A consular official on the planet Niobe recounts how his world joined the Terran Confederation, and how a celebratory dinner party nearly destroyed an ecosystem. It starts with joy: humans sharing Earth's bounty with the alien Niobians, introducing them to the humble oyster. But the oysters thrive in alien waters far too well. They breed without restraint, choking the native seas, threatening to collapse the entire marine ecology. With the help of biologist Heinz Bergdorf, Lanceford races to contain the infestation before it wipes out an entire world. The Niobians respond by establishing a blockade, and in the chaos of crisis, an improbable government emerges, a customs agency born to prevent exactly the kind of biological interference that caused the disaster. Bone's 1960s ecological parable works as sharp satire: the cure creates its own bureaucracy, and humanity's well-intentioned generosity becomes the very threat that demands walls be built. Wry, compact, and surprisingly funny about the absurdity of institutional solutions.
