Bayley develops a marvelous hypothesis uncannily reminiscent of the philosophy of clothes in Swift's Tale of a Tub. Like the Swiftian religion which worships clothes because ""in them we live, and move, and have our being,"" the Caeanic ethos proclaims that clothes, the individual's ""interface with the universe,"" literally make the man. Even so, there is something scary about the powers of the elegant suit acquired by a party of looters from neighboring Ziode. Meanwhile, a team of Ziodean researchers is getting disturbing glimpses into the final inter-galactic implications of the almighty garment. . . . Neat plotting, adequate if slightly ragged writing, lovely situation.