<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></SPAN>CHAPTER III</h3>
<p>New Austin spaceport was a huge place, a good fifty miles outside the
city. As we descended, I could see that it was laid out like a wheel,
with the landings and the blast-off stands around the hub, and high
buildings—packing houses and refrigeration plants—along the many
spokes. It showed a technological level quite out of keeping with the
accounts I had read, or the stories Hoddy had told, about the simple
ranch life of the planet. Might be foreign capital invested there, and I
made a mental note to find out whose.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Old Texas, on Terra, had been heavily industrialized;
so much so that the state itself could handle the gigantic project of
building enough spaceships to move almost the whole population into
space.</p>
<p>Then the landing-field was rushing up at us, with the nearer ends of the
roadways and streets drawing close and the far ends lengthening out away
from us. The other lighter was already down, and I could see a crowd
around it.</p>
<p>There was a crowd waiting for us when we got out and went down the
escalators to the ground, and as I had expected, a special group of men
waiting for me. They were headed by a tall, slender individual in the
short black Eisenhower jacket, gray-striped trousers and black homburg
that was the uniform of the Diplomatic Service, alias the Cookie
Pushers.</p>
<p>Over their heads at the other rocket-boat, I could see the gold-gleaming
head of the girl I'd met on the ship.</p>
<p>I tried to push through the crowd and get to her. As I did, the Cookie
Pusher got in my way.</p>
<p>"Mr. Silk! Mr. Ambassador! Here we are!" he was clamoring. "The car for
the Embassy is right over here!" He clutched my elbow. "You have no idea
how glad we all are to see you, Mr. Ambassador!"</p>
<p>"Yes, yes; of course. Now, there's somebody over there I
have to see, at once." I tried to pull myself loose from his grasp.</p>
<p>Across the concrete between the two lighters, I could see the girl push
out of the crowd around her and wave a hand to me. I tried to yell to
her; but just then another lighter, loaded with freight, started to lift
out at another nearby stand, with the roar of half a dozen Niagaras. The
thin man in the striped trousers added to the uproar by shouting into my
ear and pulling at me.</p>
<p>"We haven't time!" he finally managed to make himself heard. "We're
dreadfully late now, sir! You must come with us."</p>
<p>Hoddy, too, had caught hold of me by the other arm.</p>
<p>"Come on, boss. There's gotta be some reason why he's got himself in an
uproar about whatever it is. You'll see her again."</p>
<p>Then, the whole gang—Hoddy, the thin man with the black homburg, his
younger accomplice in identical garb, and the chauffeur—all closed in
on me and pushed me, pulled me, half-carried me, fifty yards across the
concrete to where their air-car was parked. By this time, the tall
blond had gotten clear of the mob around her and was waving frantically
at me. I tried to wave back, but I was literally crammed into the car
and flung down on the seat. At the same time, the chauffeur was jumping
in, extending the car's wings, jetting up.</p>
<p>"Great God!" I bellowed. "This is the damnedest piece of impudence I've
ever had to suffer from any subordinates in my whole State Department
experience! I want an explanation out of you, and it'd better be a good
one!"</p>
<p>There was a deafening silence in the car for a moment. The thin man
moved himself off my lap, then sat there looking at me with the
heartbroken eyes of a friendly dog that had just been kicked for
something which wasn't really its fault.</p>
<p>"Mr. Ambassador, you can't imagine how sorry we all are, but if we
hadn't gotten you away from the spaceport and to the Embassy at once, we
would all have been much sorrier."</p>
<p>"Somebody here gunnin' for the Ambassador?" Hoddy demanded sharply.</p>
<p>"Oh, no! I hadn't even thought of that," the thin man almost gibbered.
"But your presence at the Embassy is of immediate and urgent necessity.
You have no idea of the state into which things have gotten.... Oh,
pardon me, Mr. Ambassador. I am Gilbert W. Thrombley, your chargé
d'affaires." I shook hands with him. "And Mr. Benito Gomez, the
Secretary of the Embassy." I shook hands with him, too, and started to
introduce Mr. Hoddy Ringo.</p>
<p>Hoddy, however, had turned to look out the rear window; immediately, he
gave a yelp.</p>
<p>"We got a tail, boss! Two of them! Look back there!"</p>
<p>There were two black eight-passenger aircars, of the same model,
whizzing after us, making an obvious effort to overtake us. The
chauffeur cursed and fired his auxiliary jets,
then his rocket-booster.</p>
<p>Immediately, black rocket-fuel puffs shot away from the pursuing
aircars.</p>
<p>Hoddy turned in his seat, cranked open a porthole-slit in the window,
and poked one of his eleven-mm's out, letting the whole clip go.
Thrombley and Gomez slid down onto the floor, and both began trying to
drag me down with them, imploring me not to expose myself.</p>
<p>As far as I could see, there was nothing to expose myself to. The other
cars kept coming, but neither of them were firing at us. There was also
no indication that Hoddy's salvo had had any effect on them. Our
chauffeur went into a perfect frenzy of twisting and dodging, at the
same time using his radiophone to tell somebody to
get the goddamn gate open in a hurry. I saw the blue skies and green
plains of New Texas replacing one another above, under, in front of and
behind us. Then the car set down on a broad stretch of concrete, the
wings were retracted, and we went whizzing down a city street.</p>
<p>We whizzed down a number of streets. We cut corners on two wheels, and
on one wheel, and, I was prepared to swear, on no wheels. A couple of
times, with the wings retracted, we actually jetted into the air and
jumped over vehicles in front of us, landing again with bone-shaking
jolts. Then we made an abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch,
and a big door banged shut behind us, and we stopped, in the middle of a
wide patio, the front of the car a few inches short of a fountain. Four
or five people, in diplomatic striped trousers, local dress and the
uniform of the Space Marines, came running over.</p>
<p>Thrombley pulled himself erect and half-climbed, half-fell, out of the
car. Gomez got out on the other side with Hoddy; I climbed out after
Thrombley.</p>
<p>A tall, sandy-haired man in the uniform of the Space Navy came over.</p>
<p>"What the devil's the matter, Thrombley?" he demanded. Then, seeing me,
he gave me as much of a salute as a naval officer will ever bestow on
anybody in civilian clothes.</p>
<p>"Mr. Silk?" He looked at my costume and the pistols on my belt in
well-bred concealment of surprise. "I'm your military attaché,
Stonehenge; Space-Commander, Space Navy."</p>
<p>I noticed that Hoddy's ears had pricked up, but he wasn't making any
effort to attract Stonehenge's attention. I shook hands with him,
introduced Hoddy, and offered my cigarette case around.</p>
<p>"You seem to have had a hectic trip from the spaceport, Mr. Ambassador.
What happened?"</p>
<p>Thrombley began accusing our driver of trying to murder the lot of us.
Hoddy brushed him aside and explained:</p>
<p>"Just after we'd took off, two other cars took off after us. We speeded
up, and they speeded up, too. Then your fly-boy, here, got fancy. That
shook 'em off. Time we got into the city, we'd dropped them. Nice job of
driving. Probably saved our lives."</p>
<p>"Shucks, that wasn't nothin'," the driver disclaimed. "When you drive
for politicians, you're either good or you're good and dead."</p>
<p>"I'm surprised they started so soon," Stonehenge said. Then he looked
around at my fellow-passengers, who seemed to have realized, by now,
that they were no longer dangling by their fingernails over the brink of
the grave. "But gentlemen, let's not keep the Ambassador standing out
here in the hot sun."</p>
<p>So we went over the arches at the side of the patio, and were about to
sit down when one of the Embassy servants came up, followed by a man in
a loose vest and blue Levis and a big hat. He had a pair of automatics
in his belt, too.</p>
<p>"I'm Captain Nelson; New Texas Rangers," he introduced himself. "Which
one of you-all is Mr. Stephen Silk?"</p>
<p>I admitted it.</p>
<p>The Ranger pushed back his wide hat and grinned at me.</p>
<p>"I just can't figure this out," he said. "You're in the right place and
the right company, but we got a report, from a mighty good source, that
you'd been kidnapped at the spaceport by a gang of thugs!"</p>
<p>"A blond source?" I made curving motions with my hands. "I don't blame
her. My efficient and conscientious chargé d'affaires, Mr. Thrombley,
felt that I should reach the Embassy, here, as soon as possible, and
from where she was standing, it must have looked like a kidnapping.
Fact is, it looked like one from where I was standing, too.
Was that you and your people who were chasing us? Then I must apologize
for opening fire on you ... I hope nobody was hurt."</p>
<p>"No, our cars are pretty well armored. You scored a couple of times on
one of them, but no harm done. I reckon after what happened to Silas
Cumshaw, you had a right to be suspicious."</p>
<p>I noticed that refreshments, including several bottles, had been placed
on a big wicker table under the arched veranda.</p>
<p>"Can I offer you a drink, Captain, in token of mutual amity?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Well, now, I'd like to, Mr. Ambassador, but I'm on duty ..." he began.</p>
<p>"You can't be. You're an officer of the Planetary Government of New
Texas, and in this Embassy, you're in the territory of the Solar
League."</p>
<p>"That's right, now, Mr. Ambassador," he grinned. "Extraterritoriality.
Wonderful thing, extraterritoriality." He looked at Hoddy, who, for the
first time since I had met him, was trying to shrink into the
background. "And diplomatic immunity, too. Ain't it, Hoddy?"</p>
<p>After he had had his drink and departed, we all sat down. Thrombley
began speaking almost at once.</p>
<p>"Mr. Ambassador, you must, you simply must, issue a public statement,
immediately, sir. Only a public statement, issued promptly, will relieve
the crisis into which we have all been thrust."</p>
<p>"Oh, come, Mr. Thrombley," I objected. "Captain Nelson'll take care of
all that in his report to his superiors."</p>
<p>Thrombley looked at me for a moment as though I had been speaking to
him in Hottentot, then waved his hands in polite exasperation.</p>
<p>"Oh, no, no! I don't mean that, sir. I mean a public statement to the
effect that you have assumed full responsibility for the Embassy. Where
is that thing? Mr. Gomez!"</p>
<p>Gomez gave him four or five sheets, stapled together. He laid them on
the table, turned to the last sheet, and whipped out a pen.</p>
<p>"Here, sir; just sign here."</p>
<p>"Are you crazy?" I demanded. "I'll be damned if I'll sign that. Not till
I've taken an inventory of the physical property of the Embassy, and
familiarized myself with all its commitments, and had the books audited
by some firm of certified public accountants."</p>
<p>Thrombley and Gomez looked at one another. They both groaned.</p>
<p>"But we must have a statement of assumption of responsibility ..." Gomez
dithered.</p>
<p>"... or the business of the Embassy will be at a dead stop, and we can't
do anything," Thrombley finished.</p>
<p>"Wait a moment, Thrombley," Stonehenge cut in. "I understand Mr. Silk's
attitude. I've taken command of a good many ships and installations, at
one time or another, and I've never signed for anything I couldn't see
and feel and count. I know men who retired as brigadier generals or
vice-admirals, but they retired loaded with debts incurred because as
second lieutenants or ensigns they forgot that simple rule."</p>
<p>He turned to me. "Without any disrespect to the chargé d'affaires, Mr.
Silk, this Embassy has been pretty badly disorganized since Mr.
Cumshaw's death. No one felt authorized, or, to put it more accurately,
no one dared, to declare himself acting head of the Embassy—"</p>
<p>"Because that would make him the next target?" I interrupted. "Well,
that's what I was sent here for. Mr. Gomez, as Secretary of the Embassy,
will you please, at once, prepare a statement for the press and telecast
release to the effect that I am now the authorized head of this Embassy,
responsible from this hour for all its future policies and all its
present commitments insofar as they obligate the government of the Solar
League. Get that out at once. Tomorrow, I will present my credentials to
the Secretary of State here. Thereafter, Mr. Thrombley, you can rest in
the assurance that I'll be the one they'll be shooting at."</p>
<p>"But you can't wait that long, Mr. Ambassador," Thrombley almost wailed.
"We must go immediately to the Statehouse. The reception for you is
already going on."</p>
<p>I looked at my watch, which had been regulated aboard ship for Capella
IV time. It was just 1315.</p>
<p>"What time do they hold diplomatic receptions on this planet, Mr.
Thrombley?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Oh, any time at all, sir. This one started about 0900 when the news
that the ship was in orbit off-planet got in. It'll be a barbecue, of
course, and—"</p>
<p>"Barbecued supercow! Yipeee!" Hoddy yelled. "What I been waitin' for for
five years!"</p>
<p>It would be the vilest cruelty not to take him along, I thought. And it
would also keep him and Stonehenge apart for a while.</p>
<p>"But we must hurry, Mr. Ambassador," Thrombley was saying. "If you will
change, now, to formal dress ..."</p>
<p>And he was looking at me, gasping. I think it was the first time he had
actually seen what I was wearing.</p>
<p>"In native dress, Mr. Ambassador!"</p>
<p>Thrombley's eyes and tone were again those of an innocent spaniel caught
in the middle of a marital argument.</p>
<p>Then his gaze fell to my belt and his eyes became saucers. "Oh, dear!
And armed!"</p>
<p>My chargé d'affaires was shuddering and he could not look directly at
me.</p>
<p>"Mr. Ambassador, I understand that you were recently appointed from the
Consular Service. I sincerely hope that you will not take it amiss if I
point out, here in private, that—"</p>
<p>"Mr. Thrombley, I am wearing this costume and these pistols on the
direct order of Secretary of State Ghopal Singh."</p>
<p>That set him back on his heels.</p>
<p>"I ... I can't believe it!" he exclaimed. "An ambassador is <i>never</i>
armed."</p>
<p>"Not when he's dealing with a government which respects the comity of
nations and the usages of diplomatic practice, no," I replied. "But the
fate of Mr. Cumshaw clearly indicates that the government of New Texas
is not such a government. These pistols are in the nature of a
not-too-subtle hint of the manner in which this government, here, is
being regarded by the government of the Solar League." I turned to
Stonehenge. "Commander, what sort of an Embassy guard have we?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Space Marines, sergeant and five men. I double as guard officer, sir."</p>
<p>"Very well. Mr. Thrombley insists that it is necessary for me to go to
this fish-fry or whatever it is immediately. I want two men, a driver
and an auto-rifleman, for my car. And from now on, I would suggest,
Commander, that you wear your sidearm at all times outside the Embassy."</p>
<p>"Yes, sir!" and this time, Stonehenge gave me a real salute.</p>
<p>"Well, I must phone the Statehouse, then," Thrombley said. "We will have
to call on Secretary of State Palme, and then on President Hutchinson."</p>
<p>With that, he got up, excused himself, motioned Gomez to follow, and
hurried away.</p>
<p>I got up, too, and motioned Stonehenge aside.</p>
<p>"Aboard ship, coming in, I was told that there's a task force of the
Space Navy on maneuvers about five light-years from here," I said.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir. Task Force Red-Blue-Green, Fifth Space Fleet. Fleet Admiral
Sir Rodney Tregaskis."</p>
<p>"Can we get hold of a fast space-boat, with hyperdrive engines, in a
hurry?"</p>
<p>"Eight or ten of them always around New Austin spaceport, available for
charter."</p>
<p>"All right; charter one and get out to that fleet. Tell Admiral
Tregaskis that the Ambassador at New Austin feels in need of protection;
possibility of z'Srauff invasion. I'll give you written orders. I want
the Fleet within radio call. How far out would that be, with our
facilities?"</p>
<p>"The Embassy radio isn't reliable beyond about sixty light-minutes,
sir."</p>
<p>"Then tell Sir Rodney to bring his fleet in that close. The invasion, if
it comes, will probably not come from the direction of the z'Srauff
star-cluster; they'll probably jump past us and move in from the other
side. I hope you don't think I'm having nightmares, Commander. Danger of
a z'Srauff invasion was pointed out to me by persons on the very highest
level, on Luna."</p>
<p>Stonehenge nodded. "I'm always having the same kind of nightmares, sir.
Especially since this special envoy arrived here, ostensibly to
negotiate a meteor-mining treaty." He hesitated for a moment. "We don't
want the New Texans to know, of course, that you've sent for the fleet?"</p>
<p>"Naturally not."</p>
<p>"Well, if I can wait till about midnight before I leave, I can get a
boat owned, manned and operated by Solar League people. The boat's a
dreadful-looking old tub, but she's sound and fast. The gang who own her
are pretty notorious characters—suspected of smuggling, piracy, and
what not—but they'll keep their mouths shut if well paid."</p>
<p>"Then pay them well," I said. "And it's just as well you're not leaving
at once. When I get back from this clambake, I'll want to have a general
informal council, and I certainly want you in on it."</p>
<p>On the way to the Statehouse in the aircar, I kept wondering just how
smart I had been.</p>
<p>I was pretty sure that the z'Srauff was getting ready for a sneak attack
on New Texas, and, as Solar League Ambassador, I of course had the right
to call on the Space Navy for any amount of armed protection.</p>
<p>Sending Stonehenge off on what couldn't be less than an eighteen-hour
trip would delay anything he and Hoddy might be cooking up, too.</p>
<p>On the other hand, with the fleet so near, they might decide to have me
rubbed out in a hurry, to justify seizing the planet ahead of the
z'Srauff.</p>
<p>I was in that pleasant spot called, "Damned if you do and damned if you
don't...."</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></SPAN>CHAPTER IV</h3>
<p>The Statehouse appeared to cover about a square mile of ground and it
was an insane jumble of buildings piled beside and on top of one
another, as though it had been in continuous construction ever since the
planet was colonized, eighty-odd years before.</p>
<p>At what looked like one of the main entrances, the car stopped. I told
our Marine driver and auto-rifleman to park the car and take in the
barbecue, but to leave word with the doorman where they could be found.
Hoddy, Thrombley and I then went in, to be met by a couple of New Texas
Rangers, one of them the officer who had called at the Embassy. They
guided us to the office of the Secretary of State.</p>
<p>"We're dreadfully late," Thrombley was fretting. "I do hope we haven't
kept the Secretary waiting too long."</p>
<p>From the looks of him, I was afraid we had. He jumped up from his desk
and hurried across the room as soon as the receptionist opened the door
for us, his hand extended.</p>
<p>"Good afternoon, Mr. Thrombley," he burbled nervously. "And this is the
new Ambassador, I suppose. And this—" He caught sight of Hoddy Ringo,
bringing up the rear and stopped short, hand flying to open mouth. "Oh,
dear me!"</p>
<p>So far, I had been building myself a New Texas stereotype from Hoddy
Ringo and the Ranger officer who had chased us to the Embassy. But this
frightened little rabbit of a fellow simply didn't fit it. An alien
would be justified in assigning him to an entirely different species.</p>
<p>Thrombley introduced me. I introduced Hoddy as my confidential secretary
and advisor. We all shook hands, and Thrombley dug my credentials out of
his briefcase and handed them to me, and I handed them to the Secretary
of State, Mr. William A. Palme. He barely glanced at them, then shook my
hand again fervently and mumbled something about "inexpressible
pleasure" and "entirely acceptable to my government."</p>
<p>That made me the accredited and accepted Ambassador to New Texas.</p>
<p>Mr. Palme hoped, or said he hoped, that my stay in New Texas would be
long and pleasant. He seemed rather less than convinced that it would
be. His eyes kept returning in horrified fascination to my belt. Each
time they would focus on the butts of my Krupp-Tattas, he would pull
them resolutely away again.</p>
<p>"And now, we must take you to President Hutchinson; he is most anxious
to meet you, Mr. Silk. If you will please come with me ..."</p>
<p>Four or five Rangers who had been loitering the hall outside moved to
follow us as we went toward the elevator. Although we had come into the
building onto a floor only a few feet above street-level, we went down
three floors from the hallway outside the Secretary of State's office,
into a huge room, the concrete floor of which was oil-stained, as
though vehicles were continually being driven in and out. It was about a
hundred feet wide, and two or three hundred in length. Daylight was
visible through open doors at the end. As we approached them, the
Rangers fanning out on either side and in front of us, I could hear a
perfect bedlam of noise outside—shouting, singing, dance-band music,
interspersed with the banging of shots.</p>
<p>When we reached the doors at the end, we emerged into one end of a big
rectangular plaza, at least five hundred yards in length. Most of the
uproar was centered at the opposite end, where several thousand people,
in costumes colored through the whole spectrum, were milling about.
There seemed to be at least two square-dances going on, to the music of
competing bands. At the distant end of the plaza, over the heads of the
crowd, I could see the piles and tracks of an overhead crane, towering
above what looked like an open-hearth furnace. Between us and the bulk
of the crowd, in a cleared space, two medium tanks, heavily padded with
mats, were ramming and trying to overturn each other, the mob of
spectators crowding as close to them as they dared. The din was
positively deafening, though we were at least two hundred yards from the
center of the crowd.</p>
<p>"Oh, dear, I always dread these things!" Palme was saying.</p>
<p>"Yes, absolutely anything could happen," Thrombley twittered.</p>
<p>"Man, this is a real barbecue!" Hoddy gloated. "Now I really feel at
home!"</p>
<p>"Over this way, Mr. Silk," Palme said, guiding me toward the short end
of the plaza, on our left. "We will see the President and then ..."</p>
<p>He gulped.</p>
<p>"... then we will all go to the barbecue."</p>
<p>In the center of the short end of the plaza, dwarfed by the monster
bulks of steel and concrete and glass around it, stood a little old
building of warm-tinted adobe. I had never seen it before, but somehow
it was familiar-looking. And then I remembered. Although I had never
seen it before, I had seen it pictured many times; pictured under
attack, with gunsmoke spouting from windows and parapets.</p>
<p>I plucked Thrombley's sleeve.</p>
<p>"Isn't that a replica of the Alamo?"</p>
<p>He was shocked. "Oh, dear, Mr. Ambassador, don't let anybody hear you
ask that. That's no replica. It <i>is</i> the Alamo. <i>The</i> Alamo."</p>
<p>I stood there a moment, looking at it. I was remembering, and finally
understanding, what my psycho-history lessons about the "Romantic
Freeze" had meant.</p>
<p><i>They had taken this little mission-fort down, brick by adobe brick,
loaded it carefully into a spaceship, brought it here, forty two
light-years away from Terra, and reverently set it up again. Then they
had built a whole world and a whole social philosophy around it</i>.</p>
<p>It had been the dissatisfied, of course, the discontented, the dreamers,
who had led the vanguard of man's explosion into space following the
discovery of the hyperspace-drive. They had gone from Terra cherishing
dreams of things that had been dumped into the dust bin of history,
carrying with them pictures of ways of life that had passed away, or
that had never really been. Then, in their new life, on new planets,
they had set to work making those dreams and those pictures live.</p>
<p>And, many times, they had come close to succeeding.</p>
<p>These Texans, now: they had left behind the cold fact that it had been
their state's great industrial complex that had made their migration
possible. They ignored the fact that their life here on Capella IV was
possible only by application of modern industrial technology. That rodeo
down the plaza—tank-tilting instead of bronco-busting. Here they were,
living frozen in a romantic dream, a world of roving cowboys and ranch
kingdoms.</p>
<p>No wonder Hoddy hadn't liked the books I had been reading on the ship.
They shook the fabric of that dream.</p>
<p>There were people moving about, at this relatively quiet end of the
plaza, mostly in the direction of the barbecue. Ten or twelve Rangers
loitered at the front of the Alamo, and with them I saw the dress blues
of my two Marines. There was a little three-wheeled motorcart among
them, from which they were helping themselves to food and drink. When
they saw us coming, the two Marines shoved their sandwiches into the
hands of a couple of Rangers and tried to come to attention.</p>
<p>"At ease, at ease," I told them. "Have a good time, boys. Hoddy, you
better get in on some of this grub; I may be inside for quite a while."</p>
<p>As soon as the Rangers saw Hoddy, they hastily got things out of their
right hands. Hoddy grinned at them.</p>
<p>"Take it easy, boys," he said. "I'm protected by the game laws. I'm a
diplomat, I am."</p>
<p>There were a couple of Rangers lounging outside the door of the
President's office and both of them carried autorifles, implying things
I didn't like.</p>
<p>I had seen the President of the Solar League wandering around the
dome-city of Artemis unattended, looking for all the world like a
professor in his academic halls. Since then, maybe before then, I had
always had a healthy suspicion of governments whose chiefs had to
surround themselves with bodyguards.</p>
<p>But the President of New Texas, John Hutchinson, was alone in his office
when we were shown in. He got up and came around his desk to greet us, a
slender, stoop-shouldered man in a black-and-gold laced jacket. He had a
narrow compressed mouth and eyes that seemed to be watching every corner
of the room at once. He wore a pair of small pistols in cross-body
holsters under his coat, and he always kept one hand or the other close
to his abdomen.</p>
<p>He was like, and yet unlike, the Secretary of State. Both had the look
of hunted animals; but where Palme was a rabbit, twitching to take
flight at the first whiff of danger, Hutchinson was a cat who hears
hounds baying—ready to run if he could, or claw if he must.</p>
<p>"Good day, Mr. Silk," he said, shaking hands with me after the
introductions. "I see you're heeled; you're smart. You wouldn't be here
today if poor Silas Cumshaw'd been as smart as you are. Great man,
though; a wise and farseeing statesman. He and I were real friends."</p>
<p>"You know who Mr. Silk brought with him as bodyguard?" Palme asked.
"Hoddy Ringo!"</p>
<p>"Oh, my God! I thought this planet was rid of him!" The President turned
to me. "You got a good trigger-man, though, Mr. Ambassador. Good man to
watch your back for you. But lot of folks here won't thank you for
bringing him back to New Texas."</p>
<p>He looked at his watch. "We have time for a little drink, before we go
outside, Mr. Silk," he said. "Care to join me?"</p>
<p>I assented and he got a bottle of superbourbon out of his desk, with
four glasses. Palme got some water tumblers and brought the pitcher of
ice-water from the cooler.</p>
<p>I noticed that the New Texas Secretary of State filled his three-ounce
liquor glass to the top and gulped it down at once. He might act as
though he were descended from a long line of maiden aunts, but he took
his liquor in blasts that would have floored a spaceport labor-boss.</p>
<p>We had another drink, a little slower, and chatted for a while, and then
Hutchinson said, regretfully that we'd have to go outside and meet the
folks. Outside, our guards—Hoddy, the two Marines, the Rangers who had
escorted us from Palme's office, and Hutchinson's retinue—surrounded
us, and we made our way down the plaza, through the crowd. The
din—ear-piercing yells, whistles, cowbells, pistol shots, the cacophony
of the two dance-bands, and the chorus-singing, of which I caught only
the words: <i>The skies of freedom are above you!</i>—was as bad as New
Year's Eve in Manhattan or Nairobi or New Moscow, on Terra.</p>
<p>"Don't take all this as a personal tribute, Mr. Silk!" Hutchinson
screamed into my ear. "On this planet, to paraphrase Nietzsche, a good
barbecue halloweth any cause!"</p>
<p>That surprised me, at the moment. Later I found out that John Hutchinson
was one of the leading scholars on New Texas and had once been president
of one of their universities. New Texas Christian, I believe.</p>
<p>As we got up onto the platform, close enough to the barbecue pits to
feel the heat from them, somebody let off what sounded like a fifty-mm
anti-tank gun five or six times. Hutchinson grabbed a microphone and
bellowed into it: "Ladies and gentlemen! Your attention, please!"</p>
<p>The noise began to diminish, slowly, until I could hear one voice, in
the crowd below:</p>
<p>"Shut up, you damn fools! We can't eat till this is over!"</p>
<p>Hutchinson introduced me, in very few words. I gathered that lengthy
speeches at barbecues were not popular on New Texas.</p>
<p>"Ladies and gentlemen!" I yelled into the microphone. "Appreciative as I
am of this honor, there is one here who is more deserving of your notice
than I; one to whom I, also, pay homage. He's over there on the fire,
and I want a slice of him as soon as possible!"</p>
<p>That got a big ovation. There was, beside the water pitcher, a bottle of
superbourbon. I ostentatiously threw the water out of the glass, poured
a big shot of the corrosive stuff, and downed it.</p>
<p>"For God's sake, let's eat!" I finished. Then I turned to Thrombley, who
was looking like a priest who has just seen the bishop spit in the
holy-water font. "Stick close to me," I whispered. "Cue me in on the
local notables, and the other members of the Diplomatic Corps." Then we
all got down off the platform, and a band climbed up and began playing
one of those raucous "cowboy ballads" which had originated in Manhattan
about the middle of the Twentieth Century.</p>
<p>"The sandwiches'll be here in a moment, Mr. Ambassador," Hutchinson
screamed—in effect, whispered—in my ear. "Don't feel any reluctance
about shaking hands with a sandwich in your other hand; that's standard
practice, here. You struck just the right note, up there. That business
with the liquor was positively inspired!"</p>
<p>The sandwiches—huge masses of meat and hot relish, wrapped in tortillas
of some sort—arrived and I bit into one.</p>
<p>I'd been eating supercow all my life, frozen or electron-beamed for
transportation, and now I was discovering that I had never really eaten
supercow before. I finished the first sandwich in surprisingly short
order and was starting on my second when the crowd began coming.</p>
<p>First, the Diplomatic Corps, the usual collection of weirdies, human and
otherwise....</p>
<p>There was the Ambassador from Tara, in a suit of what his planet
produced as a substitute for Irish homespuns. His Embassy, if it was
like the others I had seen elsewhere, would be an outsize cottage with
whitewashed walls and a thatched roof, with a bowl of milk outside the
door for the Little People ...</p>
<p>The Ambassador from Alpheratz II, the South African Nationalist planet,
with a full beard, and old fashioned plug hat and tail-coat. They were a
frustrated lot. They had gone into space to practice <i>apartheid</i> and had
settled on a planet where there was no other intelligent race to be
superior to....</p>
<p>The Mormon Ambassador from Deseret—Delta Camelopardalis V....</p>
<p>The Ambassador from Spica VII, a short jolly-looking little fellow, with
a head like a seal's, long arms, short legs and a tail like a
kangaroo's....</p>
<p>The Ambassador from Beta Cephus VI, who could have passed for human if
he hadn't had blood with a copper base instead of iron. His skin was a
dark green and his hair was a bright blue....</p>
<p>I was beginning to correct my first impression that Thrombley was a
complete dithering fool. He stood at my left elbow, whispering the names
and governments and home planets of the Ambassadors as they came up,
handing me little slips of paper on which he had written phonetically
correct renditions of the greetings I would give them in their own
language. I was still twittering a reply to the greeting of
Nanadabadian, from Beta Cephus VI, when he whispered to me:</p>
<p>"Here it comes, sir. The z'Srauff!"</p>
<p>The z'Srauff were reasonably close to human stature and appearance,
allowing for the fact that their ancestry had been canine instead of
simian. They had, of course, longer and narrower jaws than we have, and
definitely carnivorous teeth.</p>
<p>There were stories floating around that they enjoyed barbecued Terran
even better than they did supercow and hot relish.</p>
<p>This one advanced, extending his three-fingered hand.</p>
<p>"I am most happy to make connection with Solar League representative,"
he said. "I am named Gglafrr Ddespttann Vuvuvu."</p>
<p>No wonder Thrombley let him introduce himself. I answered in the Basic
English that was all he'd admit to understanding:</p>
<p>"The name of your great nation has gone before you to me. The stories we
tell to our young of you are at the top of our books. I have hope to
make great pleasure in you and me to be friends."</p>
<p>Gglafrr Vuvuvu's smile wavered a little at the oblique reference to the
couple of trouncings our Space Navy had administered to z'Srauff ships
in the past. "We will be in the same place again times with no number,"
the alien replied. "I have hope for you that time you are in this place
will be long and will put pleasure in your heart."</p>
<p>Then the pressure of the line behind him pushed him on. Cabinet Members;
Senators and Representatives; prominent citizens, mostly Judge
so-and-so, or Colonel this-or-that. It was all a blur, so much so that
it was an instant before I recognized the gleaming golden hair and the
statuesque figure.</p>
<p>"Thank you! I have met the Ambassador." The lovely voice was shaking
with restrained anger.</p>
<p>"Gail!" I exclaimed.</p>
<p>"Your father coming to the barbecue, Gail?" President Hutchinson was
asking.</p>
<p>"He ought to be here any minute. He sent me on ahead from the hotel. He
wants to meet the Ambassador. That's why I joined the line."</p>
<p>"Well, suppose I leave Mr. Silk in your hands for a while," Hutchinson
said. "I ought to circulate around a little."</p>
<p>"Yes. Just leave him in my hands!" she said vindictively.</p>
<p>"What's wrong, Gail?" I wanted to know. "I know, I was supposed to meet
you at the spaceport, but—"</p>
<p>"You made a beautiful fool of me at the spaceport!"</p>
<p>"Look, I can explain everything. My Embassy staff insisted on hurrying
me off—"</p>
<p>Somebody gave a high-pitched whoop directly behind me and emptied the
clip of a pistol. I couldn't even hear what else I said. I couldn't hear
what she said, either, but it was something angry.</p>
<p>"You have to listen to me!" I roared in her ear. "I can explain
everything!"</p>
<p>"Any diplomat can explain anything!" she shouted back.</p>
<p>"Look, Gail, you're hanging an innocent man!" I yelled back at her. "I'm
entitled to a fair trial!"</p>
<p>Somebody on the platform began firing his pistol within inches of the
loud-speakers and it sounded like an H-bomb going off. She grabbed my
wrist and dragged me toward a door under the platform.</p>
<p>"Down here!" she yelled. "And this better be good, Mr. Silk!"</p>
<p>We went down a spiral ramp, lighted by widely-scattered overhead lights.</p>
<p>"Space-attack shelter," she explained. "And look: what goes on in
space-ships is one thing, but it's as much as a girl's reputation is
worth to come down here during a barbecue."</p>
<p>There seemed to be quite few girls at that barbecue who didn't care what
happened to their reputations. We discovered that after looking into a
couple of passageways that branched off the entrance.</p>
<p>"Over this way," Gail said, "Confederate Courts Building. There won't be
anything going on over here, now."</p>
<p>I told her, with as much humorous detail as possible, about how
Thrombley had shanghaied me to the Embassy, and about the chase by the
Rangers. Before I was half through, she was laughing heartily, all
traces of her anger gone. Finally, we came to a stairway, and at the
head of it to a small door.</p>
<p>"It's been four years that I've been away from here," she said. "I think
there's a reading room of the Law Library up here. Let's go in and enjoy
the quiet for a while."</p>
<p>But when we opened the door, there was a Ranger standing inside.</p>
<p>"Come to see a trial, Mr. Silk? Oh, hello, Gail. Just in time; they're
going to prepare for the next trial."</p>
<p>As he spoke, something clicked at the door. Gail looked at me in
consternation.</p>
<p>"Now we're locked in," she said. "We can't get out till the
trial's over."</p>
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