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. Hickcock. (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.