 CHAPTER I. They started giving me the business as soon as I came through the door into the secretary's outer office. There was Ethel Quang Lee, the secretary's receptionist at her desk. There was Cortland Staines, the assistant secretary to the under-secretary for economic penetration, and Norman Gazarin from Protocol, and Toby Lauder from Humanoid People's Affairs, and Raoul Cheviet and Hans Mantoufol and Olga Resnick. It was a wonder there weren't more of them watching the condemned man's march to the gibbet. The word that the secretary had called me in must have gotten all over the department since the offices had opened. Ah, Mr. Machiavelli, I presume, Ethel kicked off. Machiavelli, Jr., Olga picked up the ball. At least, that's the way he signs it. God's gift to the consular service and the consular service's gift to policy planning, Gazarin added. Take it easy, folks! These hooligan diplomats would as soon shoot you as look at you, Mantoufol warned. Be sure and tell the secretary that your friends all want important posts in the Galactic Empire. Olga again. Well, I'm glad some of you could read it, I fired back. Maybe even a few of you understood what it was all about. Don't worry, Silk, Gazarin told me. Secretary Gopal understands what it was all about. All too well, you'll find. A buzzer sounded gently on Ethel Quang-Lee's desk. She snatched up the handphone and whispered into it. A deathly silence filled the room while she listened, whispered some more, then hung it up. They were all staring at me. Secretary Gopal is ready to see Mr. Stephen Silk, she said. This way, please. As I started across the room, stains began drumming on the top of the desk with his fingers, the slow, reiterated rhythm to which a man marches to a military execution. A cigarette, laudered inquired tonelessly. A glass of rum. There were three men in the Secretary of State's private office. Gopal Singh, the Secretary, dark-faced, gray-haired, slender and elegant, meeting me halfway to his desk. Another slender man in black with a silver-threaded black neck scarf, Rudolph Klung, the Secretary of the Department of Aggression. And a huge, gross-bodied man with a fat baby face and opaque black eyes. When I saw him, I really began to get frightened. The fat man was Natalenco, the security coordinator. Good morning, Mr. Silk, Secretary Gopal greeted me, his hand extended. Gentlemen, Mr. Stephen Silk, about whom we were speaking. This way, Mr. Silk, if you please. There was a low coffee table at the rear of the office and four easy chairs around it. On the round brass tabletop were cups and saucers, a coffee-earn, cigarettes, and a copy of the current issue of the Galactic Statesman Journal, open at an article entitled, Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy, by Somebody Who Had Signed Himself Machiavelli, Jr. I was beginning to wish that the pseudonymous Machiavelli, Jr. had never been born, or at least had stayed on Theta Virgo IV and been a winery plander, as his father had wanted him to be. As I sat down and accepted a cup of coffee, I avoided looking at the periodical. They were probably going to hang it around my neck before they shoved me out of the airlock. Mr. Silk is, as you know, in our consular service, go-paul was saying to the others. Back on Luna on rotation, doing something in Mr. Halvard's section. He is the gentleman who did such a splendid job for us on Asha, Gamma Norma III. And, as he has just demonstrated, he added, gesturing toward the Statesman Journal on the Banara's work-table, he is a student both of the diplomacy of the past and the implications of our present policies. Abit Frank, Klung commented dubiously. But, judicious, Natalenko squeaked, in the high, eukenoid voice that came so incongruously from his bulk. He aired his singular accurate predictions in a periodical that doesn't have a circulation of more than a thousand copies outside his own department. And I don't think the public's semantic reactions to the terminology of imperialism is as bad as you imagine. They seem quite satisfied now, with the change in the title of your department, from defense to aggression. Well, we've gone into that, gentlemen, go-paul said. If the article really makes trouble for us, we can always disavow it. There's no censorship of the journal, and Mr. Silk won't be around to draw fire on us. Here it comes, I thought. That sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it, Mr. Silk? Natalenko tittered happily, like a ten-year-old who has just found a new beetle to pull the legs out of. It's really not as bad as it sounds, Mr. Silk, go-paul hastened to reassure me. We are going to have to banish you for a while, but I dare say that won't be so bad. The social life here on Luna has probably begun to paul'd anyhow. So we're sending you to Capella Four. Capella Four, I repeated, trying to remember something about it. Capella was a geotype like Saul, and that wouldn't be so bad. New Texas, Klung helped me out. Oh, God, no, I thought! It happens that we need somebody of your sort on that planet, Mr. Silk, go-paul said. Some of the trouble is in my department, and some of it is in Mr. Klung's. For that reason, perhaps, it would be better if coordinator Natalenko explained it to you. You know, I assume, our chief interest in New Texas, Natalenko asked. I had some of it for breakfast, sir, I replied. Super cow! Natalenko tittered again. Yes, New Texas is the butcher shop of the galaxy. In more ways than one, I'm afraid you'll find. They just butchered one of our people there just a short while ago. Our ambassador, in fact. That would be Silas Kumshov, and this was the first I'd heard about it. I asked when it had happened. A couple of months ago, we just heard about it last evening, when the news came in on a freighter from there, which serves to point up something you stressed in your article, the difficulties of trying to run a centralized democratic government on a galactic scale. But we have another interest, which may be even more urgent than our need for New Texan meat. You've heard, of course, of the Zesroff? That was a statement, not a question. Natalenko wasn't trying to insult me. I knew who the Zesroff were. I'd run into them here and there. One of the extra-solder intelligent humanoid races, who seem to have been evolved from canine, or canine-like ancestors, instead of primates. Most of them could speak basic English, but I never saw one who would admit to understanding more of our language than the 850-word basic vocabulary. They occupied a half dozen planets in a small star cluster about 40 light-years beyond the Capella system. They had developed normal space reaction ships before we came into contact with them, and they had quickly picked up the hyperspace drive from us back in those days when the Solar League was still playing missionaries of progress and trying to run the galaxy-wide .4 program. In the past century it had become almost impossible for anybody to get into their star group, although Zesroff ships were orbiting in on every planet that the League had settled or controlled. There were Zesroff traders and small merchants all over the galaxy, and you almost never saw one of them without a camera. Their little meteor mining boats were everywhere, and all of them carried more of the most modern radar and astrogational equipment than a meteor miner's lifetime earnings could pay for. I also knew that they were one of the chief causes of ulcers and premature gray hair at the League capital on Luna. I'd done a little reading on pre-space flight-terrain history. I had been impressed by the parallel between the present situation and one which had culminated two and a half centuries before on the morning of 7 December 1941. What, Natalenko inquired, do you think Machiavelli Jr. would do about the Zesroff? We have a Department of Aggression, I replied. Its mottos are, stop trouble before it starts, and, if we have to fight, let's do it on the other fellow's real estate. But this situation is just a little too delicate for literal application of those principles. An unprovoked attack on the Zesroff would set every other non-human race in the galaxy against us. Would an attack by the Zesroff on New Texas constitute just provocation? It might. New Texas is an independent planet. Its people are descendants of emigrants from Terra, who wanted to get away from the rule of the Solar League. We've been trying for half a century to persuade the New Texan government to join the League. We need their planet, for both strategic and commercial reasons. With the Zesroff for neighbors, they need us as much at least as we need them. The problem is to make them understand that. I nodded again. And an attack by the Zesroff would do that too, sir, I said. Natalenko tittered again. You see, gentlemen, our Mr. Silk picks things up very handily, doesn't he? He turned to Secretary of State Gopal. You take it from there, he invited. Gopal Singh smiled benignly. Well, that's it, Stephen, he said. We need a man on New Texas who can get things done. Three things to be exact. First, find out why poor Mr. Kumsha was murdered, and what can be done about it to maintain our prestige without alienating the New Texans. Second, bring the government and people of New Texas to a realization that they need the Solar League as much as we need them. And third, forestall or expose the plans for the Zesroff invasion of New Texas. Is that all now, I thought? He doesn't want a diplomat, he wants a magician. And what, I asked, will my official position be on New Texas, sir, or will I have one of any sort? Oh, yes indeed, Mr. Silk. Your official position will be that of Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary. That, I believe, is the only vacancy which exists in the diplomatic service on that planet. At Dumbarton Oaks Diplomatic Academy, they hazed the freshmen by making them sit on a one-legged stool and balance a teacup and saucer on one knee, while the upperclassmen pelt them with ping-pong balls. Whoever invented that and the other similar forms of hazing was one of the great geniuses of the service. So I sipped my coffee, sat down the cup, took a puff from my cigarette, and said, I am indeed deeply honored, Mr. Secretary. I trust I needn't go into any assurances that I will do everything possible to justify your trust in me. I believe he will, Mr. Secretary, Natalenko piped, in a manner that chilled my blood. Yes, I believe so, Gopal Singh said. Now, Mr. Ambassador, there's a liner in orbit two thousand miles off Luna, which has been held from blasting off for the last eight hours waiting for you. Don't bother packing more than a few things. You can get everything you'll need on board, or at New Austin, the planetary capital. We have a man whom Coordinator Natalenko has secured for us, a native New Texan, Hadi Ringo by name. He'll act as your personal secretary. He's aboard the ship now. You'll have to hurry, I'm afraid. Well, bon voyage, Mr. Ambassador. Chapter 2 The death watch outside had grown to about fifteen or twenty. They were all waiting in happy anticipation as I came out of the Secretary's office. What did he do to you, Silk? Cortland Staines asked, amusedly. Demoted me. Kicked me off the hooligan diplomats, I said glumly. Demoted you from the consular service? Staines asked scornfully. Impossible! Yes, he demoted me to the cookie-pushers. Cleared down to Ambassador. That got a terrific laugh. I went out, wondering what sort of noises they'd make the next morning when the appointment sheet was posted. I gathered a few things together, mostly small personal items, and all the microfilms I could find on New Texas, then got aboard the Space Navy Cutter that was waiting to take me to the ship. It was a four-hour trip, and I put in the time going over my hastily assembled microfilm library and using a stenophone to dictate a reading list for the space trip. As I rolled up the stenophone tape, I wondered what sort of Secretary they had given me, and in passing why Natalenko's department had furnished him. Hadi Ringo. Queer name, but in a galactic civilization you find all sorts of names and all sorts of people bearing them, so I was prepared for anything. And I found it. I found him standing with the ship's captain inside the airlock when I boarded the big spherical space liner. A tubby little man, with shoulders and arms he had never developed doing secretarial work, and a good natured, not particularly intelligent face. See the happy moron, he doesn't give a damn, I thought. Then I took a second look at him. He might be happy, but he wasn't a moron. He just looked like one. Natalenko's people often did, as one of their professional assets. I also noticed that he had a bulge under his left armpit the size of an eleven-millimeter army automatic. He was, I'd been told, a native of New Texas. I gathered, after talking with him for a while, that he had been away from his home planet for over five years, was glad to be going back, and especially glad that he was going back under the protection of Solar League diplomatic immunity. In fact, I rather got the impression that, without such protection, he wouldn't have been going back at all. I made another discovery. My personal secretary, it seemed, couldn't read stenotype. I found that out when I gave him the tape I dictated aboard the cutter to transcribe for me. Gosh, boss, I can't make anything out of this stuff, he confessed, looking at the combination shorthand braille that my voice had put onto the tape. Well, then, put it in a player and transcribe it by ear, I told him. He didn't seem to realize that that could be done. How did you come to be sent as my secretary if you can't do secretarial work, I wanted to know. He got out a bag of tobacco and a book of papers and began rolling a cigarette with one hand. Why, shucks, boss, nobody seemed to think I'd have to do this kind of work, he said. I was just sent along to show you the way round New Texas and see you don't get into no trouble. He got his handmade cigarette drawing and hitched the strap that went across his back and looped under his right arm. A guy that don't know the way around can get into a lot of trouble on New Texas, if you call getting killed trouble. So he was a bodyguard and I wondered what else he was. One thing, it would take him forty-two years to send a radio message back to Luna and I could keep track of any other messages he sent in letters or on tape by ships. In the end I transcribed my own tape and settled down to laying out my three week study course on my new post. I found, however, that the whole thing could be learned in a few hours. The rest of what I had was duplication, some of it contradictory, and it all boiled down to this. Capella IV had been settled during the first wave of extra-solar colonization after the Fourth World, or First Interplanetary War, some time around 2100. The settlers had come from a place in North America called Texas, one of the old United States. They had a lengthy history, independent republic, admission to the United States, secession from the United States, reconquest by the United States, and general intransigence under the United States, the United Nations, and the Solar League. When the laws of non-Einsteinian physics were discovered and the hyperspace drive was developed, practically the entire population of Texas had taken to space to find a new home and independence from everybody. They had found Capella IV, a terra-type planet with a slightly higher mean temperature, a lower mass and lower gravitational field, about one-quarter water and three-quarters land surface, at a stage of evolutionary development approximately that of terra during the late Pliocene. They also found Supercal, a big mammal looking like the unsuccessful attempt of a hippopotamus to impersonate a doxin and about the size of a nuclear steam locomotive. On new Texas planes there were billions of them. Their meat was fit for the gods of Olympus. So New Texas had become the meat supplier to the galaxy. There was very little in any of the microfilm books about the politics of New Texas and, such as it was, was very scornful. There were such expressions as anarchy tempered by assassination and grotesque parody of democracy. There would, I assumed, be more exact information in the material which had been shoved into my hand just before boarding the cutter from Luna in a package labeled Top Secret to be opened only in space after the first hyperjump. There was also a big trunk that had been placed in my suite, sealed and bearing the same instructions. I got Hoddy out of the suite as soon as the ship had passed out of the normal space-time continuum, locked the door of my cabin and opened the parcel. It contained only two looseleaf notebooks, both labeled with the Solar League and Department Seals, both adorned with customary bloodthirsty threats against the unauthorized and the indiscreet. They were numbered one and two. One contained four pages. On the first I read, Final Message of the First Solar League Ambassador to New Texas, Andrew Jackson Hickock. I agree with none of the so-called information about this planet on file with the State Department on Luna. The people of New Texas are certainly not uncouth barbarians. Their manners and customs, while lively and unconventional, are most charming. Their dress is graceful and practical, not grotesque. Their soft speech is pleasing to the ear. Their flag is the original flag of the Republic of Texas. It is definitely not a barbaric travesty of our own emblem. And the underlying premises of their political system should, as far as possible, be incorporated into the organization of the Solar League. Here politics is an exciting and exacting game, in which only the true representative of all the people can survive. Department Addendum. After five years on New Texas, Andrew Jackson Hickock resigned, married a daughter of a local rancher, and became a naturalized citizen of that planet. He is still active in politics there, often in opposition to Solar League policies. That didn't sound like too bad an advertisement for the planet. I was even feeling cheerful when I turned to the next page, and... final message of the second Solar League Ambassador to New Texas, Cyril Godwinson. Yes and no. Perhaps and perhaps not. Pardon me, I agree with everything you say. Yes and no. Perhaps and perhaps not. Pardon me, I agree. Department Addendum. After seven years on New Texas, Ambassador Godwinson was recalled, adjudged hopelessly insane. And then, final message of the third Solar League Ambassador to New Texas, R. F. Gullis. I find it very pleasant to inform you that when you are reading this I will be dead. Department Addendum. Committed suicide after six months on New Texas. I turned to the last page cautiously. I found... final message of the fourth Solar League Ambassador to New Texas, Silas Cumshaw. I came to this planet ten years ago as a man of pronounced and unspoken convictions. I have managed to keep myself alive here by becoming an inoffensive non-entity. If I continue in this course, it will be only at the cost of my self-respect. Beginning tonight, I am going to state and maintain positive opinions on the relation between this planet and the Solar League. Department Addendum. Murdered at the home of Andrew J. Hickock, C. Page One. And that was the end of the first notebook. Nice cheerful reading, complete, solid briefing. I was, frankly, almost afraid to open the second notebook. I hefted it cautiously at first, saw that it contained only about as much pages as the first and that those pages were sealed with a band around them. I took a quick peek, read the words on the band. Before reading, open the sealed trunk which has been included with your luggage. So I laid aside the book and dragged out the sealed trunk, hesitated, then opened it. Nothing shocked me more than to find the trunk full of clothes. There were four pairs of trousers, light blue, dark blue, gray and black, with wide cuffs at the bottoms. There were six or eight shirts, their colors running the entire spectrum in the most violent shades. There were a couple of vests. There were two pairs of short boots with high heels and fancy leather working and a couple of hats with four-inch brims. And there was a wide leather belt, practically a leather corset. I stared at the belt, wondering if I was really seeing what was in front of me. Attached to the belt were a pair of pistols in right and left hand holsters. The pistols were 7mm Krup Tata Ultra-Speed Automatics, and the holsters were the spring ejection quick draw holsters which were the secret of the State Department's special services. This must be a mistake, I thought. I'm an ambassador now and ambassadors never carry weapons. The sanctity of an ambassador's person not only made the carrying of weapons unnecessary so that an armed ambassador was a contradiction of diplomatic terms, but it would be an outrageous insult to the nation to which he had been accredited. Like taking a poison taster to a friendly dinner. Maybe I was supposed to give the belt and holsters to Hadi Ringo, so I tore the sealed band off the second notebook and read through it. I was to wear the local costume on New Texas. That was something unusual. Even in the hooligan diplomats we leaned over backward in wearing Taran costume to distinguish ourselves from the people among whom we worked. I was further advised to start wearing the high boots immediately on shipboard to accustom myself to the heels. These I was informed were traditional. They had served a useful purpose in the early days on Taran, Texas, when all travel had been on horseback. On hoarseless and mechanized New Texas they were a useless but venerated part of the cultural heritage. There were bits of advice about the hat and the trousers, which for some obscure reason were known as Levi's, and I was informed, as an order, that I was to wear the belt and pistols at all times outside the embassy itself. That was all of the second notebook. The two notebooks, plus my conversation with Gopal, Klung, and Natalenko, completed my briefing for my new post. I slid off my shoes and pulled on a pair of boots. They fitted perfectly. Evidently I had been tapped for this job as soon as word of Silas Kumshaw's death had reached Luna and there must have been some fantastic hurrying to get my outfit ready. I didn't like that any too well, and I'd like the order to carry the pistols even less. Not that I had any objection to carrying weapons per say. I had been born and raised on Theta Virgo 4, where the children weren't allowed outside the house unattended until they have learned to shoot. But I did have strenuous objections to being sent, virtually ignorant of local customs, on a mission where I was ordered to commit deliberate provocation of the local government, immediately on the heels of my predecessor's violent death. The author of Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy had recommended the use of provocation to justify conquest. If the new Texans murdered two Solar League ambassadors in a row, nobody would blame the League for moving in with a space fleet and an army. I was beginning to understand how Dr. Guillotine must have felt while his neck was being shoved into his own invention. I looked again at the notebooks, each marked in red, familiarize yourself with contents and burn or disintegrate. I'd have to do that, of course. There were a few non-humans and a lot of non-League people aboard this ship. I couldn't let any of them find out what we considered a full briefing for a new ambassador. So I wrapped them in the original package and went down to the lower passenger zone where I found the ship's third officer. I told him that I had some secret diplomatic matter to be destroyed and he took me to the engine room. I shoved the package into one of the mass energy converters and watched it resolve itself into its constituent protons, neutrons, and electrons. On the way back I stopped in at the ship's bar. Haughty Ringo was there, wrapped up in, and I used the words literally, a young lady from the elder baron system. She was on her way home from one of the quickie divorce courts on Terra and was celebrating her marital emancipation. They were so entangled with each other that they didn't notice me. When they left the bar I slipped after them until I saw them enter the lady's stateroom. That, of course, would have Haughty immobilized, better word, located, for a while. So I went back to our suite, picked the lock of Haughty's room, and allowed myself half an hour to search his luggage. All of his clothes were new, but there were not a great many of them. Evidently he was planning to re-outfit himself on New Texas. There were a few odds and ends the kind any man with a real home planet will hold on to in the luggage. He had another eleven-millimeter pistol, made by the consolidated Martian metalworks, made to the one he was carrying in a shoulder holster, and a wide two-holster belt like the one furnished me, but quite old. I greeted the site and the meaning of the old holsters with joy. They weren't the State Department's special services type. That meant that Haughty was just one of Natalenko's run-of-the-gallows cutthroats, not important enough to be issued the secret equipment. But I was a little worried over what I found hiding in the lining of one of his bags, a letter addressed to Space Commander Lucius C. Stonehenge, Aggression Department Attache, New Austin Embassy. I didn't have either the time or the equipment to open it. But, knowing our various departments, I tried to reassure myself with the thought that it was only a letter of credence, with the real message to be delivered orally. About the real message I had no doubts. Arrange the murder of Ambassador Stephen Silk in such a way that it looks like another New Texas job. Starting that evening, or what passed for evening aboard a ship in hyperspace, Haughty and I began a positively epical binge together. I had it figured this way. As long as we were aboard ship, I was perfectly safe. On the ship, in fact, Haughty would definitely have given his life to save mine. I'd have to be killed on New Texas to give Klungsbois their excuse for moving in. And there was always the chance, with no chance too slender for me to ignore, that I might be able to get Haughty drunk enough to talk, yet still be sober enough myself to remember what he said. Exact times, details, faces, names came to me through a sort of hazy blur, as Haughty and I drank something he called super bourbon. A New Texan drink that Bourbon County, Kentucky would never have recognized. They had no corn on New Texas. This stuff was made out of something called super yams. There were at least two things I got out of the binge. First, I learned to slug down the national drink without batting an eye. Second, I learned to control my expression as I uncovered the fact that everything on New Texas was super something. I was also cautious enough, before we really got started, to leave my belt and guns with the purser. I didn't want Haughty poking around those secret holsters. And I remember telling the captain to radio New Austin as soon as we came out of our last hyperspace jump, then to send the ship's doctor around to give me my hangover treatments. But the thing I wanted to remember, as the hangover shots brought me back to normal life, I found was the one thing I couldn't remember. What was the name of that girl? A big beautiful blonde who joined the party along with Haughty's grass widow from Aldebaran and stayed with it to the end. Damn! I wish I could remember her name! When we were fifteen thousand miles off-planet and the lighters from New Austin's spaceport were reported on the way, I got into the skin-tight Levi's, the cataclysmic colored shirt, and the loose vest, tucked my big hat under my arm, and went to the purser's office for my guns, buckling them on. When I got back to the suite, Haughty had put on his pistols and was practicing quickdraws in front of the mirror. He took one look at my armament and groaned. You are going to get yourself killed for sure with that rig and them pop-guns, he told me. These pop-guns shoot harder and make bigger holes than that pair of museum pieces you're carrying, I replied. And them holsters, Haughty continued, why, it'll take all day to get your guns out of them. You better let me find you a real rig when we get into New Austin. There was a chance, of course, that he knew what I was using and wanted to hide his knowledge. I doubted that. Sure, you State Department guys always know everything, he went on. Like them microfilm books you was reading. I tried to tell you what things is really like on New Texas and you let it go in one ear and out the other. Then he wandered off to say good-bye to the grass widow from Alder Baron, leaving me to make the last minute check on the luggage. I was hoping I'd be able to see that blonde. What was her name? Gale, something or other. Let's see. She'd been at some Terran University and she was on her way home to—to New Texas, of course. I saw her, half an hour later, in the crowd around the airlock when the lighters came alongside and I tried to push my way toward her. As I did, the airlock opened, the crowd surged toward it and she was carried along. Then the airlock closed after she had passed through and before I could get to it. That meant I'd have to wait for the second lighter. So I made the best of it and spent the next half hour watching the disc of the planet grow into a huge ball that filled the lower half of the view-screen and then lose its curvature. And instead of moving in toward the planet, we were going down toward it. CHAPTER III 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. 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. Then the landing field was rushing up at us, with the near 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. 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. Over their heads at the other rocket boat, I could see the gold gleaming head of the girl I'd met on the ship. I tried to push through the crowd and get to her. As I did, the Cookie Pusher got in my way. 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. Yes, yes, of course. Now, there's somebody over there I have to see it once. I tried to pull myself loose from his grasp. 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 a roar of a half a dozen Niagara's. The thin man in the striped trousers added to the uproar by shouting into my ear and pulling at me. "'We haven't time,' he finally managed to make himself heard. "'We're dreadfully late now, sir. You must come with us.'" Hoddy, too, had caught hold of me by the other arm. "'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.'" Then the whole gang, Hoddy, the thin man with the black Hamburg, 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 blonde 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. "'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 better be a good one.'" 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. "'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 sorryer.'" "'Somebody here gunning for the Ambassador?' Hottie demanded sharply. "'Oh, no! I hadn't even thought of that!' But the in man almost gibbered. But your presence at the Embassy is of immediate and urgent necessity. You have no idea of a State in which things have gotten. "'Oh, pardon me, Mr. Ambassador. I am Gilbert W. Thrombley, your Charge d'Effaire.'" 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. Hottie however had turned to look out the rear window. Immediately he gave a yelp. "'We got a tail, boss! Two of them! Look back there!' There were two black eight-passenger air-cars 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. Immediately black rocket-fuel puffs shot away from the pursuing air-cars. Hottie turned in his seat, cranked open a porthole slid in the window, and poked one of his eleven millimetres out, letting the whole clip go. Thrombley and Gomez slid down onto the floor, and both began to drag me down with them, imploring me not to expose myself. 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 Hottie Salvo had had any effect on them. Our chauffeur went into a perfect frenzy of twisting and dodging, at the same time using his radio-phone 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 cars set down on a broad stretch of concrete, the wings were retracted, and we went whizzing down a city street. 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 bones shaking jolts. Then we made an abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch, and a big door bang 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. Thrombley pulled himself erect, and half climbed, half fell out of the car. Gomez got out on the other side with Hottie. I climbed out after Thrombley. A tall, sandy-haired man in the uniform of the space navy came over. 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. 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. I noticed that Hottie's ears had pricked up, but he wasn't making any effort to attract Stonehenge's attention. I shook hands with him, introduced Hottie, and offered my cigarette case around. You seem to have had a hectic trip from the spaceport, Mr. Ambassador. What happened? Thrombley began accusing our driver of trying to murder the lot of us. Hottie brushed him aside and explained, Just after we took off, two other cars took off after us. We speeded up, and they speeded up, too. Then your fly-boy here got fancy, and that shook them off. Time we got into the city, we dropped them. Nice job of driving. Probably saved our lives. Shooks, that wasn't nothing, the driver disclaimed. When you drive for politicians, you're either good or you're good and dead. 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. 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 Levi's and a big hat. He had a pair of automatics in his belt, too. I'm Captain Nelson, New Texas Rangers, he introduced himself. Which one of you all is Stephen Silk? I admitted it. The Ranger pushed back his wide hat and grinned at me. I just can't figure this out, he said. You're in the right place and the right company, but we've got a report from a mighty good source that you've been kidnapped at the spaceport by a gang of thugs. A blonde source? I made curving motions with my hands. I don't blame her. My efficient and conscientious charged affair, 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. 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 Sinus Cumshaw you had a right to be suspicious. I noticed that refreshments, including several bottles, had been placed on a big wicker table under the arched veranda. Can I offer you a drink, Captain, in token of mutual amity, I asked? Well, now, I'd like to, Mr. Ambassador, but I'm on duty," he began. 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. That's right, now, Mr. Ambassador," he grinned. Extra-territoriality! Wonderful thing, extra-territoriality! He looked at Hottie, who for the first time since I'd met him was trying to shrink into the background. And diplomatic immunity, too, ain't it Hottie? After he had had his drink and departed we all sat down. Thrombley began speaking almost at once. 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. Oh, come, Mr. Thrombley, I objected. Captain Nelson will take care of all that in his report to his superiors." Thrombley looked at me for a moment, as though I had been speaking to him in hot and taut, then waved his hands in polite exasperation. 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? 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. Here, sir, just sign here. 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. Thrombley and Gomez looked at one another. They both groaned. But we must have a statement of assumption of responsibility, Gomez withered. Or the business of the Embassy will be at a dead stop, and we can't do anything, Thrombley finished. Wait a moment, Thrombley, Stonehenge cut in. I understand Mr. Silk's attitude. I've taken command of a good many ships and installations, and at one time or another 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. He turned to me. Without any disrespect to the charge 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. 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. 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. But you can't wait that long, Mr. Ambassador. Thrombley almost wailed. We must go immediately to the State House. The reception for you is already going on. I looked at my watch, which had been regulated aboard ship for Capella four-time. It was just in 2013-15. What time do they hold diplomatic receptions on this planet, Mr. Thrombley, I asked? 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... Barbecue Super-Cow! Yee-pee! Hotty yelled. What I've been waiting for for five years! 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. But we must hurry, Mr. Ambassador, Thrombley was saying, if you will change now to formal dress... And he was looking at me gasping. I think it was the first time he had actually seen what I was wearing. In native dress, Mr. Ambassador! Thrombley's eyes and tone were again those of an innocent spaniel caught in the middle of a marital argument. Then his gaze fell to my belt and his eyes became saucers. Oh, dear! And armed! My charge de affaire was shuddering and he could not look directly at me. 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 Mr. Thrombley, I am wearing this costume and these pistols on the direct order of Secretary of State Gopal Singh. That set him back on his heels. I can't believe it, he exclaimed. An ambassador is never armed! Not when he's dealing with a government which respects the comedy of nations and the usages of diplomatic practice, no, I can't believe it. 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 turn to Stonehenge. Commander, what sort of an embassy guard have we? I asked. Space Marines, Sergeant and five men. I double as guard officer, sir. 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. Yes, sir. And this time Stonehenge gave me a real salute. Well, I must phone the State House then, Thrombley said. We will have to call on Secretary of State Palm and then on President Hutchinson. With that he got up, excused himself, motioned Gomez to follow, and hurried away. I got up, too, and motioned Stonehenge aside. A board 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. Yes, sir. Task Force Red, Blue, Green, Fifth Space Fleet. Fleet Admiral Sir Rodney Tragascus. Can we get hold of a fast spaceboat with hyperdrive engines in a hurry? Eight or ten of them always around New Austin spaceport, available for charter. All right, charter one and get out to that fleet. Tell Admiral Tragascus that the ambassador at New Austin feels in need of protection. Possibility of Zasroff invasion. I'll give you written orders. I want the fleet within radio call. How far out would that be with our facilities? The embassy radio isn't reliable beyond about sixty light minutes, sir. 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 Zasroff 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 Zasroff invasion was pointed out to me by persons on the very highest level on Luna. 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. Naturally not. Well, if I can wait until 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 whatnot, but they'll keep their mouths shut if well paid. Then, pay them well, I said, and it's just as well you're not leaving at once. When I get back from this clam-bake, I'll want to have a general informal counsel, and I certainly want you in on it. On the way to the State House in the air-car, I kept wondering just how smart I had been. I was pretty sure that the Zasroff were 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. Sending Stonehenge off on what couldn't be less than an 18-hour trip would delay anything he and Hottie might be cooking up, too. 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 Zasroff. I was in that pleasant spot called Damned if I could and Damned if you don't. CHAPTER IV The State House 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, 80 odd years before. 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. Hottie, Thrombley, and I 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. We're dreadfully late, Thrombley was fretting. I do hope we haven't kept the Secretary waiting too long. 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. Good afternoon, Mr. Thrombley, he burbled nervously. And this is the new Ambassador, I suppose, and this he caught sight of Hottie Ringo bringing up the rear and stopped short, and flying to an open mouth. Oh, dear me! So far I had been building myself a New Texas stereotype from Hottie Ringo and the Ranger officer who had chased us to the Embassy. But this frightened little rabbit of a fellow simply didn't fit in. An alien would be justified in assigning him to an entirely different species. Thrombley introduced me. I introduced Hottie 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. Palm. He barely glanced at them, then shook my hand again fervently and mumbled something about inexpressible pleasure and entirely acceptable to my government. That made me the accredited and accepted Ambassador to New Texas. Mr. Palm 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 cropped tatas. He would pull them resolutely away again. 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. 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 are three hundred in length. Daylight was visible through open doors at the end. As we approached them, the Rangers fanning out on either side in front of us, I could hear a perfect bedlam of noise outside, shouting, singing, dance band music, interspersed with the banging of shots. 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. Oh, dear, I always dread these things, Palm was saying. Yes, absolutely anything could happen, thrombly twittered. Man, this is a real barbecue, Hoddy gloated, now I really feel at home. Over this way, Mr. Silk, Palm said, guiding me toward the short end of the plaza on our left. We would see the president and then, he gulped, then we all go down to the barbecue. 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 gun-smoke spouting from windows and parapets. I plucked thrombly sleeve. Isn't that a replica of the Alamo? He was shocked. Oh dear, Mr. Ambassador, don't let anybody hear you ask that. That's no replica. It is the Alamo, the Alamo. I stood there a moment looking at it. I was remembering, and finally understanding, what my psycho-history lessons about the romantic frieze had meant. 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. 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 dream 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. And many times they had come close to succeeding. These Texans now, they 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. They were living frozen in a romantic dream, a world of roving cowboys and ranch kingdoms. No wonder Hottie hadn't liked the books I had been reading on the ship. They shook the fabric of that dream. 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 motor-cart 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. At ease, at ease, I told them. Have a good time, boys. Hottie, you better get in on some of this grub. I may be inside for quite a while. As soon as the rangers saw Hottie, they hastily got things out of their right hands. Hottie grinned at them. Take it easy, boys, he said. I'm protected by the game laws. I'm a diplomat I am. There were a couple of rangers lounging outside the door of the President's office, and both of them carried auto-rifles, implying things I didn't like. I had seen the President of the Solar World 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. 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 lace 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 and cross-body holsters under his coat, and he always kept one hand or the other close to his abdomen. He was like, and yet unlike, the Secretary of State. Both had the look of hunted apples. But where palm 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. Good day, Mr. Silk, he said, shaking hands with me after the introductions. I see you're healed, you're smart. You wouldn't be here today if poor Cyrus Cumshaw'd been as smart as you are. Man, though, a wise and far-seeing statesman. He and I were real friends. You know who Mr. Silk brought with him as a bodyguard? Palm asked. Hadi Ringo. 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 a lot of folks here won't thank you for bringing him back to New Texas. He looked at his watch. We have time for a little drink before we go outside, Mr. Silk, he said. Care to join me? I assented, and he got a bottle of super bourbon out of his desk with four glasses. Palm got some water tumblers and brought the pitcher of ice water from the cooler. 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 ants, but he took his liquor in blasts that would afford a spaceport labor-boss. 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, Hadi, the two Marines, the Rangers who had escorted us from Palm'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, the skies of freedom are above you, was as bad as New Year's Eve in Manhattan or Nairobi or New Moscow on Tara. 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. 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. 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-millimeter anti-tank gun five or six times. Hutchinson grabbed a microphone and bellowed into it. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please! The noise began to diminish slowly until I could hear one voice in the crowd below. Shut up, you damn fools! What can't eat till this is over? Hutchinson introduced me in a very few words. I gathered that lengthy speeches at barbecues were not popular on New Texas. 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. That got a big ovation. There was, beside the water-pitcher, a bottle of super bourbon. I ostentatiously threw the water out of the glass, poured a big shot of the corrosive stuff, and downed it. For God's sake, let's eat! I finished. Then I turned to thrombly, who was looking like a priest who had 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. "'The sandwiches will 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.' The sandwiches, huge masses of meat and hot relish, wrapped in tortillas of some sort, arrived, and I bit into one. I'd been eating super-cow all my life, frozen or electron beamed for transportation, and now I was discovering that I had never really eaten super-cow before. I finished the first sandwich in surprisingly short order, and was starting on my second when the crowd began coming. First the diplomatic corps, the usual collection of weirdies, human and otherwise. There was the ambassador from Tara, in a suit of what his planet produced as a substitute for Irish home-spons. His embassy, if it was like the others I had seen elsewhere, would be an outsize cottage with white-washed walls and a thatched roof, with a bowl of milk outside the door for the little people. The ambassador from Alpharats II, the South African Nationalist planet, with a full beard and an old-fashioned plug hat and tailcoat. They were a frustrated lot. They had gone into space to practice apartheid, and had settled on a planet where there was no other intelligent race to be superior to. The Mormon ambassador from Deseret, Delta Camelopartilis V, the ambassador from Spica VII, a short, jolly-looking little fellow with a head like a seal, long arms, short legs, and a tail like a kangaroos. The ambassador from Beta Cephas VI, who could have passed for a 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. I was beginning to correct my first impression that thrombly 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 Nanna Debedian from Beta Cephas VI when he whispered to me, Here it comes, sir, the Zisroth. The Zisroth 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. There were stories floating around that they enjoyed barbecued terrine even better than they did super-cow and hot relish. This one advanced, extending his three-fingered hand. I am most happy to make connection with Solar League representative," he said. I am named Galafur Dispatin Vuvuvu. No wonder thrombly let him introduce himself. I answered in the basic English that was all he'd admit to understanding. 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. Galafur Vuvuvu's smile wavered a little at the oblique reference to the couple of trouncings our space navy had administered to the Zisroth 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 would put pleasure in your heart. 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 Viss and 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. Thank you, I have met the ambassador. The lovely voice was shaking with restrained anger. Gail, I exclaimed. Your father coming to the barbecue, Gail? President Hutchinson was asking. 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. Well, I suppose I leave Mr. Silk in your hands for a while, Hutchinson said. I ought to circulate around a little. Yes, just leave him in my hands, she said vindictively. What's wrong, Gail? I wanted to know. I know I was supposed to meet you at the spaceport, but you made a beautiful fool of me at the spaceport. Look, I can explain everything. My embassy staff insisted on hurrying me off. 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. You have to listen to me, I roared in her ear. I can explain everything. Any diplomat can explain anything," she shouted back. Look, Gail, you're hanging an innocent man! I yelled back at her. I'm entitled to a fair trial. Somebody on the platform began firing his pistol within inches of the loudspeakers, and it sounded like an H-bomb going off. She grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward a door under the platform. Down here, she yelled, and this better be good, Mr. Seolk. We went down a spiral ramp lighted by widely scattered overhead lights. Space attacked Shelter, she explained, and look, what goes on in spaceships is one thing, but it's as much as a girl's reputation is worth to come down here during a barbecue. 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. Over this way, Gail said, Confederate court's building, there won't be anything going on over here now. I told her, with as much humorous detail as possible, about how thrombly had Shanghai meet 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. 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. But when we opened the door, there was a ranger standing inside. Come to see a trial, Mr. Silk. Oh, hello, Gail. Just in time. They're going to prepare for the next trial. As he spoke, something clicked at the door. Gail looked at me in consternation. Now we're locked in, she said, we can't get out till the trial's over. End of Chapter 4