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Title: Lone Star Planet

Author: H. Beam Piper
John J. McGuire

Release date: December 16, 2006 [eBook #20121]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20121

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONE STAR
PLANET ***

Lone Star Planet

by

H. Beam Piper
and

John J. McGuire

Transcriber's Note

This etext was prepared from a 1979 reprint of the 1958 original. There is
no evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious typesetting errors in the source text have been corrected

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI

Lone Star Planet
SF
ace books
A Division of Charter Communications Inc.
A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY
360 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010

LONE STAR PLANET

Copyright © 1958 by Ace Books, Inc.

Originally published as A PLANET FOR TEXANS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This Ace Printing: April 1979

Printed in U.S.A.

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 K'wang-Li, the Secretary's receptionist, at her desk. There
was Courtlant Staynes, the assistant secretary to the Undersecretary for
Economic Penetration, and Norman Gazarin, from Protocol, and Toby
Lawder, from Humanoid Peoples' Affairs, and Raoul Chavier, and Hans
Mannteufel, and Olga Reznik.
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, Junior." 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," Mannteufel 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 Ghopal understands what it
was all about. All too well, you'll find."
A buzzer sounded gently on Ethel K'wang-Li'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 Ghopal is ready to see Mr. Stephen Silk," she said. "This way,
please."
As I started across the room, Staynes 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?" Lawder inquired tonelessly. "A glass of rum?"

There were three men in the Secretary of State's private office. Ghopal
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: Rudolf Klüng, 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 Natalenko, the Security Coördinator.
"Good morning, Mister Silk," Secretary Ghopal 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 table-top were cups and saucers, a coffee urn,
cigarettes—and a copy of the current issue of the Galactic Statesmen's
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 wineberry
planter 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," Ghopal was saying to
the others. "Back on Luna on rotation, doing something in Mr. Halvord's
section. He is the gentleman who did such a splendid job for us on Assha—
Gamma Norma III.
"And, as he has just demonstrated," he added, gesturing toward the
Statesman's Journal on the Benares-work table, "he is a student both of the
diplomacy of the past and the implications of our present policies."
"A bit frank," Klüng commented dubiously.
"But judicious," Natalenko squeaked, in the high eunuchoid voice that came
so incongruously from his bulk. "He aired his singularly 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," Ghopal 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," Ghopal hastened to reassure
me. "We are going to have to banish you for a while, but I daresay that
won't be so bad. The social life here on Luna has probably begun to pall,
anyhow. So we're sending you to Capella IV."
"Capella IV," I repeated, trying to remember something about it. Capella
was a GO-type, like Sol; that wouldn't be so bad.
"New Texas," Klüng helped me out.
Oh, God, no! I thought.
"It happens that we need somebody of your sort on that planet, Mr. Silk,"
Ghopal said. "Some of the trouble is in my department and some of it is in
Mr. Klüng's; for that reason, perhaps it would be better if Coördinator
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. "Supercow."
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 a short while ago. Our Ambassador, in fact."
That would be Silas Cumshaw, 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 z'Srauff."
That was a statement, not a question; Natalenko wasn't trying to insult me. I
knew who the z'Srauff were; I'd run into them, here and there. One of the
extra-solar intelligent humanoid races, who seemed 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 forty light-
years beyond the Capella system. They had developed normal-space
reaction-drive 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 a galaxy-wide Point-Four program.
In the past century, it had become almost impossible for anybody to get into
their star-group, although z'Srauff ships were orbiting in on every planet
that the League had settled or controlled. There were z'Srauff 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 would 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-
spaceflight Terran 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, Junior would do
about the z'Srauff?"
"We have a Department of Aggression," I replied. "Its mottoes 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 z'Srauff would
set every other non-human race in the galaxy against us.... Would an attack
by the z'Srauff 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 z'Srauff 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 z'Srauff 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 Ghopal. "You
take it from there," he invited.
Ghopal 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. Cumshaw 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 z'Srauff 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 haze the freshmen by
making them sit on a one-legged stool and balance a teacup and saucer on
one knee while the upper classmen 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, set down the cup, took
a puff from my cigarette, then 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," Ghopal 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 aboard, or at
New Austin, the planetary capital. We have a man whom Coördinator
Natalenko has secured for us, a native New Texan, Hoddy 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 II

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?" Courtlant Staynes asked, amusedly.
"Demoted me. Kicked me off the Hooligan Diplomats," I said glumly.
"Demoted you from the Consular Service?" Staynes asked scornfully.
"Impossible!"
"Yes. He demoted me to the Cookie Pushers. Clear down to Ambassador."

They got a terrific laugh. I went out, wondering what sort of noises they'd
make, the next morning, when the appointments sheet was posted.

I gathered a few things together, mostly small personal items, and all the
microfilms that 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 spacetrip.
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.
Hoddy 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-
mm 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'd 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 kinda
work," he said. "I was just sent along to show you the way around New
Texas, and see you don't get inta 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 inta a lotta trouble on New Texas. If you call gettin'
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 weeks' 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 extrasolar 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 supercow, a big mammal looking like the unsuccessful attempt of a
hippopotamus to impersonate a dachshund and about the size of a nuclear-
steam locomotive. On New Texas' plains, 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, it 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 loose-leaf notebooks, both labeled with the Solar
League and Department seals, both adorned with the 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, 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
outspoken convictions. I have managed to keep myself alive here
by becoming an inoffensive nonentity. 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. (see p. 1.)
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 many 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 seven-mm Krupp-Tatta Ultraspeed automatics, and the
holsters were the spring-ejection, quick-draw holsters which were the secret
of the State Department 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 the holsters to Hoddy 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 Terran 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 Terran
Texas, when all travel had been on horseback. On horseless 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 Levis. And I was informed, as an order, that
I was to wear the belt and the pistols at all times outside the Embassy itself.
That was all of the second notebook.
The two notebooks, plus my conversation with Ghopal, Klüng 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
Cumshaw'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 liked the order to carry the pistols even
less. Not that I had any objection to carrying weapons, per se: I had been
born and raised on Theta Virgo IV, where the children aren't allowed outside
the house unattended until they've 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 Doctor Guillotin 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 convertors and
watched it resolve itself into its constituent protons, neutrons and electrons.
On the way back, I stopped in at the ship's bar.
Hoddy Ringo was there, wrapped up in—and I use the words literally—a
young lady from the Alderbaran 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 Hoddy immobilized
—better word, located—for a while. So I went back to our suite, picked the
lock of Hoddy'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-mm pistol, made by Consolidated-Martian
Metalworks, mate 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 sight and the meaning of the old holsters with joy: they weren't
the State Department Special Services type. That meant that Hoddy 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 hidden in the lining of one of
his bags, a letter addressed to Space-Commander Lucius C. Stonehenge,
Aggression Department Attaché, 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 Texan job....

Starting that evening—or what passed for evening aboard a ship in
hyperspace—Hoddy and I began a positively epochal binge together.
I had it figured this way: as long as we were on board ship, I was perfectly
safe. On the ship, in fact, Hoddy would definitely have given his life to save
mine. I'd have to be killed on New Texas to give Klüng's boys 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 Hoddy 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
Hoddy and I drank something he called superbourbon—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
superyams.
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
supersomething.
I was also cautious enough, before we really got started, to leave my belt
and guns with the purser. I didn't want Hoddy 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 one 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 blond—who joined the party
along with Hoddy's grass widow from Alderbaran and stayed with it to the
end?
Damn, I wished I could remember her name!

When we were fifteen thousand miles off-planet and the lighters from New
Austin spaceport were reported on the way, I got into the skin-tight Levis,
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, Hoddy had put on his pistols and was
practicing quick draws in front of the mirror. He took one look at my
armament and groaned.
"You're gonna get yourself killed for sure, with that rig, an' them popguns,"
he told me.
"These popguns'll shoot harder and make bigger holes than that pair of
museum-pieces you're carrying," I replied.
"An' them holsters!" Hoddy continued. "Why, it'd take all day to get your
guns outa them! You better let me find you a real rig, when we get to 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 readin'. I try to tell you what things is
really like on New Texas, an' you let it go in one ear an' out the other."

Then he wandered off to say good-bye to the grass widow from Alderbaran,
leaving me to make the last-minute check on the luggage. I was hoping I'd
be able to see that blond ... what was her name; Gail 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 viewscreen
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 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.
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, at
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 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.
"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 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.
"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!"
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 sorrier."
"Somebody here gunnin' for the Ambassador?" Hoddy demanded sharply.
"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.
Hoddy, 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 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.
Immediately, black rocket-fuel puffs shot away from the pursuing aircars.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
"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.
Hoddy brushed him aside and explained:
"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."
"Shucks, that wasn't nothin'," 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 Levis 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 Mr. 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 got a report, from a mighty good source, that you'd been
kidnapped at the spaceport by a gang of thugs!"

"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."
"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."
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. "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?"
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'll 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 Hottentot, 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
dithered.
"... 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, 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."
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—"
"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."
"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."
I looked at my watch, which had been regulated aboard ship for Capella IV
time. It was just 1315.
"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—"
"Barbecued supercow! Yipeee!" Hoddy yelled. "What I been waitin' 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 chargé d'affaires 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 Ghopal Singh."
That set him back on his heels.
"I ... I can't believe it!" he exclaimed. "An ambassador is never armed."
"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.
"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 Statehouse, then," Thrombley said. "We will have
to call on Secretary of State Palme, 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.
"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.
"Yes, sir. Task Force Red-Blue-Green, Fifth Space Fleet. Fleet Admiral Sir
Rodney Tregaskis."
"Can we get hold of a fast space-boat, 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 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?"
"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 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."
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 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."
"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."
On the way to the Statehouse in the aircar, I kept wondering just how smart
I had been.
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.
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.

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.
I was in that pleasant spot called, "Damned if you do and damned if you
don't...."

CHAPTER IV

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.
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.
"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 Hoddy Ringo,
bringing up the rear and stopped short, hand flying to open mouth. "Oh,
dear me!"
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.

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."
That made me the accredited and accepted Ambassador to New Texas.
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.
"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 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.
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!" Palme was saying.
"Yes, absolutely anything could happen," Thrombley twittered.
"Man, this is a real barbecue!" Hoddy gloated. "Now I really feel at home!"
"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 ..."
He gulped.
"... then we will all go 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 gunsmoke spouting
from windows and parapets.
I plucked Thrombley's 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
Freeze" 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 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.
And, many times, they had come close to succeeding.
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.
No wonder Hoddy 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 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.
"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."
As soon as the Rangers saw Hoddy, they hastily got things out of their right
hands. Hoddy 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 autorifles, implying things I didn't like.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
"You know who Mr. Silk brought with him as bodyguard?" Palme asked.
"Hoddy 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 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 superbourbon out of his desk, with four
glasses. Palme 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 aunts, but he took his liquor in blasts
that would have floored 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—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: The
skies of freedom are above you!—was as bad as New Year's Eve in
Manhattan or Nairobi or New Moscow, on Terra.
"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-mm 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! We can't eat till this is over!"
Hutchinson introduced me, in 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
superbourbon. 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 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.
"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!"
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 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.
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 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 ...
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 apartheid and had
settled on a planet where there was no other intelligent race to be superior
to....
The Mormon Ambassador from Deseret—Delta Camelopardalis V....

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....
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....
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:
"Here it comes, sir. The z'Srauff!"
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.
There were stories floating around that they enjoyed barbecued Terran even
better than they did supercow 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 Gglafrr Ddespttann Vuvuvu."
No wonder Thrombley 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."
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."
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.
"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, 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 loud-
speakers 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. Silk!"
We went down a spiral ramp, lighted by widely-scattered overhead lights.
"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."
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 Courts Building. There won't be
anything going on over here, now."
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.
"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."

CHAPTER V

I looked around.
We were on a high balcony, at the end of a long, narrow room. In front of
us, windows rose to the ceiling, and it was evident that the floor of the room
was about twenty feet below ground level. Outside, I could see the barbecue
still going on, but not a murmur of noise penetrated to us. What seemed to
be the judge's bench was against the outside wall, under the tall windows.
To the right of it was a railed stand with a chair in it, and in front, arranged
in U-shape, were three tables at which a number of men were hastily
conferring. There were nine judges in a row on the bench, all in black
gowns. The spectators' seats below were filled with people, and there were
quite a few up here on the balcony.
"What is this? Supreme Court?" I asked as Gail piloted me to a couple of
seats where we could be alone.
"No, Court of Political Justice," she told me. "This is the court that's going
to try those three Bonney brothers, who killed Mr. Cumshaw."
It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first time I had heard anything
specific about the death of my predecessor.
"That isn't the trial that's going on now, I hope?"
"Oh, no; that won't be for a couple of days. Not till after you can arrange to
attend. I don't know what this trial is. I only got home today, myself."
"What's the procedure here?" I wanted to know.
"Well, those nine men are judges," she began. "The one in the middle is
President Judge Nelson. You've met his son—the Ranger officer who
chased you from the spaceport. He's a regular jurist. The other eight are
prominent citizens who are drawn from a panel, like a jury. The men at the
table on the left are the prosecution: friends of the politician who was
killed. And the ones on the right are the defense: they'll try to prove that the
dead man got what was coming to him. The ones in the middle are friends
of the court: they're just anybody who has any interest in the case—people

who want to get some point of law cleared up, or see some precedent
established, or something like that."
"You seem to assume that this is a homicide case," I mentioned.
"They generally are. Sometimes mayhem, or wounding, or simple assault,
but—"
There had been some sort of conference going on in the open space of floor
between the judges' bench and the three tables. It broke up, now, and the
judge in the middle rapped with his gavel.
"Are you gentlemen ready?" he asked. "All right, then. Court of Political
Justice of the Confederate Continents of New Texas is now in session. Case
of the friends of S. Austin Maverick, deceased, late of James Bowie
Continent, versus Wilbur Whately."
"My God, did somebody finally kill Aus Maverick?" Gail whispered.
On the center table, in front of the friends of the court, both sides seemed to
have piled their exhibits; among the litter I saw some torn clothing, a big
white sombrero covered with blood, and a long machete.
"The general nature of the case," the judge was saying, "is that the
defendant, Wilbur Whately, of Sam Houston Continent, is here charged with
divers offenses arising from the death of the Honorable S. Austin Maverick,
whom he killed on the front steps of the Legislative Assembly Building,
here in New Austin...."
What goes on here? I thought angrily. This is the rankest instance of a pre-
judged case I've ever seen. I started to say as much to Gail, but she hushed
me.
"I want to hear the specifications," she said.
A man at the prosecution table had risen.
"Please the court," he began, "the defendant, Wilbur Whately, is here
charged with political irresponsibility and excessive atrocity in exercising
his constitutional right of criticism of a practicing politician.

"The specifications are, as follows: That, on the afternoon of May Seventh,
Anno Domini 2193, the defendant here present did arm himself with a
machete, said machete not being one of his normal and accustomed
weapons, and did loiter in wait on the front steps of the Legislative
Assembly Building in the city of New Austin, Continent of Sam Houston,
and did approach the decedent, addressing him in abusive, obscene, and
indecent language, and did set upon and attack him with the machete
aforesaid, causing the said decedent, S. Austin Maverick, to die."
The court wanted to know how the defendant would plead. Somebody,
without bothering to rise, said, "Not guilty, Your Honor," from the defense
table.
There was a brief scraping of chairs; four of five men from the defense and
the prosecution tables got up and advanced to confer in front of the bench,
comparing sheets of paper. The man who had read the charges, obviously
the chief prosecutor, made himself the spokesman.
"Your Honor, defense and prosecution wish to enter the following
stipulations: That the decedent was a practicing politician within the
meaning of the Constitution, that he met his death in the manner stated in
the coroner's report, and that he was killed by the defendant, Wilbur
Whately."
"Is that agreeable to you, Mr. Vincent?" the judge wanted to know.
The defense answered affirmatively. I sat back, gaping like a fool. Why, that
was practically—no, it was—a confession.
"All right, gentlemen," the judge said. "Now we have all that out of the
way, let's get on with the case."
As though there were any case to get on with! I fully expected them to take
it on from there in song, words by Gilbert and music by Sullivan.
"Well, Your Honor, we have a number of character witnesses," the
prosecution—prosecution, for God's sake!—announced.
"Skip them," the defense said. "We stipulate."

"But you can't stipulate character testimony," the prosecution argued. "You
don't know what our witnesses are going to testify to."
"Sure we do: they're going to give us a big long shaggy-dog story about the
Life and Miracles of Saint Austin Maverick. We'll agree in advance to all
that; this case is concerned only with his record as a politician. And as he
spent the last fifteen years in the Senate, that's all a matter of public record.
I assume that the prosecution is going to introduce all that, too?"
"Well, naturally ..." the prosecutor began.
"Including his public acts on the last day of his life?" the counsel for the
defense demanded. "His actions on the morning of May seventh as
chairman of the Finance and Revenue Committee? You going to introduce
that as evidence for the prosecution?"
"Well, now ..." the prosecutor began.
"Your Honor, we ask to have a certified copy of the proceedings of the
Senate Finance and Revenue Committee for the morning of May Seventh,
2193, read into the record of this court," the counsel for the defense said.
"And thereafter, we rest our case."
"Has the prosecution anything to say before we close the court?" Judge
Nelson inquired.
"Well, Your Honor, this seems ... that is, we ought to hear both sides of it.
My old friend, Aus Maverick, was really a fine man; he did a lot of good for
the people of his continent...."
"Yeah, we'd of lynched him, when he got back, if somebody hadn't chopped
him up here in New Austin!" a voice from the rear of the courtroom broke
in.
The prosecution hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then announced, in
a hasty mumble, that it rested.
"I will now close the court," Judge Nelson said. "I advise everybody to keep
your seats. I don't think it's going to be closed very long."

And then, he actually closed the court; pressing a button on the bench, he
raised a high black screen in front of him and his colleagues. It stayed up
for some sixty seconds, and then dropped again.
"The Court of Political Justice has reached a verdict," he announced.
"Wilbur Whately, and your attorney, approach and hear the verdict."
The defense lawyer motioned a young man who had been sitting beside him
to rise. In the silence that had fallen, I could hear the defendant's boots
squeaking as he went forward to hear his fate. The judge picked up a belt
and a pair of pistols that had been lying in front of him.
"Wilbur Whately," he began, "this court is proud to announce that you have
been unanimously acquitted of the charge of political irresponsibility, and
of unjustified and excessive atrocity.
"There was one dissenting vote on acquitting you of the charge of political
irresponsibility; one of the associate judges felt that the late unmitigated
scoundrel, Austin Maverick, ought to have been skinned alive, an inch at a
time. You are, however, acquitted of that charge, too.
"You all know," he continued, addressing the entire assemblage, "the reason
for which this young hero cut down that monster of political iniquity, S.
Austin Maverick. On the very morning of his justly-merited death, Austin
Maverick, using the powers of his political influence, rammed through the
Finance and Revenue Committee a bill entitled 'An Act for the Taxing of
Personal Incomes, and for the Levying of a Withholding Tax.' Fellow
citizens, words fail me to express my horror of this diabolic proposition,
this proposed instrument of tyrannical extortion, borrowed from the Dark
Ages of the Twentieth Century! Why, if this young nobleman had not taken
his blade in hand, I'd have killed the sonofabitch, myself!"
He leaned forward, extending the belt and holsters to the defendant.
"I therefore restore to you your weapons, taken from you when, in
compliance with the law, you were formally arrested. Buckle them on, and,
assuming your weapons again, go forth from this court a free man, Wilbur
Whately. And take with you that machete with which you vindicated the
liberties and rights of all New Texans. Bear it reverently to your home, hang
it among your lares and penates, cherish it, and dying, mention it within

your will, bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto your issue! Court adjourned;
next session 0900 tomorrow. For Chrissake, let's get out of here before the
barbecue's over!"
Some of the spectators, drooling for barbecued supercow, began crowding
and jostling toward the exits; more of them were pushing to the front of the
courtroom, cheering and waving their hip-flasks. The prosecution and about
half of the friends of the court hastily left by a side door, probably to issue
statements disassociating themselves from the deceased Maverick.
"So that's the court that's going to try the men who killed Ambassador
Cumshaw," I commented, as Gail and I went out. "Why, the purpose of that
court seems to be to acquit murderers."
"Murderers?" She was indignant. "That wasn't murder. He just killed a
politician. All the court could do was determine whether or not the
politician needed it, and while I never heard about Maverick's income-tax
proposition, I can't see how they could have brought in any other kind of a
verdict. Of all the outrageous things!"

I was thoughtfully silent as we went out into the plaza, which was still a riot
of noise and polychromatic costumes. And my thoughts were as weltered as
the scene before me.
Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician wasn't regarded as mallum in
se, and was mallum prohibitorum only to the extent that what happened to
the politician was in excess of what he deserved. I began to understand why
Palme was such a scared rabbit, why Hutchinson had that hunted look and
kept his hands always within inches of his pistols.
I began to feel more pity than contempt for Thrombley, too. He's been on
this planet too long and he should never have been sent here in the first
place. I'll rotate him home as soon as possible....
Then the full meaning of what I had seen finally got through to me: if they
were going to try the killers of Cumshaw in that court, that meant that on
New Texas, foreign diplomats were regarded as practicing politicians....

That made me a practicing politician too!
And that's why, when we got back to the vicinity of the bandstand, I had my
right hand close to my pistol, with my thumb on the inconspicuous little
spot of silver inlay that operated the secret holster mechanism.
I saw Hutchinson and Palme and Thrombley ahead. With them was a
newcomer, a portly, ruddy-faced gentleman with a white mustache and
goatee, dressed in a white suit. Gail broke away from me and ran toward
him. This, I thought, would be her father; now I would be introduced and
find out just what her last name was. I followed, more slowly, and saw a
waiter, with a wheeled serving-table, move in behind the group which she
had joined.
So I saw what none of them did—the waiter suddenly reversed his long
carving-knife and poised himself for a blow at President Hutchinson's back.
I simply pressed the little silver stud on my belt, the Krupp-Tatta popped
obediently out of the holster into my open hand. I thumbed off the safety
and swung up; when my sights closed on the rising hand that held the knife,
I fired.
Hoddy Ringo, who had been holding a sandwich with one hand and a drink
with the other, dropped both and jumped on the man whose hand I had
smashed. A couple of Rangers closed in and grabbed him, also. The group
around President Hutchinson had all turned and were staring from me to the
man I had shot, and from him to the knife with the broken handle, lying on
the ground.
Hutchinson spoke first. "Well, Mr. Ambassador! My Government thanks
your Government! That was nice shooting!"
"Hey, you been holdin' out on me!" Hoddy accused. "I never knew you was
that kinda gunfighter!"
"There's a new wrinkle," the man with the white goatee said. "We'll have to
screen the help at these affairs a little more closely." He turned to me. "Mr.
Ambassador, New Texas owes you a great deal for saving the President's
life. If you'll get that pistol out of your hand, I'd be proud to shake it, sir."

I holstered my automatic, and took his hand. Gail was saying, "Stephen, this
is my father," and at the same time, Palme, the Secretary of State, was doing
it more formally:
"Ambassador Silk, may I present one of our leading citizens and large
ranchers, Colonel Andrew Jackson Hickock."
Dumbarton Oaks had taught me how to maintain the proper diplomat's
unchanging expression; drinking superbourbon had been a post-graduate
course. I needed that training as I finally learned Gail's last name.

CHAPTER VI

It was early evening before we finally managed to get away from the
barbecue. Thrombley had called the Embassy and told them not to wait
dinner for us, so the staff had finished eating and were relaxing in the patio
when our car came in through the street gate. Stonehenge and another man
came over to meet us as we got out—a man I hadn't met before.
He was a little fellow, half-Latin, half-Oriental; in New Texas costume and
wearing a pair of pistols like mine, in State Department Special Services
holsters. He didn't look like a Dumbarton Oaks product: I thought he was
more likely an alumnus of some private detective agency.
"Mr. Francisco Parros, our Intelligence man," Stonehenge introduced him.
"Sorry I wasn't here when you arrived, Mr. Silk," Parros said. "Out
checking on some things. But I saw that bit of shooting, on the telecast
screen in a bar over town. You know, there was a camera right over the
bandstand that caught the whole thing—you and Miss Hickock coming
toward the President and his party, Miss Hickock running forward to her
father, the waiter going up behind Hutchinson with the knife, and then that
beautiful draw and snap shot. They ran it again a couple of times on the
half-hourly newscast. Everybody in New Austin, maybe on New Texas, is
talking about it, now."

"Yes, indeed, sir," Gomez, the Embassy Secretary, said, joining us. "You've
made yourself more popular in the eight hours since you landed than poor
Mr. Cumshaw had been able to do in the ten years he spent here. But, I'm
afraid, sir, you've given me a good deal of work, answering your fan-mail."
We went over and sat down at one of the big tables under the arches at the
side of the patio.
"Well, that's all to the good," I said. "I'm going to need a lot of local good
will, in the next few weeks. No thanks, Mr. Parros," I added, as the
Intelligence man picked up a bottle and made to pour for me. "I've been
practically swimming in superbourbon all afternoon. A little black coffee, if
you don't mind. And now, gentlemen, if you'll all be seated, we'll see what
has to be done."
"A council of war, in effect, Mr. Ambassador?" Stonehenge inquired.
"Let's call it a council to estimate the situation. But I'll have to find out from
you first exactly what the situation here is."
Thrombley stirred uneasily. "But sir, I confess that I don't understand. Your
briefing on Luna...."
"Was practically nonexistent. I had a total of six hours to get aboard ship,
from the moment I was notified that I had been appointed to this Embassy."
"Incredible!" Thrombley murmured.
I wondered what he'd say if I told him that I thought it was deliberate.
"Naturally, I spent some time on the ship reading up on this planet, but I
know practically nothing about what's been going on here in, say, the last
year. And all I know about the death of Mr. Cumshaw is that he is said to
have been killed by three brothers named Bonney."
"So you'll want just about everything, Mr. Silk," Thrombley said. "Really, I
don't know where to begin."
"Start with why and how Mr. Cumshaw was killed. The rest, I believe, will
key into that."

So they began; Thrombley, Stonehenge and Parros doing the talking. It
came to this:
Ever since we had first established an Embassy on New Texas, the goal of
our diplomacy on this planet had been to secure it into the Solar League.
And it was a goal which seemed very little closer to realization now than it
had been twenty-three years before.
"You must know, by now, what politics on this planet are like, Mr. Silk,"
Thrombley said.
"I have an idea. One Ambassador gone native, another gone crazy, the third
killed himself, the fourth murdered."
"Yes, indeed. I've been here fifteen years, myself...."
"That's entirely too long for anybody to be stationed in this place," I told
him. "If I'm not murdered, myself, in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to
see that you and any other member of this staff who's been here over ten
years are rotated home for a tour of duty at Department Headquarters."
"Oh, would you, Mr. Silk? I would be so happy...."
Thrombley wasn't much in the way of an ally, but at least he had a sound,
selfish motive for helping me stay alive. I assured him I would get him sent
back to Luna, and then went on with the discussion.
Up until six months ago, Silas Cumshaw had modeled himself after the
typical New Texas politician. He had always worn at least two faces, and
had always managed to place himself on every side of every issue at once.
Nothing he ever said could possibly be construed as controversial.
Naturally, the cause of New Texan annexation to the Solar League had
made no progress whatever.
Then, one evening, at a banquet, he had executed a complete 180-degree
turn, delivering a speech in which he proclaimed that union with the Solar
League was the only possible way in which New Texans could retain even a
vestige of local sovereignty. He had talked about an invasion as though the
enemy's ships were already coming out of hyperspace, and had named the
invader, calling the z'Srauff "our common enemy." The z'Srauff

Ambassador, also present, had immediately gotten up and stalked out, amid
a derisive chorus of barking and baying from the New Texans. The New
Texans were first shocked and then wildly delighted; they had been so used
to hearing nothing but inanities and high-order abstractions from their
public figures that the Solar League Ambassador had become a hero
overnight.
"Sounds as though there is a really strong sentiment at what used to be
called the grass-roots level in favor of annexation," I commented.
"There is," Parros told me. "Of course, there is a very strong isolationist,
anti-annexation, sentiment, too. The sentiment in favor of annexation is
based on the point Mr. Cumshaw made—the danger of conquest by the
z'Srauff. Against that, of course, there is fear of higher taxes, fear of loss of
local sovereignty, fear of abrogation of local customs and institutions, and
chauvinistic pride."
"We can deal with some of that by furnishing guarantees of local self-
government; the emotional objections can be met by convincing them that
we need the great planet of New Texas to add glory and luster to the Solar
League," I said. "You think, then, that Mr. Cumshaw was assassinated by
opponents of annexation?"
"Of course, sir," Thrombley replied. "These Bonneys were only hirelings.
Here's what happened, on the day of the murder:
"It was the day after a holiday, a big one here on New Texas, celebrating
some military victory by the Texans on Terra, a battle called San Jacinto.
We didn't have any business to handle, because all the local officials were
home nursing hangovers, so when Colonel Hickock called—"
"Who?" I asked sharply.
"Colonel Hickock. The father of the young lady you were so attentive to at
the barbecue. He and Mr. Cumshaw had become great friends, beginning
shortly before the speech the Ambassador made at that banquet. He called
about 0900, inviting Mr. Cumshaw out to his ranch for the day, and as there
was nothing in the way of official business, Mr. Cumshaw said he'd be out
by 1030.

"When he got there, there was an aircar circling about, near the ranchhouse.
As Mr. Cumshaw got out of his car and started up the front steps, somebody
in this car landed it on the driveway and began shooting with a twenty-mm
auto-rifle. Mr. Cumshaw was hit several times, and killed instantly."
"The fellows who did the shooting were damned lucky," Stonehenge took
over. "Hickock's a big rancher. I don't know how much you know about
supercow-ranching, sir, but those things have to be herded with tanks and
light aircraft, so that every rancher has at his disposal a fairly good small
air-armor combat team. Naturally, all the big ranchers are colonels in the
Armed Reserve. Hickock has about fifteen fast fighters, and thirty medium
tanks armed with fifty-mm guns. He also has some AA-guns around his
ranch house—every once in a while, these ranchers get to squabbling
among themselves.
"Well, these three Bonney brothers were just turning away when a burst
from the ranch house caught their jet assembly, and they could only get as
far as Bonneyville, thirty miles away, before they had to land. They landed
right in front of the town jail.
"This Bonneyville's an awful shantytown; everybody in it is related to
everybody else. The mayor, for instance, Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney, is an
uncle of theirs.
"These three boys—Switchblade Joe Bonney, Jack-High Abe Bonney and
Turkey-Buzzard Tom Bonney—immediately claimed sanctuary in the jail,
on the grounds that they had been near to—get that; I think that indicates
the line they're going to take at the trial—near to a political assassination.
They were immediately given the protection of the jail, which is about the
only well-constructed building in the place, practically a fort."
"You think that was planned in advance?" I asked.
Parros nodded emphatically. "I do. There was a hell of a big gang of these
Bonneys at the jail, almost the entire able-bodied population of the place.
As soon as Switchblade and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard landed, they
were rushed inside and all the doors barred. About three minutes later, the
Hickock outfit started coming in, first aircraft and then armor. They gave
that town a regular Georgie Patton style blitzing."

"Yes. I'm only sorry I wasn't there to see it," Stonehenge put in. "They
knocked down or burned most of the shanties, and then they went to work
on the jail. The aircraft began dumping these firebombs and stun-bombs
that they use to stop supercow stampedes, and the tank-guns began to punch
holes in the walls. As soon as Kettle-Belly saw what he had on his hands, he
radioed a call for Ranger protection. Our friend Captain Nelson went out to
see what the trouble was."
"Yes. I got the story of that from Nelson," Parros put in. "Much as he hated
to do it, he had to protect the Bonneys. And as soon as he'd taken a hand,
Hickock had to call off his gang. But he was smart. He grabbed everything
relating to the killing—the aircar and the twenty-mm auto-rifle in particular
—and he's keeping them under cover. Very few people know about that, or
about the fact that on physical evidence alone, he has the killing pinned on
the Bonneys so well that they'll never get away with this story of being
merely innocent witnesses."
"The rest, Mr. Silk, is up to us," Thrombley said. "I have Colonel Hickock's
assurance that he will give us every assistance, but we simply must see to it
that those creatures with the outlandish names are convicted."
I didn't have a chance to say anything to that: at that moment, one of the
servants ushered Captain Nelson toward us.
"Good evening, Captain," I greeted the Ranger. "Join us, seeing that you're
on foreign soil and consequently not on duty."
He sat down with us and poured a drink.
"I thought you might be interested," he said. "We gave that waiter a going-
over. We wanted to know who put him up to it. He tried to sell us the line
that he was a New Texan patriot, trying to kill a tyrant, but we finally got
the truth out of him. He was paid a thousand pesos to do the job, by a
character they call Snake-Eyes Sam Bonney. A cousin of the three who
killed Mr. Cumshaw."
"Nephew of Kettle-Belly Sam," Parros interjected. "You pick him up?"
Nelson shook his head disgustedly. "He's out in the high grass somewhere.
We're still looking for him. Oh, yes, and I just heard that the trial of

Switchblade, and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard is scheduled for three
days from now. You'll be notified in due form tomorrow, but I thought you
might like to know in advance."
"I certainly do, and thank you, Captain.... We were just talking about you
when you arrived," I mentioned. "About the arrest, or rescue, or whatever
you call it, of that trio."
"Yeah. One of the jobs I'm not particularly proud of. Pity Hickock's boys
didn't get hold of them before I got there. It'd of saved everybody a lot of
trouble."
"Just what impression did you get at the time, Captain?" I asked. "You think
Kettle-Belly knew in advance what they were going to do?"
"Sure he did. They had the whole jail fortified. Not like a jail usually is, to
keep people from getting out; but like a fort, to keep people from getting in.
There were no prisoners inside. I found out that they had all been released
that morning."
He stopped, seemed to be weighing his words, then continued, speaking
very slowly.
"Let me tell you first some things I can't testify to, couple of things that I
figure went wrong with their plans.
"One of Colonel Hickock's men was on the porch to greet Mr. Cumshaw
and he recognized the Bonneys. That was lucky; otherwise we might still be
lookin' and wonderin' who did the shootin', which might not have been
good for New Texas."
He cocked an eyebrow and I nodded. The Solar League, in similar cases,
had regarded such planetary governments as due for change without notice
and had promptly made the change.
"Number two," Captain Nelson continued, "that AA-shot which hit their
aircar. I don't think they intended to land at the jail—it was just sort of a
reserve hiding-hole. But because they'd been hit, they had to land. And
they'd been slowed down so much that they couldn't dispose of the evidence

before the Colonel's boys were tappin' on the door 'n' askin', couldn't they
come in."
"I gather the Colonel's task-force was becoming insistent," I prompted him.
The big Ranger grinned. "Now we're on things I can testify to.
"When I got there, what had been the cell-block was on fire, and they were
trying to defend the mayor's office and the warden's office. These Bonneys
gave me the line that they'd been witnesses to the killing of Mr. Cumshaw
by Colonel Hickock and that the Hickock outfit was trying to rub them out
to keep them from testifying. I just laughed and started to walk out. Finally,
they confessed that they'd shot Mr. Cumshaw, but they claimed it was right
of action against political malfeasance. When they did that, I had to take
them in."
"They confessed to you, before you arrested them?" I wanted to be sure of
that point.
"That's right. I'm going to testify to that, Monday, when the trial is held.
And that ain't all: we got their fingerprints off the car, off the gun, off some
shells still in the clip, and we have the gun identified to the shells that killed
Mr. Cumshaw. We got their confession fully corroborated."
I asked him if he'd give Mr. Parros a complete statement of what he'd seen
and heard at Bonneyville. He was more than willing and I suggested that
they go into Parros' office, where they'd be undisturbed. The Ranger and my
Intelligence man got up and took a bottle of superbourbon with them. As
they were leaving, Nelson turned to Hoddy, who was still with us.
"You'll have to look to your laurels, Hoddy," Nelson said. "Your
Ambassador seems to be making quite a reputation for himself as a
gunfighter."
"Look," Hoddy said, and though he was facing Nelson, I felt he was really
talking to Stonehenge, "before I'd go up against this guy, I'd shoot myself.
That way, I could be sure I'd get a nice painless job."
After they were gone, I turned to Stonehenge and Thrombley. "This seems
to be a carefully prearranged killing."

They agreed.
"Then they knew in advance that Mr. Cumshaw would be on Colonel
Hickock's front steps at about 1030. How did they find that out?"
"Why ... why, I'm sure I don't know," Thrombley said. It was most obvious
that the idea had never occurred to him before and a side glance told me
that the thought was new to Stonehenge also. "Colonel Hickock called at
0900. Mr. Cumshaw left the Embassy in an aircar a few minutes later. It
took an hour and a half to fly out to the Hickock ranch...."
"I don't like the implications, Mr. Silk," Stonehenge said. "I can't believe
that was how it happened. In the first place, Colonel Hickock isn't that sort
of man: he doesn't use his hospitality to trap people to their death. In the
second place, he wouldn't have needed to use people like these Bonneys.
His own men would do anything for him. In the third place, he is one of the
leaders of the annexation movement here and this was obviously an anti-
annexation job. And in the fourth place—"
"Hold it!" I checked him. "Are you sure he's really on the annexation side?"
He opened his mouth to answer me quickly, then closed it, waited a
moment, answered me slowly. "I can guess what you are thinking, Mr. Silk.
But, remember, when Colonel Hickock came here as our first Ambassador,
he came here as a man with a mission. He had studied the problem and he
believed in what he came for. He has never changed.
"Let me emphasize this, sir: we know he has never changed. For our own
protection, we've had to check on every real leader of the annexation
movement, screening them for crackpots who might do us more harm than
good. The Colonel is with us all the way.
"And now, in the fourth place, underlined by what I've just said, the Colonel
and Mr. Cumshaw were really friends."
"Now you're talking!" Hoddy burst in. "I've knowed A. J. ever since I was a
kid. Ever since he married old Colonel MacTodd's daughter. That just ain't
the way A. J. works!"

"On the other hand, Mr. Ambassador," Thrombley said, keeping his gaze
fixed on Hoddy's hands and apparently ready to both duck and shut up if
Hoddy moved a finger, "you will recall, I think, that Colonel Hickock did
do everything in his power to see that these Bonney brothers did not reach
court alive. And, let me add," he was getting bolder, tilting his chin up a
little, "it's a choice as simple as this: either Colonel Hickock told them, or
we have—and this is unbelievable—a traitor in the Embassy itself."
That statement rocked even Hoddy. Even though he was probably no more
than one of Natalenko's little men, he still couldn't help knowing how
thoroughly we were screened, indoctrinated, and—let's face it—mind-
conditioned. A traitor among us was unthinkable because we just couldn't
think that way.
The silence, the sorrow, were palpable. Then I remembered, told them,
Hickock himself had been a Department man.
Stonehenge gripped his head between his hands and squeezed as if trying to
bring out an idea. "All right, Mr. Ambassador, where are we now? Nobody
who knew could have told the Bonney boys where Mr. Cumshaw would be
at 1030, yet the three men were there waiting for him. You take it from
there. I'm just a simple military man and I'm ready to go back to the simple
military life as soon as possible."
I turned to Gomez. "There could be an obvious explanation. Bring us the
official telescreen log. Let's see what calls were made. Maybe Mr.
Cumshaw himself said something to someone that gave his destination
away."
"That won't be necessary," Thrombley told me. "None of the junior clerks
were on duty, and I took the only three calls that came in, myself. First,
there was the call from Colonel Hickock. Then, the call about the wrist
watch. And then, a couple of hours later, the call from the Hickock ranch,
about Mr. Cumshaw's death."
"What was the call about the wrist watch?" I asked.
"Oh, that was from the z'Srauff Embassy," Thrombley said. "For some time,
Mr. Cumshaw had been trying to get one of the very precise watches which
the z'Srauff manufacture on their home planet. The z'Srauff Ambassador

called, that day, to tell him that they had one for him and wanted to know
when it was to be delivered. I told them the Ambassador was out, and they
wanted to know where they could call him and I—"
I had never seen a man look more horror-stricken.
"Oh, my God! I'm the one who told them!"
What could I say? Not much, but I tried. "How could you know, Mr.
Thrombley? You did the natural, the normal, the proper thing, on a call from
one Ambassador to another."
I turned to the others, who, like me, preferred not to look at Thrombley.
"They must have had a spy outside who told them the Ambassador had left
the Embassy. Alone, right? And that was just what they'd been waiting for.
"But what's this about the watch, though. There's more to this than a simple
favor from one Ambassador to another."
"My turn, Mr. Ambassador," Stonehenge interrupted. "Mr. Cumshaw had
been trying to get one of the things at my insistence. Naval Intelligence is
very much interested in them and we want a sample. The z'Srauff watches
are very peculiar—they're operated by radium decay, which, of course is a
universal constant. They're uniform to a tenth second and they're all
synchronized with the official time at the capital city of the principal
z'Srauff planet. The time used by the z'Srauff Navy."
Stonehenge deliberately paused, let that last phrase hang heavily in the air
for a moment, then he continued.
"They're supposed to be used in religious observances—timing hours of
prayer, I believe. They can, of course, have other uses.
"For example, I can imagine all those watches giving the wearer a light
electric shock, or ringing a little bell, all over New Texas, at exactly the
same moment. And then I can imagine all the z'Srauff running down into
nice deep holes in the ground."
He looked at his own watch. "And that reminds me: my gang of pirates are
at the spaceport by now, ready to blast off. I wonder if someone could drive
me there."

"I'll drive him, boss," Hoddy volunteered. "I ain't doin' nothin' else."
I was wondering how I could break that up, plausibly and without betraying
my suspicions, when Parros and Captain Nelson came out and joined us.
"I have a lot of stuff here," Parros said. "Stuff we never seemed to have
noticed. For instance—"
I interrupted. "Commander Stonehenge's going to the spaceport, now," I
said. "Suppose you ride with him, and brief him on what you learned, on
the way. Then, when he's aboard, come back and tell us."
Hoddy looked at me for a long ten seconds. His expression started by being
exasperated and ended by betraying grudging admiration.

CHAPTER VII

The next morning, which was Saturday, I put Thrombley in charge of the
routine work of the Embassy, but first instructed him to answer all inquiries
about me with the statement, literally true, that I was too immersed in work
of clearing up matters left unfinished after the death of the former
Ambassador for any social activities. Then I called the Hickock ranch in the
west end of Sam Houston Continent, mentioning an invitation the Colonel
and his daughter had extended me, and told them I would be out to see them
before noon that same day. With Hoddy Ringo driving the car, I arrived
about 1000, and was welcomed by Gail and her father, who had flown out
the evening before, after the barbecue.
Hoddy, accompanied by a Ranger and one of Hickock's ranch hands, all
three disguised in shabby and grease-stained cast-offs borrowed at the
ranch, and driving a dilapidated aircar from the ranch junkyard, were sent to
visit the slum village of Bonneyville. They spent all day there, posing as a
trio of range tramps out of favor with the law.
I spent the day with Gail, flying over the range, visiting Hickock's herd
camps and slaughtering crews. It was a pleasant day and I managed to make

it constructive as well.
Because of their huge size—they ran to a live weight of around fifteen tons
—and their uncertain disposition, supercows are not really domesticated.
Each rancher owned the herds on his own land, chiefly by virtue of constant
watchfulness over them. There were always a couple of helicopters
hovering over each herd, with fast fighter planes waiting on call to come in
and drop fire-bombs or stun-bombs in front of them if they showed a
disposition to wander too far. Naturally, things of this size could not be
shipped live to the market; they were butchered on the range, and the meat
hauled out in big 'copter-trucks.
Slaughtering was dangerous and exciting work. It was done with medium
tanks mounting fifty-mm guns, usually working at the rear of the herd,
although a supercow herd could change directions almost in a second and
the killing-tanks would then find themselves in front of a stampede. I saw
several such incidents. Once Gail and I had to dive in with our car and help
turn such a stampede.
We got back to the ranch house shortly before dinner. Gail went at once to
change clothes; Colonel Hickock and I sat down together for a drink in his
library, a beautiful room. I especially admired the walls, panelled in plastic-
hardened supercow-leather.
"What do you think of our planet now, Mr. Silk?" Colonel Hickock asked.
"Well, Colonel, your final message to the State was part of the briefing I
received," I replied. "I must say that I agree with your opinions. Especially
with your opinion of local political practices. Politics is nothing, here, if not
exciting and exacting."
"You don't understand it though." That was about half-question and half-
statement. "Particularly our custom of using politicians as clay pigeons."
"Well, it is rather unusual...."
"Yes." The dryness in his tone was a paragraph of comment on my
understatement. "And it's fundamental to our system of government.

"You were out all afternoon with Gail; you saw how we have to handle the
supercow herds. Well, it is upon the fact that every rancher must have at his
disposal a powerful force of aircraft and armor, easily convertible to
military uses, that our political freedom rests. You see, our government is,
in effect, an oligarchy of the big landowners and ranchers, who, in
combination, have enough military power to overturn any Planetary
government overnight. And, on the local level, it is a paternalistic
feudalism.
"That's something that would have stood the hair of any Twentieth Century
'Liberal' on end. And it gives us the freest government anywhere in the
galaxy.
"There were a number of occasions, much less frequent now than formerly,
when coalitions of big ranches combined their strength and marched on the
Planetary government to protect their rights from government
encroachment. This sort of thing could only be resorted to in defense of
some inherent right, and never to infringe on the rights of others. Because,
in the latter case, other armed coalitions would have arisen, as they did once
or twice during the first three decades of New Texan history, to resist.
"So the right of armed intervention by the people when the government
invaded or threatened their rights became an acknowledged part of our
political system.
"And—this arises as a natural consequence—you can't give a man with five
hundred employees and a force of tanks and aircraft the right to resist the
government, then at the same time deny that right to a man who has only
his own pistol or machete."
"I notice the President and the other officials have themselves surrounded
by guards to protect them from individual attack," I said. "Why doesn't the
government, as such, protect itself with an army and air force large enough
to resist any possible coalition of the big ranchers?"
"Because we won't let the government get that strong!" the Colonel said
forcefully. "That's one of the basic premises. We have no standing army,
only the New Texas Rangers. And the legislature won't authorize any
standing army, or appropriate funds to support one. Any member of the

legislature who tried it would get what Austin Maverick got, a couple of
weeks ago, or what Sam Saltkin got, eight years ago, when he proposed a
law for the compulsory registration and licensing of firearms. The
opposition to that tax scheme of Maverick's wasn't because of what it would
cost the public in taxes, but from fear of what the government could do with
the money after they got it.
"Keep a government poor and weak and it's your servant; let it get rich and
powerful and it's your master. We don't want any masters here on New
Texas."
"But the President has a bodyguard," I noted.
"Casualty rate was too high," Hickock explained. "Remember, the
President's job is inherently impossible: he has to represent all the people."
I thought that over, could see the illogical logic, but ... "How about your
rancher oligarchy?"
He laughed. "Son, if I started acting like a master around this ranch in the
morning, they'd find my body in an irrigation ditch before sunset.
"Sure, if you have a real army, you can keep the men under your thumb—
use one regiment or one division to put down mutiny in another. But when
you have only five hundred men, all of whom know everybody else and all
of them armed, you just act real considerate of them if you want to keep on
living."
"Then would you say that the opposition to annexation comes from the
people who are afraid that if New Texas enters the Solar League, there will
be League troops sent here and this ... this interesting system of insuring
government responsibility to the public would be brought to an end?"
"Yes. If you can show the people of this planet that the League won't
interfere with local political practices, you'll have a 99.95 percent majority
in favor of annexation. We're too close to the z'Srauff star-cluster, out here,
not to see the benefits of joining the Solar League."
We left the Hickock ranch on Sunday afternoon and while Hoddy guided
our air-car back to New Austin, I had a little time to revise some of my

ideas about New Texas. That is, I had time to think during those few
moments when Hoddy wasn't taking advantage of our diplomatic immunity
to invent new air-ground traffic laws.
My thoughts alternated between the pleasure of remembering Gail's gay
company and the gloom of understanding the complete implications of the
Colonel's clarifying lectures. Against the background of his remarks, I could
find myself appreciating the Ghopal-Klüng-Natalenko reasoning: the only
way to cut the Gordian knot was to have another Solar League Ambassador
killed.
And, whenever I could escape thinking about the fact that the next
Ambassador to be the clay pigeon was me, I found myself wondering if I
wanted the League to take over. Annexation, yes; New Texas customs
would be protected under a treaty of annexation. But the "justified
conquest" urged by Machiavelli, Jr.? No.
I was still struggling with the problem when we reached the Embassy about
1700. Everyone was there, including Stonehenge, who had returned two
hours earlier with the good news that the fleet had moved into position only
sixty light-minutes off Capella IV. I had reached the point in my thinking
where I had decided it was useless to keep Hoddy and Stonehenge apart
except as an exercise in mental agility. Inasmuch as my brain was already
weight-lifting, swinging from a flying trapeze to elusive flying rings while
doing triple somersaults and at the same time juggling seven Indian clubs, I
skipped the whole matter.
But I'm fairly certain that it wasn't till then that Hoddy had a chance to
deliver his letter-of-credence to Stonehenge.
After dinner, we gathered in my office for our coffee and a final conference
before the opening of the trial the next morning.
Stonehenge spoke first, looking around the table at everyone except me.
"No matter what happens, we have the fleet within call. Sir Rodney's been
active picking up those z'Srauff meteor-mining boats. They no longer have
a tight screen around the system. We do. I don't think that anyone, except
us, knows that the fleet's where it is."

No matter what happens, I thought glumly, and the phrase explained why
he hadn't been able to look at me.
"Well, boss, I gave you my end of it, comin' in," Hoddy said. "Want me to
go over it again? All right. In Bonneyville, we found half a dozen people
who can swear that Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney was making preparations to
protect those three brothers an hour before Ambassador Cumshaw was shot.
The whole town's sorer than hell at Kettle-Belly for antagonizing the
Hickock outfit and getting the place shot up the way it was. And we have
witnesses that Kettle-Belly was in some kind of deal with the z'Srauff, too.
The Rangers gathered up eight of them, who can swear to the preparations
and to the fact that Kettle-Belly had z'Srauff visitors on different occasions
before the shooting."
"That's what we want," Stonehenge said. "Something that'll connect this
murder with the z'Srauff."
"Well, wait till you hear what I've got," Parros told him. "In the first place,
we traced the gun and the air-car. The Bonney brothers bought them both
from z'Srauff merchants, for ridiculously nominal prices. The merchant who
sold the aircar is normally in the dry-goods business, and the one who sold
the auto-rifle runs a toy shop. In their whole lives, those three boys never
had enough money among them to pay the list price of the gun, let alone the
car. That is, not until a week before the murder."
"They got prosperous, all of a sudden?" I asked.
"Yes. Two weeks before the shooting, Kettle-Belly Sam's bank account got
a sudden transfusion: some anonymous benefactor deposited 250,000 pesos
—about a hundred thousand dollars—to his credit. He drew out 75,000 of it
and some of the money turned up again in the hands of Switchblade and
Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard. Then, a week before you landed here, he
got another hundred thousand from the same anonymous source and he
drew out twenty thousand of that. We think that was the money that went to
pay for the attempted knife-job on Hutchinson. Two days before the
barbecue, the waiter deposited a thousand at the New Austin Packers' and
Shippers' Trust."
"Can you get that introduced as evidence at the trial?" I asked.

"Sure. Kettle-Belly banks at a town called Crooked Creek, about forty miles
from Bonneyville. We have witnesses from the bank.
"I also got the dope on the line the Bonney brothers are going to take at the
trial. They have a lawyer, Clement A. Sidney, a member of what passes for
the Socialist Party on this planet. The defense will take the line of full
denial of everything. The Bonneys are just three poor but honest boys who
are being framed by the corrupt tools of the Big Ranching Interests."
Hoddy made an impolite noise. "Whatta we got to worry about, then?" he
demanded. "They're a cinch for conviction."
"I agree with that," Stonehenge said. "If they tried to base their defense on
political conviction and opposition by the Solar League, they might have a
chance. This way, they haven't."
"All right, gentlemen," I said, "I take it that we're agreed that we must all
follow a single line of policy and not work at cross-purposes to each other?"
They all agreed to that instantly, but with a questioning note in their voices.
"Well, then, I trust you all realize that we cannot, under any circumstances,
allow those three brothers to be convicted in this court," I added.
There was a moment of startled silence, while Hoddy and Stonehenge and
Parros and Thrombley were understanding what they had just heard. Then
Stonehenge cleared his throat and said:
"Mr. Ambassador! I'm sure that you have some excellent reasons for that
remarkable statement, but I must say—"
"It was a really colossal error on somebody's part," I said, "that this case
was allowed to get into the Court of Political Justice. It never should have.
And if we take a part in the prosecution, or allow those men to be
convicted, we will establish a precedent to support the principle that a
foreign Ambassador is, on this planet, defined as a practicing local
politician.
"I will invite you to digest that for a moment."

A moment was all they needed. Thrombley was horrified and dithered
incoherently. Stonehenge frowned and fidgeted with some papers in front of
him. I could see several thoughts gathering behind his eyes, including, I was
sure, a new view of his instructions from Klüng.
Even Hoddy got at least part of it. "Why, that means that anybody can bump
off any diplomat he doesn't like...." he began.
"That is only part of it, Mr. Ringo," Thrombley told him. "It also means that
a diplomat, instead of being regarded as the representative of his own
government, becomes, in effect, a functionary of the government of New
Texas. Why, all sorts of complications could arise...."
"It certainly would impair, shall we say, the principle of extraterritoriality of
Embassies," Stonehenge picked it up. "And it would practically destroy the
principle of diplomatic immunity."
"Migawd!" Hoddy looked around nervously, as though he could already
hear an army of New Texas Rangers, each with a warrant for Hoddy Ringo,
battering at the gates.
"We'll have to do something!" Gomez, the Secretary of the Embassy, said.
"I don't know what," Stonehenge said. "The obvious solution would be, of
course, to bring charges against those Bonney Boys on simple first-degree
murder, which would be tried in an ordinary criminal court. But it's too late
for that now. We wouldn't have time to prevent their being arraigned in this
Political Justice court, and once a defendant is brought into court, on this
planet, he cannot be brought into court again for the same act. Not the same
crime, the same act."
I had been thinking about this and I was ready. "Look, we must bring those
Bonney brothers to trial. It's the only effective way of demonstrating to the
public the simple fact that Ambassador Cumshaw was murdered at the
instigation of the z'Srauff. We dare not allow them to be convicted in the
Court of Political Justice, for the reasons already stated. And to maintain the
prestige of the Solar League, we dare not allow them to go unpunished."
"We can have it one way," Parros said, "and maybe we can have it two
ways. But I'm damned if I can see how we can have it all three ways."

I wasn't surprised that he didn't see it; he hadn't had the same urgency
goading him which had forced me to find the answer. It wasn't an answer
that I liked, but I was in the position where I had no choice.
"Well, here's what we have to do, gentlemen," I began, and from the
respectful way they regarded me, from the attention they were giving my
words, I got a sudden thrill of pride. For the first time since my scrambled
arrival, I was really Ambassador Stephen Silk.

CHAPTER VIII

A couple of New Texas Ranger tanks met the Embassy car four blocks from
the Statehouse and convoyed us into the central plaza, where the barbecue
had been held on the Friday afternoon that I had arrived on New Texas.
There was almost as dense a crowd as the last time I had seen the place; but
they were quieter, to the extent that there were no bands, and no shooting,
no cowbells or whistles. The barbecue pits were going again, however, and
hawkers were pushing or propelling their little wagons about, vending
sandwiches. I saw a half a dozen big twenty-foot teleview screens,
apparently wired from the courtroom.
As soon as the Embassy car and its escorting tanks reached the plaza, an
ovation broke out. I was cheered, with the high-pitched yipeee! of New
Texans and adjured and implored not to let them so-and-sos get away with
it.
There was a veritable army of Rangers on guard at the doors of the
courtroom. The only spectators being admitted to the courtroom seemed to
be prominent citizens with enough pull to secure passes.
Inside, some of the spectators' benches had been removed to clear the front
of the room. In the cleared space, there was one bulky shape under a cloth
cover that seemed to be the air-car and another cloth-covered shape that
looked like a fifty-mm dual-purpose gun. Smaller exhibits, including a
twenty-mm auto-rifle, were piled on the friends-of-the-court table. The
prosecution table was already occupied—Colonel Hickock, who waved a

greeting to me, three or four men who looked like well-to-do ranchers, and
a delegation of lawyers.
"Samuel Goodham," Parros, beside me, whispered, indicating a big, heavy-
set man with white hair, dressed in a dark suit of the cut that had been
fashionable on Terra seventy-five years ago. "Best criminal lawyer on the
planet. Hickock must have hired him."
There was quite a swarm at the center table, too. Some of them were
ranchers, a couple in aggressively shabby workclothes, and there were
several members of the Diplomatic Corps. I shook hands with them and
gathered that they, like myself, were worried about the precedent that might
be established by this trial. While I was introducing Hoddy Ringo as my
attaché extraordinary, which was no less than the truth, the defense party
came in.
There were only three lawyers—a little, rodent-faced fellow, whom Parros
pointed out as Clement Sidney, and two assistants. And, guarded by a
Ranger and a couple of court-bailiffs, the three defendants, Switchblade
Joe, Jack-High Abe and Turkey-Buzzard Tom Bonney. There was probably
a year or so age different from one to another, but they certainly had a
common parentage. They all had pale eyes and narrow, loose-lipped faces.
Subnormal and probably psychopathic, I thought. Jack-High Abe had his
left arm in a sling and his left shoulder in a plaster cast. The buzz of
conversation among the spectators altered its tone subtly and took on a note
of hostility as they entered and seated themselves.
The balcony seemed to be crowded with press representatives. Several
telecast cameras and sound pickups had been rigged to cover the front of
the room from various angles, a feature that had been missing from the trial
I had seen with Gail on Friday.
Then the judges entered from a door behind the bench, which must have
opened from a passageway under the plaza, and the court was called to
order.
The President Judge was the same Nelson who had presided at the Whately
trial and the first thing on the agenda seemed to be the selection of a new

board of associate judges. Parros explained in a whisper that the board
which had served on the previous trial would sit until that could be done.
A slip of paper was drawn from a box and a name was called. A man sitting
on one of the front rows of spectators' seats got up and came forward. One
of Sidney's assistants rummaged through a card file he had in front of him
and handed a card to the chief of the defense. At once, Sidney was on his
feet.
"Challenged, for cause!" he called out. "This man is known to have
declared, in conversation at the bar of the Silver Peso Saloon, here in New
Austin, that these three boys, my clients, ought all to be hanged higher than
Haman."
"Yes, I said that!" the venireman declared. "I'll repeat it right here: all three
of these murdering skunks ought to be hanged higher than—"
"Your Honor!" Sidney almost screamed. "If, after hearing this man's brazen
declaration of bigoted class hatred against my clients, he is allowed to sit on
that bench—"
Judge Nelson pounded with his gavel. "You don't have to instruct me in my
judicial duties, Counselor," he said. "The venireman has obviously
disqualified himself by giving evidence of prejudice. Next name."
The next man was challenged: he was a retired packing-house operator in
New Austin, and had once expressed the opinion that Bonneyville and
everybody in it ought to be H-bombed off the face of New Texas.
This Sidney seemed to have gotten the name of everybody likely to be
called for court duty and had something on each one of them, because he
went on like that all morning.
"You know what I think," Stonehenge whispered to me, leaning over behind
Parros. "I think he's just stalling to keep the court in session until the
z'Srauff fleet gets here. I wish we could get hold of one of those wrist
watches."
"I can get you one, before evening," Hoddy offered, "if you don't care what
happens to the mutt that's wearin' it."

"Better not," I decided. "Might tip them off to what we suspect. And we
don't really need one: Sir Rodney will have patrols out far enough to get
warning in time."

We took an hour, at noon, for lunch, and then it began again. By 1647,
fifteen minutes before court should be adjourned, Judge Nelson ordered the
bailiff to turn the clock back to 1300. The clock was turned back again
when it reached 1645. By this time, Clement Sidney was probably the most
unpopular man on New Texas.
Finally, Colonel Andrew J. Hickock rose to his feet.
"Your Honor: the present court is not obliged to retire from the bench until
another court has been chosen as they are now sitting as a court in being. I
propose that the trial begin, with the present court on the bench."
Sidney began yelling protests. Hoddy Ringo pulled his neckerchief around
under his left ear and held the ends above his head. Nanadabadian, the
Ambassador from Beta Cephus IV, drew his biggest knife and began trying
the edge on a sheet of paper.
"Well, Your Honor, I certainly do not wish to act in an obstructionist
manner. The defense agrees to accept the present court," Sidney decided.
"Prosecution agrees to accept the present court," Goodham parroted.
"The present court will continue on the bench, to try the case of the Friends
of Silas Cumshaw, deceased, versus Switchblade Joe Bonney, Jack-High
Abe Bonney, Turkey-Buzzard Tom Bonney, et als." Judge Nelson rapped
with his gavel. "Court is herewith adjourned until 0900 tomorrow."

CHAPTER IX

The trial got started the next morning with a minimum amount of objections
from Sidney. The charges and specifications were duly read, the three
defendants pleaded not guilty, and then Goodham advanced with a paper in
his hand to address the court. Sidney scampered up to take his position
beside him.
"Your Honor, the prosecution wishes, subject to agreement of the defense,
to enter the following stipulations, to wit: First, that the late Silas Cumshaw
was a practicing politician within the meaning of the law. Second, that he is
now dead, and came to his death in the manner attested to by the coroner of
Sam Houston Continent. Third, that he came to his death at the hands of the
defendants here present."
In all my planning, I'd forgotten that. I couldn't let those stipulations stand
without protest, and at the same time, if I protested the characterization of
Cumshaw as a practicing politician, the trial could easily end right there. So
I prayed for a miracle, and Clement Sidney promptly obliged me.
"Defense won't stipulate anything!" he barked. "My clients, here, are
victims of a monstrous conspiracy, a conspiracy to conceal the true facts of
the death of Silas Cumshaw. They ought never to have been arrested or
brought here, and if the prosecution wants to establish anything, they can do
it by testimony, in the regular and lawful way. This practice of free-
wheeling stipulation is only one of the many devices by which the courts of
this planet are being perverted to serve the corrupt and unjust ends of a
gang of reactionary landowners!"
Judge Nelson's gavel hit the bench with a crack like a rifle shot.
"Mr. Sidney! In justice to your clients, I would hate to force them to change
lawyers in the middle of their trial, but if I hear another remark like that
about the courts of New Texas, that's exactly what will happen, because
you'll be in jail for contempt! Is that clear, Mr. Sidney?"
I settled back with a deep sigh of relief which got me, I noticed, curious
stares from my fellow Ambassadors. I disregarded the questions in their
glances; I had what I wanted.
They began calling up the witnesses.

First, the doctor who had certified Ambassador Cumshaw's death. He gave a
concise description of the wounds which had killed my predecessor. Sidney
was trying to make something out of the fact that he was Hickock's family
physician, and consuming more time, when I got up.
"Your Honor, I am present here as amicus curiae, because of the obvious
interest which the Government of the Solar League has in this case...."
"Objection!" Sidney yelled.
"Please state it," Nelson invited.
"This is a court of the people of the planet of New Texas. This foreign
emissary of the Solar League, sent here to conspire with New Texan traitors
to the end that New Texans shall be reduced to a supine and ravished
satrapy of the all-devouring empire of the Galaxy—"
Judge Nelson rapped sharply.
"Friends of the court are defined as persons having a proper interest in the
case. As this case arises from the death of the former Ambassador of the
Solar League, I cannot see how the present Ambassador and his staff can be
excluded. Overruled." He nodded to me. "Continue, Mr. Ambassador."
"As I understand, I have the same rights of cross-examination of witnesses
as counsel for the prosecution and defense; is that correct, Your Honor?" It
was, so I turned to the witness. "I suppose, Doctor, that you have had quite
a bit of experience, in your practice, with gunshot wounds?"
He chuckled. "Mr. Ambassador, it is gunshot-wound cases which keep the
practice of medicine and surgery alive on this planet. Yes, I definitely
have."
"Now, you say that the deceased was hit by six different projectiles: right
shoulder almost completely severed, right lung and right ribs blown out of
the chest, spleen and kidneys so intermingled as to be practically one, and
left leg severed by complete shattering of the left pelvis and hip-joint?"
"That's right."

I picked up the 20-mm auto-rifle—it weighed a good sixty pounds—from
the table, and asked him if this weapon could have inflicted such wounds.
He agreed that it both could and had.
"This the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas political
liquidations?" I asked.
"Certainly not. The usual weapons are pistols; sometimes a hunting-rifle or
a shotgun."
I asked the same question when I cross-examined the ballistics witness.
"Is this the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas political
liquidations?"
"No, not at all. That's a very expensive weapon, Mr. Ambassador. Wasn't
even manufactured on this planet; made by the z'Srauff star-cluster. A
weapon like that sells for five, six hundred pesos. It's used for shooting
really big game—supermastodon, and things like that. And, of course, for
combat."
"It seems," I remarked, "that the defense is overlooking an obvious point
there. I doubt if these three defendants ever, in all their lives, had among
them the price of such a weapon."
That, of course, brought Sidney to his feet, sputtering objections to this
attempt to disparage the honest poverty of his clients, which only helped to
call attention to the point.
Then the prosecution called in a witness named David Crockett Longfellow.
I'd met him at the Hickock ranch; he was Hickock's butler. He limped from
an old injury which had retired him from work on the range. He was sworn
in and testified to his name and occupation.
"Do you know these three defendants?" Goodham asked him.
"Yeah. I even marked one of them for future identification," Longfellow
replied.
Sidney was up at once, shouting objections. After he was quieted down,
Goodham remarked that he'd come to that point later, and began a line of

questioning to establish that Longfellow had been on the Hickock ranch on
the day when Silas Cumshaw was killed.
"Now," Goodham said, "will you relate to the court the matters of interest
which came to your personal observation on that day."
Longfellow began his story. "At about 0900, I was dustin' up and
straightenin' things in the library while the Colonel was at his desk. All of a
sudden, he said to me, 'Davy, suppose you call the Solar Embassy and see if
Mr. Cumshaw is doin' anything today; if he isn't, ask him if he wants to
come out.' I was workin' right beside the telescreen. So I called the Solar
League Embassy. Mr. Thrombley took the call, and I asked him was Mr.
Cumshaw around. By this time, the Colonel got through with what he was
doin' at the desk and came over to the screen. I went back to my work, but I
heard the Colonel askin' Mr. Cumshaw could he come out for the day, an'
Mr. Cumshaw sayin', yes, he could; he'd be out by about 1030.
"Well, 'long about 1030, his air-car came in and landed on the drive. Little
single-seat job that he drove himself. He landed it about a hundred feet
from the outside veranda, like he usually did, and got out.
"Then, this other car came droppin' in from outa nowhere. I didn't pay it
much attention; thought it might be one of the other Ambassadors that Mr.
Cumshaw'd brung along. But Mr. Cumshaw turned around and looked at it,
and then he started to run for the veranda. I was standin' in the doorway
when I seen him startin' to run. I jumped out on the porch, quick-like, and
pulled my gun, and then this auto-rifle begun firin' outa the other car. There
was only eight or ten shots fired from this car, but most of them hit Mr.
Cumshaw."
Goodham waited a few moments. Longfellow's voice had choked and there
was a twitching about his face, as though he were trying to suppress tears.
"Now, Mr. Longfellow," Goodham said, "did you recognize the people who
were in the car from which the shots came?"
"Yeah. Like I said, I cut a mark on one of them. That one there: Jack-High
Abe Bonney. He was handlin' the gun, and from where I was, he had his left
side to me. I was tryin' for his head, but I always overshoot, so I have the

habit of holdin' low. This time I held too low." He looked at Jack-High in
coldly poisonous hatred. "I'll be sorry about that as long as I live."
"And who else was in the car?"
"The other two curs outa the same litter: Switchblade an' Turkey-Buzzard,
over there."
Further questioning revealed that Longfellow had had no direct knowledge
of the pursuit, or the siege of the jail in Bonneyville. Colonel Hickock had
taken personal command of that, and had left Longfellow behind to call the
Solar League Embassy and the Rangers. He had made no attempt to move
the body, but had left it lying in the driveway until the doctor and the
Rangers arrived.
Goodham went to the middle table and picked up a heavy automatic pistol.
"I call the court's attention to this pistol. It is an eleven-mm automatic,
manufactured by the Colt Firearms Company of New Texas, a licensed
subsidiary of the Colt Firearms Company of Terra." He handed it to
Longfellow. "Do you know this pistol?" he asked.
Longfellow was almost insulted by the question. Of course he knew his
own pistol. He recited the serial number, and pointed to different scars and
scratches on the weapon, telling how they had been acquired.
"The court accepts that Mr. Longfellow knows his own weapon," Nelson
said. "I assume that this is the weapon with which you claim to have shot
Jack-High Abe Bonney?"
It was, although Longfellow resented the qualification.
"That's all. Your witness, Mr. Sidney," Goodham said.
Sidney began an immediate attack.
Questioning Longfellow's eyesight, intelligence, honesty and integrity, he
tried to show personal enmity toward the Bonneys. He implied that
Longfellow had been conspiring with Cumshaw to bring about the conquest
of New Texas by the Solar League. The verbal exchange became so heated
that both witness and attorney had to be admonished repeatedly from the

bench. But at no point did Sidney shake Longfellow from his one
fundamental statement, that the Bonney brothers had shot Silas Cumshaw
and that he had shot Jack-High Abe Bonney in the shoulder.
When he was finished, I got up and took over.
"Mr. Longfellow, you say that Mr. Thrombley answered the screen at the
Solar League Embassy," I began. "You know Mr. Thrombley?"
"Sure, Mr. Silk. He's been out at the ranch with Mr. Cumshaw a lotta
times."
"Well, beside yourself and Colonel Hickock and Mr. Cumshaw and,
possibly, Mr. Thrombley, who else knew that Mr. Cumshaw would be at the
ranch at 1030 on that morning?"
Nobody. But the aircar had obviously been waiting for Mr. Cumshaw; the
Bonneys must have had advance knowledge. My questions made that point
clear despite the obvious—and reluctantly court-sustained—objections
from Mr. Sidney.
"That will be all, Mr. Longfellow; thank you. Any questions from anybody
else?"
There being none, Longfellow stepped down. It was then a few minutes
before noon, so Judge Nelson recessed court for an hour and a half.

In the afternoon, the surgeon who had treated Jack-High Abe Bonney's
wounded shoulder testified, identifying the bullet which had been extracted
from Bonney's shoulder. A ballistics man from Ranger crime-lab followed
him to the stand and testified that it had been fired from Longfellow's Colt.
Then Ranger Captain Nelson took the stand. His testimony was about what
he had given me at the Embassy, with the exception that the Bonneys'
admission that they had shot Ambassador Cumshaw was ruled out as having
been made under duress.
However, Captain Nelson's testimony didn't need the confessions.

The cover was stripped off the air-car, and a couple of men with a power-
dolly dragged it out in front of the bench. The Ranger Captain identified it
as the car which he had found at the Bonneyville jail. He went over it with
an ultra-violet flashlight and showed where he had written his name and the
date on it with fluorescent ink. The effects of AA-fire were plainly evident
on it.
Then the other shrouded object was unveiled and identified as the gun
which had disabled the air-car. Colonel Hickock identified the gun as the
one with which he had fired on the air-car. Finally, the ballistics expert was
brought back to the stand again, to link the two by means of fragments
found in the car.
Then Goodham brought Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney to the stand.
The Mayor of Bonneyville was a man of fifty or so, short, partially bald,
dressed in faded blue Levis, a frayed white shirt, and a grease-spotted vest.
There was absolutely no mystery about how he had acquired his nickname.
He disgorged a cud of tobacco into a spittoon, took the oath with unctuous
solemnity, then reloaded himself with another chew and told his version of
the attack on the jail.
At about 1045 on the day in question, he testified, he had been in his office,
hard at work in the public service, when an air-car, partially disabled by
gunfire, had landed in the street outside and the three defendants had rushed
in, claiming sanctuary. From then on, the story flowed along smoothly,
following the lines predicted by Captain Nelson and Parros. Of course he
had given the fugitives shelter; they had claimed to have been near to a
political assassination and were in fear of their lives.
Under Sidney's cross-examination, and coaching, he poured out the story of
Bonneyville's wrongs at the hands of the reactionary landowners, and the
atrocious behavior of the Hickock goon-gang. Finally, after extracting the
last drop of class-hatred venom out of him, Sidney turned him over to me.
"How many men were inside the jail when the three defendants came
claiming sanctuary?" I asked.
He couldn't rightly say, maybe four or five.

"Closer twenty-five, according to the Rangers. How many of them were
prisoners in the jail?"
"Well, none. The prisoners was all turned out that mornin'. They was just
common drunks, disorderly conduct cases, that kinda thing. We turned them
out so's we could make some repairs."
"You turned them out because you expected to have to defend the jail;
because you knew in advance that these three would be along claiming
sanctuary, and that Colonel Hickock's ranch hands would be right on their
heels, didn't you?" I demanded.
It took a good five minutes before Sidney stopped shouting long enough for
Judge Nelson to sustain the objection.
"You knew these young men all their lives, I take it. What did you know
about their financial circumstances, for instance?"
"Well, they've been ground down an' kept poor by the big ranchers an' the
money-guys...."
"Then weren't you surprised to see them driving such an expensive aircar?"
"I don't know as it's such an expensive—" he shut his mouth suddenly.
"You know where they got the money to buy that car?" I pressed.
Kettle-Belly Sam didn't answer.
"From the man who paid them to murder Ambassador Silas Cumshaw?" I
kept pressing. "Do you know how much they were paid for that job? Do
you know where the money came from? Do you know who the go-between
was, and how much he got, and how much he kept for himself? Was it the
same source that paid for the recent attempt on President Hutchinson's
life?"
"I refuse to answer!" the witness declared, trying to shove his chest out
about half as far as his midriff. "On the grounds that it might incriminate or
degrade me!"
"You can't degrade a Bonney!" a voice from the balcony put in.

"So then," I replied to the voice, "what he means is, incriminate." I turned to
the witness. "That will be all. Excused."
As Bonney left the stand and was led out the side door, Goodham addressed
the bench.
"Now, Your Honor," he said, "I believe that the prosecution has succeeded
in definitely establishing that these three defendants actually did fire the
shot which, on April 22, 2193, deprived Silas Cumshaw of his life. We will
now undertake to prove...."
Followed a long succession of witnesses, each testifying to some public or
private act of philanthropy, some noble trait of character. It was the sort of
thing which the defense lawyer in the Whately case had been so willing to
stipulate. Sidney, of course, tried to make it all out to be part of a sinister
conspiracy to establish a Solar League fifth column on New Texas. Finally,
the prosecution rested its case.
I entertained Gail and her father at the Embassy, that evening. The street
outside was crowded with New Texans, all of them on our side, shouting
slogans like, "Death to the Bonneys!" and "Vengeance for Cumshaw!" and
"Annexation Now!" Some of it was entirely spontaneous, too. The
Hickocks, father and daughter, were given a tremendous ovation, when they
finally left, and followed to their hotel by cheering crowds. I saw one big
banner, lettered: 'DON'T LET NEW TEXAS GO TO THE DOGS.' and
bearing a crude picture of a z'Srauff. I seemed to recall having seen a couple
of our Marines making that banner the evening before in the Embassy patio,
but....

CHAPTER X

The next morning, the third of the trial, opened with the defense witnesses,
character-witnesses for the three killers and witnesses to the political
iniquities of Silas Cumshaw.

Neither Goodham nor I bothered to cross-examine the former. I couldn't see
how any lawyer as shrewd as Sidney had shown himself to be would even
dream of getting such an array of thugs, cutthroats, sluts and slatterns into
court as character witnesses for anybody.
The latter, on the other hand, we went after unmercifully, revealing, under
their enmity for Cumshaw, a small, hard core of bigoted xenophobia and
selfish fear. Goodham did a beautiful job on that; he seemed able, at a
glance, to divine exactly what each witness's motivation was, and able to
make him or her betray that motivation in its least admirable terms. Finally
the defense rested, about a quarter-hour before noon.
I rose and addressed the court:
"Your Honor, while both the prosecution and the defense have done an
admirable job in bringing out the essential facts of how my predecessor met
his death, there are many features about this case which are far from clear to
me. They will be even less clear to my government, which is composed of
men who have never set foot on this planet. For this reason, I wish to call,
or recall, certain witnesses to clarify these points."
Sidney, who had begun shouting objections as soon as I had gotten to my
feet, finally managed to get himself recognized by the court.
"This Solar League Ambassador, Your Honor, is simply trying to use the
courts of the Planet of New Texas as a sounding-board for his imperialistic
government's propaganda...."
"You may reassure yourself, Mr. Sidney," Judge Nelson said. "This court
will not allow itself to be improperly used, or improperly swayed, by the
Ambassador of the Solar League. This court is interested only in
determining the facts regarding the case before it. You may call your
witnesses, Mr. Ambassador." He glanced at his watch. "Court will now
recess for an hour and a half; can you have them here by 1330?"
I assured him I could after glancing across the room at Ranger Captain
Nelson and catching his nod.

My first witness, that afternoon was Thrombley. After the formalities of
getting his name and connection with the Solar League Embassy on the
record, I asked him, "Mr. Thrombley, did you, on the morning of April 22,
receive a call from the Hickock ranch for Mr. Cumshaw?"
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Ambassador. The call was from Mr. Longfellow, Colonel
Hickock's butler. He asked if Mr. Cumshaw were available. It happened that
Mr. Cumshaw was in the same room with me, and he came directly to the
screen. Then Colonel Hickock appeared in the screen, and inquired if Mr.
Cumshaw could come out to the ranch for the day; he said something about
superdove shooting."
"You heard Mr. Cumshaw tell Colonel Hickock that he would be out at the
ranch at about 1030?" Thrombley said he had. "And, to your knowledge,
did anybody else at the Embassy hear that?"
"Oh, no, sir; we were in the Ambassador's private office, and the screen
there is tap-proof."
"And what other calls did you receive, prior to Mr. Cumshaw's death?"
"About fifteen minutes after Mr. Cumshaw had left, the z'Srauff
Ambassador called, about a personal matter. As he was most anxious to
contact Mr. Cumshaw, I told him where he had gone."
"Then, to your knowledge, outside of yourself, Colonel Hickock, and his
butler, the z'Srauff Ambassador was the only person who could have known
that Mr. Cumshaw's car would be landing on Colonel Hickock's drive at or
about 1030. Is that correct?"
"Yes, plus anybody whom the z'Srauff Ambassador might have told."
"Exactly!" I pounced. Then I turned and gave the three Bonney brothers a
sweeping glance. "Plus anybody the z'Srauff Ambassador might have told....
That's all. Your witness, Mr. Sidney."
Sidney got up, started toward the witness stand, and then thought better of
it.
"No questions," he said.

The next witness was a Mr. James Finnegan; he was identified as cashier of
the Crooked Creek National Bank. I asked him if Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney
did business at his bank; he said yes.
"Anything unusual about Mayor Bonney's account?" I asked.
"Well, it's been unusually active lately. Ordinarily, he carries around two-
three thousand pesos, but about the first of April, that took a big jump.
Quite a big jump; two hundred and fifty thousand pesos, all in a lump."
"When did Kettle-Belly Sam deposit this large sum?" I asked.
"He didn't. The money came to us in a cashier's check on the Ranchers'
Trust Company of New Austin with an anonymous letter asking that it be
deposited to Mayor Bonney's account. The letter was typed on a sheet of
yellow paper in Basic English."
"Do you have that letter now?" I asked.
"No, I don't. After we'd recorded the new balance, Kettle-Belly came
storming in, raising hell because we'd recorded it. He told me that if we
ever got another deposit like that, we were to turn it over to him in cash.
Then he wanted to see the letter, and when I gave it to him, he took it over
to a telescreen booth, and drew the curtains. I got a little busy with some
other matters, and the next time I looked, Kettle-Belly was gone and some
girl was using the booth."
"That's very interesting, Mr. Finnegan. Was that the last of your unusual
business with Mayor Bonney?"
"Oh, no. Then, about two weeks before Mr. Cumshaw was killed, Kettle-
Belly came in and wanted 50,000 pesos, in a big hurry, in small bills. I gave
it to him, and he grabbed at the money like a starved dog at a bone, and
upset a bottle of red perma-ink, the sort we use to refill our bank seals.
Three of the bills got splashed. I offered to exchange them, but he said,
'Hell with it; I'm in a hurry,' and went out. The next day, Switchblade Joe
Bonney came in to make payment on a note we were holding on him. He
used those three bills in the payment.

"Then, about a week ago, there was another cashier's check came in for
Kettle-Belly. This time, there was no letter; just one of our regular deposit-
slips. No name of depositor. I held the check, and gave it to Kettle-Belly. I
remember, when it came in, I said to one of the clerks, 'Well, I wonder
who's going to get bumped off this time.' And sure enough ..."
Sidney's yell of, "Objection!" was all his previous objections gathered into
one.
"You say the letter accompanying the first deposit, the one in Basic English,
was apparently taken away by Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney. If you saw
another letter of the same sort, would you be able to say whether or not it
might be like the one you mentioned?"
Sidney vociferating more objections; I was trying to get expert testimony
without previous qualification....
"Not at all, Mr. Sidney," Judge Nelson ruled. "Mr. Silk has merely asked if
Mr. Finnegan could say whether one document bore any resemblance to
another."
I asked permission to have another witness sworn in while Finnegan was
still on the stand, and called in a Mr. Boone, the cashier of the Packers' and
Brokers' Trust Company of New Austin. He had with him a letter, typed on
yellow paper, which he said had accompanied an anonymous deposit of two
hundred thousand pesos. Mr. Finnegan said that it was exactly like the one
he had received, in typing, grammar and wording, all but the name of the
person to whose account the money was to be deposited.
"And whose account received this anonymous benefaction, Mr. Boone?" I
asked.
"The account," Boone replied, "of Mr. Clement Sidney."
I was surprised that Judge Nelson didn't break the handle of his gavel, after
that. Finally, after a couple of threats to clear the court, order was restored.
Mr. Sidney had no questions to ask this time, either.
The bailiff looked at the next slip of paper I gave him, frowned over it, and
finally asked the court for assistance.

"I can't pronounce this-here thing, at all," he complained.
One of the judges finally got out a mouthful of growls and yaps, and gave it
to the clerk of the court to copy into the record. The next witness was a
z'Srauff, and in the New Texan garb he was wearing, he was something to
open my eyes, even after years on the Hooligan Diplomats.
After he took the stand, the clerk of the court looked at him blankly for a
moment. Then he turned to Judge Nelson.
"Your Honor, how am I gonna go about swearing him in?" he asked. "What
does a z'Srauff swear by, that's binding?"
The President Judge frowned for a moment. "Does anybody here know
Basic well enough to translate the oath?" he asked.
"I think I can," I offered. "I spent a great many years in our Consular
Service, before I was sent here. We use Basic with a great many alien
peoples."
"Administer the oath, then," Nelson told me.
"Put up right hand," I told the z'Srauff. "Do you truly say, in front of Great
One who made all worlds, who has knowledge of what is in the hearts of all
persons, that what you will say here will be true, all true, and not anything
that is not true, and will you so say again at time when all worlds end? Do
you so truly say?"
"Yes. I so truly say."
"Say your name."
"Ppmegll Kkuvtmmecc Cicici."
"What is your business?"
"I put things made of cloth into this world, and I take meat out of this
world."
"Where do you have your house?"
"Here in New Austin, over my house of business, on Coronado Street."

"What people do you see in this place that you have made business with?"
Ppmegll Kkuvtmmecc Cicici pointed a three-fingered hand at the Bonney
brothers.
"What business did you make with them?"
"I gave them for money a machine which goes on the ground and goes in
the air very fast, to take persons and things about."
"Is that the thing you gave them for money?" I asked, pointing at the exhibit
air-car.
"Yes, but it was new then. It has been made broken by things from guns
now."
"What money did they give you for the machine?"
"One hundred pesos."
That started another uproar. There wasn't a soul in that courtroom who
didn't know that five thousand pesos would have been a give-away bargain
price for that car.
"Mr. Ambassador," one of the associate judges interrupted. "I used to be in
the used-car business. Am I expected to believe that this ... this being ... sold
that air-car for a hundred pesos?"
"Here's a notarized copy of the bill of sale, from the office of the Vehicles
Registration Bureau," I said. "I introduce it as evidence."
There was a disturbance at the back of the room, and then the z'Srauff
Ambassador, Gglafrr Ddespttann Vuvuvu, came stalking down the aisle,
followed by a couple of Rangers and two of his attachés. He came forward
and addressed the court.
"May you be happy, sir, but I am in here so quickly not because I have
desire to make noise, but because it is only short time since it got in my
knowledge that one of my persons is in this place. I am here to be of help to
him that he not get in trouble, and to be of help to you. The name for what I
am to do in this place is not part of my knowledge. Please say it for me."

"You are a friend of the court," Judge Nelson told him. "An amicus curiae."
"You make me happy. Please go on; I have no desire to put stop to what you
do in this place."
"From what person did you get this machine that you gave to these persons
for one hundred pesos?" I asked.
Gglafrr immediately began barking and snarling and yelping at my witness.
The drygoods importer looked startled, and Judge Nelson banged with his
gavel.
"That's enough of that! There'll be nothing spoken in this court but English,
except through an interpreter!"
"Yow! I am sad that what I did was not right," the z'Srauff Ambassador
replied contritely. "But my person here has not as part of his knowledge that
you will make him say what may put him in trouble."
Nelson nodded in agreement.
"You are right: this person who is here has no need to make answer to any
question if it may put him in trouble or make him seem less than he is."
"I will not make answer," the witness said.
"No further questions."
I turned to Goodham, and then to Sidney; they had no questions, either. I
handed another slip of paper to the bailiff, and another z'Srauff, named
Bbrarkk Jjoknyyegg Kekeke took the stand.
He put into this world things for small persons to make amusement with; he
took out of this world meat and leather. He had his house of business in
New Austin, and he pointed out the three Bonneys as persons in this place
that he saw that he had seen before.
"And what business did you make with them?" I asked.
"I gave them for money a gun which sends out things of twenty-millimeters
very fast, to make death or hurt come to men and animals and does
destruction to machines and things."

"Is this the gun?" I showed it to him.
"It could be. The gun was made in my world; many guns like it are made
there. I am certain that this is the very gun."
I had a notarized copy of a customs house bill in which the gun was
described and specified by serial number. I introduced it as evidence.
"How much money did these three persons give you for this gun?" I asked.
"Five pesos."
"The customs appraisal on this gun is six hundred pesos," I mentioned.
Immediately, Ambassador Vuvuvu was on his feet. "My person here has not
as part of his knowledge that he may put himself in trouble by what he says
to answer these questions."
That put a stop to that. Bbrarkk Jjoknyyegg Kekeke immediately took
refuge in refusal to answer on grounds of self-incrimination.
"That is all, Your Honor," I said, "And now," I continued, when the witness
had left the stand, "I have something further to present to the court,
speaking both as amicus curiae and as Ambassador of the Solar League.
This court cannot convict the three men who are here on trial. These men
should have never been brought to trial in this court: it has no jurisdiction
over this case. This was a simple case of first-degree murder, by hired
assassins, committed against the Ambassador of one government at the
instigation of another, not an act of political protest within the meaning of
New Texan law."
There was a brief silence; both the court and the spectators were stunned,
and most stunned of all were the three Bonney brothers, who had been
watching, fear-sick, while I had been putting a rope around their necks. The
uproar from the rear of the courtroom gave Judge Nelson a needed minute
or so to collect his thoughts. After he had gotten order restored, he turned to
me, grim-faced.
"Ambassador Silk, will you please elaborate on the extraordinary statement
you have just made," he invited, as though every word had sharp corners
that were sticking in his throat.

"Gladly, Your Honor." My words, too, were gouging and scraping my throat
as they came out; I could feel my knees getting absurdly weak, and my
mouth tasted as though I had an old copper penny in it.
"As I understand it, the laws of New Texas do not extend their ordinary
protection to persons engaged in the practice of politics. An act of personal
injury against a politician is considered criminal only to the extent that the
politician injured has not, by his public acts, deserved the degree of severity
with which he has been injured, and the Court of Political Justice is
established for the purpose of determining whether or not there has been
such an excess of severity in the treatment meted out by the accused to the
injured or deceased politician. This gives rise, of course, to some interesting
practices; for instance, what is at law a trial of the accused is, in substance,
a trial of his victim. But in any case tried in this court, the accused must be
a person who has injured or killed a man who is definable as a practicing
politician under the government of New Texas.
"Speaking for my government, I must deny that these men should have
been tried in this court for the murder of Silas Cumshaw. To do otherwise
would establish the principle and precedent that our Ambassador, or any
other Ambassador here, is a practicing politician under—mark that well,
Your Honor—under the laws and government of New Texas. This would
not only make of any Ambassador a permissable target for any marksman
who happened to disapprove of the policies of another government, but
more serious, it would place the Ambassador and his government in a
subordinate position relative to the government of New Texas. This the
government of the Solar League simply cannot tolerate, for reasons which it
would be insulting to the intelligence of this court to enumerate."
"Mr. Silk," Judge Nelson said gravely. "This court takes full cognizance of
the force of your arguments. However, I'd like to know why you permitted
this trial to run to this length before entering this objection. Surely you
could have made clear the position of your government at the beginning of
this trial."
"Your Honor," I said, "had I done so, these defendants would have been
released, and the facts behind their crime would have never come to light. I
grant that the important function of this court is to determine questions of

relative guilt and innocence. We must not lose sight, however, of the fact
that the primary function of any court is to determine the truth, and only by
the process of the trial of these depraved murderers-for-hire could the real
author of the crime be uncovered.
"This was important, both for the government of the Solar League and the
government of New Texas. My government now knows who procured the
death of Silas Cumshaw, and we will take appropriate action. The
government of New Texas has now had spelled out, in letters anyone can
read, the fact that this beautiful planet is in truth a battleground. Awareness
of this may save New Texas from being the scene of a larger and more
destructive battle. New Texas also knows who are its enemies, and who can
be counted upon to stand as its friends."
"Yes, Mr. Silk. Mr. Vuvuvu, I haven't heard any comment from you.... No
comment? Well, we'll have to close the court, to consider this phase of the
question."
The black screen slid up, for the second time during the trial. There was
silence for a moment, and then the room became a bubbling pot of sound.
At least six fights broke out among the spectators within three minutes; the
Rangers and court bailiffs were busy restoring order.
Gail Hickock, who had been sitting on the front row of the spectators' seats,
came running up while I was still receiving the congratulations of my
fellow diplomats.
"Stephen! How could you?" she demanded. "You know what you've done?
You've gotten those murdering snakes turned loose!"
Andrew Jackson Hickock left the prosecution table and approached.
"Mr. Silk! You've just secured the freedom of three men who murdered one
of my best friends!"
"Colonel Hickock, I believe I knew Silas Cumshaw before you did. He was
one of my instructors at Dumbarton Oaks, and I have always had the
deepest respect and admiration for him. But he taught me one thing, which
you seem to have forgotten since you expatriated yourself—that in the

Diplomatic Service, personal feelings don't count. The only thing of
importance is the advancement of the policies of the Solar League."
"Silas and I were attachés together, at the old Embassy at Drammool, on
Altair II," Colonel Hickock said. What else he might have said was lost in
the sudden exclamation as the black screen slid down. In front of Judge
Nelson, I saw, there were three pistol-belts, and three pairs of automatics.
"Switchblade Joe Bonney, Jack-High Abe Bonney, Turkey-Buzzard Tom
Bonney, together with your counsel, approach the court and hear the
verdict," Judge Nelson said.
The three defendants and their lawyer rose. The Bonneys were swaggering
and laughing, but for a lawyer whose clients had just emerged from the
shadow of the gallows, Sidney was looking remarkably unhappy. He
probably had imagination enough to see what would be waiting for him
outside.
"It pains me inexpressibly," Judge Nelson said, "to inform you three that
this court cannot convict you of the cowardly murder of that learned and
honorable old man, Silas Cumshaw, nor can you be brought to trial in any
other court on New Texas again for that dastardly crime. Here are your
weapons, which must be returned to you. Sort them out yourselves, because
I won't dirty my fingers on them. And may you regret and feel shame for
your despicable act as long as you live, which I hope won't be more than a
few hours."
With that, he used the end of his gavel to push the three belts off the bench
and onto the floor at the Bonneys' feet. They stood laughing at him for a
few moments, then stopped, picked the belts up, drew the pistols to check
magazines and chambers, and then began slapping each others' backs and
shouting jubilant congratulations at one another. Sidney's two assistants and
some of his friends came up and began pumping Sidney's hands.
"There!" Gail flung at me. "Now look at your masterpiece! Why don't you
go up and congratulate him, too?"
And with that, she slapped me across the face. It hurt like the devil; she was
a lot stronger than I'd expected.

"In about two minutes," I told her, "you can apologize to me for that, or
weep over my corpse. Right now, though, you'd better be getting behind
something solid."

CHAPTER XI

I turned and stepped forward to confront the Bonneys, mentally thanking
Gail. Up until she'd slapped me, I'd been weak-kneed and dry-mouthed with
what I had to do. Now I was just plain angry, and I found that I was
thinking a lot more clearly. Jack-High Bonney's wounded left shoulder, I
knew, wouldn't keep him from using his gun hand, but his shoulder muscles
would be stiff enough to slow his draw. I'd intended saving him until I'd
dealt with his brothers. Now, I remembered how he'd gotten that wound in
the first place: he'd been the one who'd used the auto-rifle, out at the
Hickock ranch. So I changed my plans and moved him up to top priority.
"Hold it!" I yelled at them. "You've been cleared of killing a politician, but
you still have killing a Solar League Ambassador to answer for. Now get
your hands full of guns, if you don't want to die with them empty!"
The crowd of sympathizers and felicitators simply exploded away from the
Bonney brothers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sidney and a fat,
blowsy woman with brass-colored hair as they both tried to dive under the
friends-of-the-court table at the same place. The Bonney brothers simply
stood and stared at me, for an instant, unbelievingly, as I got my thumbs on
the release-studs of my belt. Judge Nelson's gavel was hammering, and he
was shouting:
"Court–of–Political–Justice–Confederate–Continent–of–New–Texas–is–
herewith–adjourned–reconvene–0900–tomorrow. Hit the floor!"
"Damn! He means it!" Switchblade Joe Bonney exclaimed.
Then they all reached for their guns. They were still reaching when I
pressed the studs and the Krupp-Tattas popped up into my hands, and I
swung up my right-hand gun and shot Jack-High through the head. After

that, I just let my subconscious take over. I saw gun flames jump out at me
from the Bonneys' weapons, and I felt my own pistols leap and writhe in
my hands, but I don't believe I was aware of hearing the shots, not even
from my own weapons. The whole thing probably lasted five seconds, but it
seemed like twenty minutes to me. Then there was nobody shooting at me,
and nobody for me to shoot at; the big room was silent, and I was aware
that Judge Nelson and his eight associates were rising cautiously from
behind the bench.
I holstered my left-hand gun, removed and replaced the magazine of the
right-hand gun, then holstered it and reloaded the other one. Hoddy Ringo
and Francisco Parros and Commander Stonehenge were on their feet, their
pistols drawn, covering the spectators' seats. Colonel Hickock had also
drawn a pistol and he was covering Sidney with it, occasionally moving the
muzzle to the left to include the z'Srauff Ambassador and his two attachés.
By this time, Nelson and the other eight judges were in their seats, trying to
look calm and judicial.
"Your Honor," I said, "I fully realize that no judge likes to have his court
turned into a shooting gallery. I can assure you, however, that my action
here was not the result of any lack of respect for this court. It was pure
necessity. Your Honor can see that: my government could not permit this
crime against its Ambassador to pass unpunished."
Judge Nelson nodded solemnly. "Court was adjourned when this little
incident happened, Mr. Silk," he said.
He leaned forward and looked to where the three Bonney brothers were
making a mess of blood on the floor. "I trust that nobody will construe my
unofficial and personal comments here as establishing any legal precedent,
and I wouldn't like to see this sort of thing become customary ... but ... you
did that all by yourself, with those little beanshooters?... Not bad, not bad at
all, Mr. Silk."
I thanked him, then turned to the z'Srauff Ambassador. I didn't bother
putting my remarks into Basic. He understood, as well as I did, what I was
saying.

"Look, Fido," I told him, "my government is quite well aware of the source
from which the orders for the murder of my predecessor came. These men I
just killed were only the tools.
"We're going to get the brains behind them, if we have to send every
warship we own into the z'Srauff star-cluster and devastate every planet in
it. We don't let dogs snap at us. And when they do, we don't kick them, we
shoot them!"
That, of course, was not exactly striped-pants diplomatic language. I
wondered, for a moment, what Norman Gazarian, the protocol man, would
think if he heard an Ambassador calling another Ambassador Fido.
But it seemed to be the kind of language that Mr. Vuvuvu understood. He
skinned back his upper lip at me and began snarling and growling. Then he
turned on his hind paws and padded angrily down the aisle away from the
front of the courtroom.
The spectators around him and above him began barking, baying, yelping at
him: "Tie a can to his tail!" "Git for home, Bruno!"
Then somebody yelled, "Hey, look! Even his wrist watch is blushing!"
That was perfectly true. Mr. Gglafrr Ddespttann Vuvuvu's watch-face,
normally white, was now glowing a bright ruby-red.
I looked at Stonehenge and found him looking at me. It would be full dark
in four or five hours; there ought to be something spectacular to see in the
cloudless skies of Capella IV tonight.
Fleet Admiral Sir Rodney Tregaskis would see to that.
FROM REPORT
OF SPACE-COMMANDER STONEHENGE
TO SECRETARY OF AGGRESSION, KLÜNG:
... so the measures considered by yourself and Secretary of State Ghopal
Singh and Security Coördinator Natalenko, as transmitted to me by Mr.
Hoddy Ringo, were not, I am glad to say, needed. Ambassador Silk, alive,
handled the thing much better than Ambassador Silk, dead, could possibly
have.

... to confirm Sir Rodney Tregaskis' report from the tales of the few
survivors, the z'Srauff attack came as the Ambassador had expected. They
dropped out of hyperspace about seventy light-minutes outside the Capella
system, apparently in complete ignorance of the presence of our fleet.

... have learned the entire fleet consisted of about three hundred spaceships
and reports reaching here indicate that no more than twenty got back to
z'Srauff Cluster.

... naturally, the whole affair has had a profound influence, an influence to
the benefit of the Solar League, on all shades of public opinion.

... as you properly assumed, Mr. Hoddy Ringo is no longer with us. When it
became apparent that the Palme-Silk Annexation Treaty would be ratified
here, Mr. Ringo immediately saw that his status of diplomatic immunity
would automatically terminate. Accordingly, he left this system, embarking
from New Austin for Alderbaran IX, mentioning, as he shook hands with
me, something about a widow. By a curious coincidence, the richest branch
bank in the city was held up by a lone bandit about half an hour before he
boarded the space-ship....

FINAL MESSAGE
OF THE LAST SOLAR AMBASSADOR TO NEW
TEXAS
STEPHEN SILK
Copies of the Treaty of Annexation, duly ratified by the New Texas
Legislature, herewith.
Please note that the guarantees of non-intervention in local political
institutions are the very minimum which are acceptable to the people of
New Texas. They are especially adamant that there will be no change in
their peculiar methods of insuring that their elected and appointed public
officials shall be responsible to the electorate.

DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM
After the ratification of the Palme-Silk treaty, Mr. Silk remained on New
Texas, married the daughter of a local rancher there (see file on First
Ambassador, Colonel Andrew Jackson Hickock) and is still active in politics
on that planet, often in opposition to Solar League policies, which he seems
to anticipate with an almost uncanny prescience.
Natalenko re-read the addendum, pursed his thick lips and sighed. There
were so many ways he could be using Mr. Stephen Silk....
For example—he looked at the tri-di star-map, both usefully and beautifully
decorating his walls—over there, where Hoddy Ringo had gone, near
Alderbaran IX.
Those were twin planets, one apparently settled by the equivalent
descendants of the Edwards and the other inhabited by the children of a
Jukes-Kallikak union. Even the Solar League Ambassadors there had taken
the viewpoints of the planets to whom they were accredited, instead of the
all-embracing view which their training should have given them....
Curious problem ... and, how would Stephen Silk have handled it?
The Security Coördinator scrawled a note comprehensible only to
himself....

THE END

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New Texas: its citizens figure that name about says it all. The Solar League
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*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONE STAR
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