“Thinking of trying your spot of diplomacy, are you?” asked Dr. Alcott, doubtfully. “I hope you know what you’re doing?”
“Quite probably not, Romalda, but I am committed. I wish it wasn’t necessary for Johan to share the risk, but—” whereupon she was interrupted twofold, by Johan’s ineloquent but vehement protests that he was not afraid, and by Dr. Alcott, who had removed her pack and began to rummage around in it.
“I can suggest a better way, unless you’re in a desperate hurry to catch a few spears in your back,” she announced, drawing a strange assortment of objects from her pack: a sealed glass jar, containing a vertical stack of copper and silver discs in a clear liquid; a wooden box with a wide, inverted metal cone attached to the top, and metal bolts protruding from its sides; a sm
