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balloons.
    â€œWhy is it such a small place?” she said.
    â€œBecause Nad is only a small outpost of the Matriarchy,” Adny replied in his golden voice. The picture flipped back to show he had turned to face her on his stool, sipping steaming liquid from his paper cup. No doubt it was kfa or even quphy. He smiled through its steam in a way that must have beguiled the poor sleeping beauty repeatedly, and she found she was wishing he had turned out to be an alien instead. “I owe you great thanks on behalf of the Second Male Lodge,” he said. “We now have the Nadlings where we want them. And since you have given me full control of this ship and access to all my ex-mistress’s power, I can move on to the central worlds in strength and use her as a hostage there.”
    Hitler and Napoleon were both small men, F. C. Stone thought, with golden voices. It gave her a slight, cold frisson to think what she might have loosed on the unfortunate Matriarchy. “You gave me the impression that this was the central world,” said F. C. Stone.
    â€œNot in so many words,” said Adny. “You don’t think I’d be fool enough to move against the strength of the Matriarchy without getting hold of a conscious-class computer first, do you?”
    F. C. Stone wished to say that yes, she did. People took that sort of desperate risk in her books all the time. It depressed her to find him such a cautious rebel. And he had cheated her, as well as his sleeping beauty, and no doubt he was all set to turn the whole works into a Patriarchy. It was a total waste of a morning.
    Or was it? she wondered. A matriarchy where men were sold as slaves was right up her street. There was certainly a book in there. Perhaps she should simply be grateful and hope that Adny did not get too far.
    â€œTell me,” she said, at which he looked up warily from his cup, “what is that stuff you’re drinking? Goffa? Xvay ?”
    She was glad to see she had surprised him. “Only coffee,” he said.

The Plague of Peacocks
    F rom the moment the Platts came to Chipping Hanbury everyone knew they were Caring People. They bought the old cottage up Weavers Close beside the field where the children went to cycle and play football. Mr. Platt took the cottage apart all by himself and built it up again and painted it white. Mrs. Platt took the garden apart and painted everything there white too.
    When they had done that, they began caring for Chipping Hanbury.
    Mr. Platt brought out a news sheet which he called Hanbury Village News and put a copy through everyone’s door. The copies were addressed to everyone by their first names in the most friendly way: the Willises’ was to Glenda and Jack, the Moores’ to Lily and Tony, the Dougals’ to Marcia and Ken, and so on. Everyone wondered how Mr. Platt knew their names, and whether he was right to call Hanbury a village when it was really just a place on the edge of London. The news sheet was full of kind advice about how Hanbury needed more streetlights and a bus shelter and tidier front gardens. Weavers Pond was full of rubbish too, Mr. Platt said reproachfully, and the football field ought to be a proper sports center. People like Glenda and Jack, who had private incomes, really ought to see about cleaning the place up.
    â€œWhy does he think we have private incomes?” said Mrs. Willis. “Because the children have ponies?” Mrs. Willis did typing for people in order to pay for the ponies and she was rather hurt.
    Meanwhile, Mrs. Platt was caring for animals. The first to go was the Dougals’ cat Sooty. Then the Deans’ dog Lambert. Then Holly Smith’s angora rabbit. Mrs. Platt called on the Dougals, the Deans, and the Smiths and explained at length that she had found the animal wandering about, and it might have gone in the road, and there was such a lot of traffic these days, and one should keep pets tied up. Mrs. Platt was