The cartoon man wasn't finished. "Okay, so you need to work on Rule One. Get some rest. Rule Two is see a healer when you don't feel good. You're shaking, so you need a healer. Healer Kir, front and center!"

Kir snapped a comic salute. "Sir, yes, sir!"

"Stay with Ash. That's an order!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" He picked him up.

Ash giggled. "Kir, you sound like Diplomat Dangerous when 'Danger's Team Went to Merit Colony!"

I laughed. "Hey, I remember that! Season Sixty-Two, wasn't it?"

"Sure was!" Kir giggled, too. "Diplomat Dangerous says, 'Guys, we have to infiltrate Merit Colony. I traded for many water filters." He juggled paper cylinders that looked like white toilet paper rolls.

'That's not what infiltrate means.' Kir imitated Diplomat Hangryous' deep voice. 'We have to pretend we are residents of Merit Colony. You know, like homeless people. Dress in gray sweats. Show up at the doors and give 'em a sob story.'

Then he imitated Diplomat Dangerous' tenor. He waved, and all the toilet paper rolls vanished as his white diplomat's onepiece melted into gray. 'So, we port to the doors, and --'

'Not a gray DS uniform, silly Zheien! Gray sweatshirt and sweat pants!' He waved, and the uniform became a loose, two piece sweatsuit.

Diplomat Dangerous looks at him in horror. 'I can nae go to negotiate for filtered water dressed so! This is casual dress!'

'You are not going to negotiate or act like a diplomat. You'll blow our cover!' He stood tall like the stiff, gangly Hangryous.

Then, he relaxed like the rounded Dangerous and replied in the tenor, 'I will nae blow on the covers, this is rude!'

In the deep voice, he stood straight. 'Dangerous, this is an undercover mission! It is secret! We can't let them know we work for Danger Service. We will pretend to be poor."

Cevit Ion, the Emperor, dressed in his pin-filled gray vest and layered gray pants like a window dressing, stepped onto the ship. Before anyone could bow, he ran up to Kir with a dismayed expression. Totally in character for Diplomat Dangerous. "We can nae be poor! We must do excellent work, because we work for --"

Kir and Cevit Ion struck a pose for the fake camera the latter waved up, and said in unison, 'Danger Service!'

Everyone on the ship and around the outside laughed and applauded! Cevit Ion took a bow and waved to Kir, who also took a bow, then bowed again, much lower, to the Emperor. "My liege, that was an excellent performance!"

"Ah, you are too modest, my friend! Your Diplomat Hangryous is just like! Harmon, please introduce me to Miss Edison."

He bowed low, to him, then to me. "My Emperor, here is Maybelle Edison, our Merit operative."

-- Merit Operative, an unpublished story