They started me the as soon as I came through the door into the Secretary's office.
There was Ethel K'wang-Li, the Secretary's receptionist, at her desk. There was Courtlant Staynes, the 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 the man's to the gibbet: the word that the Secretary had called me in must have all over the Department since the offices had opened.
"Ah, Mr. Machiavelli, I presume," Ethel off.
"Machiavelli, Junior." Olga up the ball. "At least, that's the way he 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 in the Galactic Empire." Olga again.
"Well, I'm some of you read it," I back. "Maybe a of you what it was all about."
"Don't worry, Silk," Gazarin told me. "Secretary Ghopal what it was all about. All too well, you'll find."
A on Ethel K'wang-Li's desk. She up the and into it. A the room while she listened, some more, then it up.
They were all at me.
"Secretary Ghopal is to see Mr. Stephen Silk," she said. "This way, please."
As I started across the room, Staynes on the top of the with his fingers, the slow to which a man to a execution.
"A cigarette?" Lawder tonelessly. "A of rum?"
There were three men in the Secretary of State's private office. Ghopal Singh, the Secretary, dark-faced, gray-haired, and elegant, meeting me to his desk. Another 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 baby-face and black eyes.
When I saw him, I to frightened.
The man was Natalenko, the Security Coördinator.
"Good morning, Mister Silk," Secretary Ghopal me, his hand extended. "Gentlemen, Mr. Stephen Silk, about we were speaking. This way, Mr. Silk, if you please."
There was a low coffee-table at the of the office, and four easy chairs around it. On the table-top were cups and saucers, a coffee urn, cigarettes—and a copy of the issue of the Galactic Statesmen's Journal, open at an article Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy, by somebody who had himself Machiavelli, Jr.
I was to wish that the Machiavelli, Jr. had been born, or, at least, had on Theta Virgo IV and been a as his father had wanted him to be.
As I sat and a cup of coffee, I looking at the periodical. They were going to it around my they 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 who did such a job for us on Assha—Gamma Norma III.
"And, as he has just demonstrated," he added, toward the Statesman's Journal on the Benares-work table, "he is a student of the of the past and the of our present policies."
"A frank," Klüng dubiously.
"But judicious," Natalenko squeaked, in the high voice that came so from his bulk. "He his in a that doesn't have a of more than a thousand copies his own department. And I don't think the public's to the of is as as you imagine. They satisfied, now, with the in the title of your department, from Defense to Aggression."
"Well, we've gone into that, gentlemen," Ghopal said. "If the article makes trouble for us, we can always it. There's no of the Journal. And Mr. Silk won't be around to fire on us."
Here it comes, I thought.
"That ominous, doesn't it, Mr. Silk?" Natalenko happily, like a ten-year-old who has just a new to the out of.
"It's not as as it sounds, Mr. Silk," Ghopal to me. "We are going to have to you for a while, but I that won't be so bad. The social life here on Luna has to pall, anyhow. So we're sending you to Capella IV."
"Capella IV," I repeated, trying to 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 that we need somebody of your on that planet, Mr. Silk," Ghopal said. "Some of the trouble is in my and some of it is in Mr. Klüng's; for that reason, it would be if Coördinator Natalenko it to you."
"You know, I assume, our in New Texas?" Natalenko asked.
"I had some of it for breakfast, sir," I replied. "Supercow."
Natalenko again. "Yes, New Texas is the shop of the galaxy. In more than one, I'm you'll find. They just one of our people there a while ago. Our Ambassador, in fact."
That would be Silas Cumshaw, and this was the I'd about it.
I asked when it had happened.
"A of months ago. We just about it last evening, when the news came in on a from there. Which to point up something you in your article—the of trying to a government on a scale. But we have another interest, which may be 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 me. I who the z'Srauff were; I'd into them, here and there. One of the extra-solar races, who to have been from or canine-like ancestors, of primates. Most of them speak Basic English, but I saw one who would admit to more of our language than the 850-word Basic vocabulary. They a half-dozen in a small star-cluster about light-years the Capella system. They had normal-space reaction-drive ships we came into with them, and they had up the hyperspace-drive from us in those days when the Solar League was still playing Missionaries of Progress and trying to a galaxy-wide Point-Four program.
In the past century, it had almost for to into their star-group, although z'Srauff ships were in on every that the League had settled or controlled. There were z'Srauff and small merchants all over the galaxy, and you almost saw one of them without a camera. Their little meteor-mining were everywhere, and all of them more of the most modern and than a meteor-miner's lifetime would pay for.
I also that they were one of the of and at the League on Luna. I'd done a little reading on pre-spaceflight Terran history; I had been by the the present and one which had culminated, two and a centuries before, on the 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 are, 'Stop trouble it starts,' and, 'If we have to fight, let's do it on the other fellow's estate.' But this is just a little too for of those principles. An attack on the z'Srauff would set every other non-human in the against us.... Would an attack by the z'Srauff on New Texas just provocation?"
"It might. New Texas is an planet. Its people are of from Terra who wanted to away from the of the Solar League. We've been trying for a century to the New Texan government to join the League. We need their planet, for and reasons. With the z'Srauff for neighbors, they need us as much at least as we need them. The problem is to make them that."
I again. "And an attack by the z'Srauff would do that, too, sir," I said.
Natalenko again. "You see, gentlemen! Our Mr. Silk up very handily, doesn't he?" He to Secretary of State Ghopal. "You take it from there," he invited.
Ghopal Singh benignly. "Well, that's it, Stephen," he said. "We need a man on New Texas who can done. Three things, to be exact.
"First, out why Mr. Cumshaw was murdered, and what can be done about it to maintain our without the New Texans.
"Second, the government and people of New Texas to a that they need the Solar League as much as we need them.
"And, third, or the plans for the z'Srauff 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 which in the Diplomatic Service on that planet."
At Dumbarton Oaks Diplomatic Academy, they the by making them on a one-legged and a and on one while the upper them with ping-pong balls. Whoever that and the other of was one of the great of the Service. So I my coffee, set the cup, took a from my cigarette, then said:
"I am honored, Mr. Secretary. I trust I needn't go into any that I will do possible to your trust in me."
"I he will, Mr. Secretary," Natalenko piped, in a manner that my blood.
"Yes, I so," Ghopal Singh said. "Now, Mr. Ambassador, there's a in two thousand miles off Luna, which has been from off for the last eight hours, waiting for you. Don't packing more than a things; you can you'll need aboard, or at New Austin, the capital. We have a man Coördinator Natalenko has for us, a native New Texan, Hoddy Ringo by name. He'll act as your personal secretary. He's the ship now. You'll have to hurry, I'm afraid.... Well, voyage, Mr. Ambassador."
II
The death-watch had to about fifteen or twenty. They were all waiting in happy 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 me to the Cookie Pushers. Clear to Ambassador."
They got a laugh. I out, what of they'd make, the next morning, when the was posted.
I a together, mostly small personal items, and all the that I on New Texas, then got the Space Navy that was waiting to take me to the ship. It was a four-hour and I put in the time going over my hastily-assembled library and using a to a reading list for the spacetrip.
As I rolled up the stenophone-tape, I what of they had me; and, in passing, why Natalenko's had him.
Hoddy Ringo....
Queer name, but in a civilization, you all of names and all of people them, so I was prepared for anything.
And I it.
I him with the ship's captain, the airlock, when I the big, space-liner. A little man, with and arms he had doing work, and a good-natured, not particularly 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 under his left 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 for over five years, was to be going back, and that he was going under the protection of Solar League immunity.
In fact, I got the that, without such protection, he wouldn't have been going at all.
I another discovery. My personal secretary, it seemed, couldn't read stenotype. I that out when I gave him the tape I'd the cutter, to for me.
"Gosh, boss. I can't make anything out of this stuff," he confessed, looking at the shorthand-Braille that my voice had put onto the tape.
"Well, then, put it in a player and it by ear," I told him.
He didn't to that that be done.
"How did you come to be sent as my secretary, if you can't do work?" I wanted to know.
He got out a of tobacco and a book of papers and a cigarette, with one hand.
"Why, shucks, boss, nobody to think I'd have to do this work," he said. "I was just sent along to you the way around New Texas, and see you don't no trouble."
He got his cigarette drawing, and the that across his and under his right arm. "A guy that don't know the way around can a trouble on New Texas. If you call gettin' killed trouble."
So he was a ... and I what else he was. One thing, it would take him forty-two years to send a radio message to Luna, and I keep of any other he sent, in or on tape, by ships. In the end, I my own tape, and settled to out my three weeks' study-course on my new post.
I found, however, that the whole thing be learned in a hours. The of what I had was duplication, some of it contradictory, and it all to this:
Capella IV had been settled the of colonization, after the Fourth World—or First Interplanetary—War. Some time around 2100. The had come from a place in North America called Texas, one of the old United States. They had a history—independent republic, to the United States, from the United States, by the United States, and under the United States, the United Nations and the Solar League. When the laws of non-Einsteinian were and the hyperspace-drive was developed, the entire population of Texas had taken to space to a new home and from everybody.
They had Capella IV, a Terra-type planet, with a higher temperature, a and field, about one-quarter water and three-quarters land-surface, at a stage of that of Terra the late Pliocene. They also supercow, a big looking like the attempt of a to a and about the size of a nuclear-steam locomotive. On New Texas' plains, there were of them; their meat was fit for the gods of Olympus. So New Texas had 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 as 'anarchy by assassination,' and 'grotesque of democracy.'
There would, I assumed, be more exact in the material which had been into my hand just the from Luna, in a TOP SECRET: TO BE OPENED ONLY IN SPACE, AFTER THE FIRST HYPERJUMP. There was also a big that had been in my suite, sealed and the same instructions.
I got Hoddy out of the as soon as the ship had passed out of the normal space-time continuum, locked the door of my and opened the parcel.
It only two loose-leaf notebooks, with the Solar League and Department seals, with the against the and the indiscreet. They were numbered ONE and TWO.
ONE 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 about this on file with the State Department on Luna. The people of New Texas are not barbarians. Their manners and customs, while and unconventional, are most charming. Their dress is and practical, not grotesque; their soft speech is to the ear. Their flag is the original flag of the Republic of Texas; it is definitely not a of our own emblem. And the of their political should, as as possible, be into the organization of the Solar League. Here politics is an and game, in which only the true of all the people can survive.
DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM
After five years on New Texas, Andrew Jackson Hickock resigned, married a of a local and a citizen of that planet. He is still active in politics there, often in opposition to Solar League policies.
That didn't like too an for the planet. I was when I to the next page, and:
FINAL MESSAGE
OF THE SECOND SOLAR LEAGUE
AMBASSADOR TO
NEW TEXAS
CYRIL GODWINSON
Yes and no; and not; me; I agree with you say. Yes and no; and not; me; I agree....
DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM
After seven years on New Texas, Ambassador Godwinson was recalled; insane.
And then:
FINAL MESSAGE
OF THE THIRD SOLAR LEAGUE
AMBASSADOR TO NEW TEXAS
R. F. GULLIS
I it very to you that when you are reading this, I will be dead.
DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM
Committed suicide after six months on New Texas.
I to the last page cautiously, found:
FINAL MESSAGE
OF THE FOURTH SOLAR LEAGUE
AMBASSADOR TO NEW TEXAS
SILAS CUMSHAW
I came to this ten years ago as a man of and convictions. I have managed to keep myself alive here by an nonentity. If I continue in this course, it will be only at the cost of my self-respect. Beginning tonight, I am going to and maintain positive opinions on the relation this and the Solar League.
DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM
Murdered at the home of Andrew J. Hickock. (see p. 1.)
And that was the end of the notebook. Nice, reading; complete, solid briefing.
I was, frankly, almost to open the second notebook. I it at first, saw that it only about as many pages as the and that those pages were sealed with a around them.
I took a quick peek, read the on the band:
Before reading, open the sealed which has been with your luggage.
So I the book and out the sealed trunk, hesitated, then opened it.
Nothing me more than to the ... full of clothes.
There were four of trousers, light blue, dark blue, and black, with wide at the bottoms. There were six or eight shirts, their colors the entire in the most shades. There were a of vests. There were two of with high and leather-working, and a of with four-inch brims.
And there was a wide leather belt, a leather corset.
I at the belt, if I was what was in of me.
Attached to the were a pair of pistols in right- and left-hand holsters. The pistols were seven-mm Krupp-Tatta Ultraspeed automatics, and the were the spring-ejection, quick-draw which were the of the State Department Special Services.
This must be a mistake, I thought. I'm an Ambassador now and Ambassadors weapons.
The of an Ambassador's person not only the of unnecessary, so that an Ambassador was a of terms, but it would be an to the nation to which he had been accredited.
Like taking a poison-taster to a dinner.
Maybe I was to give the and the to Hoddy Ringo....
So I the sealed off the second notebook and read through it.
I was to wear the local on New Texas. That was something unusual; in the Hooligan Diplomats, we over in Terran to ourselves from the people among we worked.
I was to start the high immediately, on shipboard, to myself to the heels. These, I was informed, were traditional. They had a useful purpose, in the early days on Terran Texas, when all travel had been on horseback. On and New Texas, they were a but part of the cultural heritage.
There were of about the hat, and the trousers, which for some were as Levis. And I was informed, as an order, that I was to wear the and the pistols at all times the Embassy itself.
That was all of the second notebook.
The two notebooks, plus my with Ghopal, Klüng and Natalenko, my for my new post.
I off my shoes and on a pair of boots. They perfectly. Evidently I had been for this job as soon as word of Silas Cumshaw's death had Luna and there must have been some to my ready.
I didn't like that any too well, and I liked the order to the pistols less. Not that I had any to weapons, se: I had been and on Theta Virgo IV, where the children aren't allowed the house until they've learned to shoot.
But I did have to being sent, of local customs, on a mission where I was ordered to of the local government, on the of my predecessor's death.
The author of Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy had the use of to conquest. If the New Texans two Solar League Ambassadors in a row, nobody would the League for moving in with a space-fleet and an army....
I was to how Doctor Guillotin must have while his was being into his own invention.
I looked again at the notebooks, each marked in red: Familiarize with and or disintegrate.
I'd have to do that, of course. There were a non-humans and a of non-League people this ship. I couldn't let any of them out what we a full for a new Ambassador.
So I them in the original and to the zone, where I the ship's third officer. I told him that I had some to be and he took me to the engine room. I the into one of the mass-energy and it itself into its protons, and electrons.
On the way back, I stopped in at the ship's bar.
Hoddy Ringo was there, up in—and I use the literally—a lady from the Alderbaran system. She was on her way home from one of the on Terra and was her emancipation. They were so with each other that they didn't notice me. When they left the bar, I 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 to our suite, the lock of Hoddy's room, and allowed myself an hour to search his luggage.
All of his were new, but there were not a great many of them. Evidently he was to re-outfit himself on New Texas. There were a and ends, the any man with a home will on to, in the luggage.
He had another eleven-mm pistol, by Consolidated-Martian Metalworks, to the one he was in a shoulder-holster, and a wide two-holster like the one me, but old.
I the and the meaning of the old 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 to be the equipment.
But I was a little over what I in the of one of his bags, a to Space-Commander Lucius C. Stonehenge, Aggression Department Attaché, New Austin Embassy. I didn't have either the time or the to open it. But, our Departments, I to myself with the that it was only a letter-of-credence, with the message to be delivered orally.
About the message I had no doubts: the of Ambassador Stephen Silk in such a way that it looks like another New Texan job....
Starting that evening—or what passed for a ship in hyperspace—Hoddy and I a positively together.
I had it this way: as long as we were on ship, I was perfectly safe. On the ship, in fact, Hoddy would definitely have his life to save mine. I'd have to be killed on New Texas to give Klüng's boys their for moving in.
And there was always the chance, with no too for me to ignore, that I might be able to Hoddy to talk, yet still be myself to what he said.
Exact times, details, faces, names, came to me through a of as Hoddy and I something he called superbourbon—a New Texan drink that Bourbon County, Kentucky, would have recognized. They had no on New Texas. This was out of something called superyams.
There were at least two I got out of the binge. First, I learned to the national drink without an eye. Second, I learned to my as I the that on New Texas was supersomething.
I was also enough, we got started, to my and with the purser. I didn't want Hoddy around those holsters. And I 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 treatments.
But the one thing I wanted to remember, as the me to normal life, I was the one thing I couldn't remember. What was the name of that girl—a big, blond—who joined the party along with Hoddy's from Alderbaran and with it to the end?
Damn, I I her name!
When we were fifteen thousand miles off-planet and the from New Austin were reported on the way, I got into the skin-tight Levis, the cataclysmic-colored shirt, and the vest, my big under my arm, and to the purser's office for my guns, them on. When I got to the suite, Hoddy had put on his pistols and was quick in of the mirror. He took one look at my and groaned.
"You're killed for sure, with that rig, an' them popguns," he told me.
"These popguns'll shoot and make than that pair of museum-pieces you're carrying," I replied.
"An' them holsters!" Hoddy continued. "Why, it'd take all day to your them! You let me you a rig, when we to New Austin...."
There was a chance, of course, that he what I was using and wanted to his knowledge. I that.
"Sure, you State Department always know everything," he on. "Like them microfilm-books you was readin'. I try to tell you what is like on New Texas, an' you let it go in one ear an' out the other."
Then he off to say good-bye to the from Alderbaran, me to make the last-minute check on the luggage. I was I'd be able to see that ... 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, an hour later, in the around the when the came alongside, and I to push my way toward her. As I did, the opened, the toward it, and she was along. Then the closed, after she had passed through and I to it. That meant I'd have to wait for the second lighter.
So I the best of it, and the next half-hour the of the into a that the of the and then its curvature, and of moving in toward the planet, we were going toward it.
