme suddenly deciding to destroy Kamm while I’m there working to solve this thing.”
    He got to his feet. “You’re First Councilor in my absence. I have this advice for you. The best way to run an efficient council—especially a Council of Supreme—is to hold meetings as infrequently as possible.”
    E-Wusk said emotionally, “If nine agents are missing, and now Rok Wllon is missing—take care, Gul Darr!”
    “I always do,” Darzek said, “except when it interferes with my work. Now I have to turn myself over to the Department of Uncertified Worlds, and I hate to think what it’s going to do to me.”

CHAPTER 4
    The question had been debated before: Did the potential reward from illegal trade justify the risk? Both the law and economics said no. Darzek refused to believe that an entire galaxy of superior intelligences would not produce an occasional crafty individual who could glimpse an illegal fast buck invisible to others and devise a safe way to grab it.
    He had arranged a simple precautionary check of his own by having automatic space monitors set throughout the galaxy. Their usefulness in tracing malfunctioning space ships more than justified the expense. Now Darzek could settle the question of illegal trade with Kamm by asking a patrol to tap the monitors in that sector, and he did so.
    Then he placed himself at the mercy of the Department of Uncertified Worlds, and twenty minutes after his arrival he was furiously angry at Kom Rmmon, the department, and the world of Kamm. Not even the anesthesia that accompanied his surgery completely quieted him.
    Kom Rmmon had waxed enthusiastically over the alleged similarities between Kammians and humans. Darzek received the distinct impression that he could switch species by changing his clothes.
    Now he discovered that a few unsubtle differences required drastic modifications in his appearance, and that no one could perform as a Synthesis agent anywhere without extensive training. He entered surgery in an exceedingly angry mood, and he was still angry when he came out of it.
    He glared at his bandaged hands and feet, and then he examined his bandaged head in a mirror. “If you don’t take good care of my ears,” he told the surgeon, “when I return, I’ll make you eat them.”
    The surgeon, a multistalked Padulupe who consumed only liquids, blanched.
    There were two methods by which an agent of the Galactic Synthesis was enabled to pass as a native on an Uncertified World. One involved an elaborate disguise—a synthetic epidermis made to duplicate the external characteristics of the native life form and at the same time accommodate the alien agent within it. The other method was to take an agent whose physical appearance was similar to that of the native life form and to erase or modify any conflicting features with surgery.
    The Kammians were startlingly human in appearance, but they had no ears, and they did have six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. They also had genital organs entirely different in appearance, function, and position from those of humans, but Darzek insisted on his inalienable right to draw the line somewhere.
    His ears were removed and placed in deep freeze to await his return. Flesh was drawn smoothly over the aural openings, but his inner ears were not tampered with. He retained enough hearing ability to have the advantage of an extra sense on a world where the natives were deaf; but not so much that he