interworld adj.

There is but one place where the absolute zero of temperature can exist; in outer space between the distant stars. Here it is said the temperature is 273 degrees below centigrade zero. But if an inter-world traveler were equipped to breathe properly and resist the change in pressure he could step out upon the wing of his plane and remain there for a long time without discomfort from the cold.

At least Dave couldn’t cause any real inter-world complications here.

A little over a year ago, Solar Arbitrary Time, a message rocket dropped into the receiving chute at the Interworld Space Authority headquarters on Mars.

With interplanetary and interstellar travel, an already existing and working form of interworld government, with our knowledge of space and time and matter which cropped up occasionally and inevitably in my conversations with Serrnak Deg, it was glaringly obvious to them that our civilization was materially far in advance of theirs; that their achievements, compared to ours, were childish.

Well, they got back to Earth in fourteen days. They delivered the three Zytztes to the World Council, which during their absence had been re-named the Inter-World Council, and already the video-casters called it the I. W. C.

It was easy, too, to enter the planet Grekh; you just boarded an interworld ferry from either of the two sister-planets, Pittam or Speewry.

The stakes—Peace with the Martians if he succeeds, and colonial union with the democratic inter-world empire.

Sport is international, inter-race, inter-world, inter-species.

Interworld trade might come only every few thousand hours, but it was backed by and built on exhaustive, careful negotiation. With the arrival of each immership, terms agreed between Staff and Hosts (with the imprimatur of Bremen’s representative) were communicated, the vessel would leave with those details and Ariekene goods and tech, returning on its next round with whatever we had promised the Ariekei in return. They were patient.