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....

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Four-Day Planet

Fenris isn't a hell planet, but it's nobody's bargain. With 2,000-hour

days and an 8,000-hour year, it alternates blazing heat with killing

cold. A planet like that tends to breed a special kind of person: tough

enough to stay alive and smart enough to make the best of it. When that

kind of person discovers he's being cheated of wealth he's risked his

life for, that kind of planet is ripe for revolution.

Lone Star Planet

New Texas: its citizens figure that name about says it all. The Solar

League ambassador to the Lone Star Planet has the unenviable task of

convincing New Texans that a s'Srauff attack is imminent, and dangerous.

Unfortunately it's common knowledge that the s'Srauff are evolved from

canine ancestors--and not a Texan alive is about to be scared of a

talking dog! But unless he can get them to act, and fast, there won't be

a Texan alive, scared or otherwise!