Dissolute Diplomat

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Gringledoonk lay in a comfortable floor dish, experimenting with himself out of sheer boredom. From three points along his perimeter he projected slim pseudopods, intertwined them for a short distance in the centre, then split the end of each in two and looped them out to form six little hooks.

Listlessly he solidified the edifice and extruded an eye to examine it. It did not look like much.

There were several races in the Federation who covered their bodies with fabrics, and this thing he had made might have been useful to one of them, but not to anybody civilised. More bored than ever, he commenced the slow process of dissolving the hardened pseudopods.

A low whistle came from the entrance of the tubeway in the palace wall. The little circular door opened and Mugg, his Minister of Home Affairs, shot out on to the floor. He lay for a moment in the bullet shape that Gyoinks used for travelling the tubeway; then he reformed and flowed into the floor dish beside Gringledoonk.

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