Lone Star Planet, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  The death-watch outside had grown to about fifteen or twenty. They wereall waiting in happy anticipation as I came out of the Secretary'soffice.

  "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 noisesthey'd make, the next morning, when the appointments sheet was posted.

  I gathered a few things together, mostly small personal items, and allthe microfilms that I could find on New Texas, then got aboard the SpaceNavy cutter that was waiting to take me to the ship. It was a four-hourtrip and I put in the time going over my hastily-assembled microfilmlibrary and using a stenophone to dictate a reading list for thespacetrip.

  As I rolled up the stenophone-tape, I wondered what sort of secretarythey had given me; and, in passing, why Natalenko's department hadfurnished him.

  Hoddy Ringo....

  Queer name, but in a galactic civilization, you find all sorts of namesand 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 Iboarded the big, spherical space-liner. A tubby little man, withshoulders and arms he had never developed doing secretarial work, and agood-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 amoron. He just looked like one. Natalenko's people often did, as one oftheir professional assets.

  I also noticed that he had a bulge under his left armpit the size of aneleven-mm army automatic.

  He was, I'd been told, a native of New Texas. I gathered, after talkingwith him for a while, that he had been away from his home planet forover five years, was glad to be going back, and especially glad that hewas going back under the protection of Solar League diplomatic immunity.

  In fact, I rather got the impression that, without such protection, hewouldn't have been going back at all.

  I made another discovery. My personal secretary, it seemed, couldn'tread stenotype. I found that out when I gave him the tape I'd dictatedaboard 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 ontothe 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 dosecretarial work?" I wanted to know.

  He got out a bag of tobacco and a book of papers and began rolling acigarette, with one hand.

  "Why, shucks, boss, nobody seemed to think I'd have to do this kindawork," he said. "I was just sent along to show you the way around NewTexas, and see you don't get inta no trouble."

  He got his handmade cigarette drawing, and hitched the strap that wentacross his back and looped under his right arm. "A guy that don't knowthe way around can get inta a lotta trouble on New Texas. If you callgettin' killed trouble."

  So he was a bodyguard ... and I wondered what else he was. One thing, itwould take him forty-two years to send a radio message back to Luna, andI 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 tolaying 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 itall boiled down to this:

  Capella IV had been settled during the first wave of extrasolarcolonization, after the Fourth World--or First Interplanetary--War.Some time around 2100. The settlers had come from a place in NorthAmerica called Texas, one of the old United States. They had a lengthyhistory--independent republic, admission to the United States, secessionfrom the United States, reconquest by the United States, and generalintransigence under the United States, the United Nations and the SolarLeague. When the laws of non-Einsteinian physics were discovered and thehyperspace-drive was developed, practically the entire population ofTexas had taken to space to find a new home and independence fromeverybody.

  They had found Capella IV, a Terra-type planet, with a slightly highermean temperature, a lower mass and lower gravitational field, aboutone-quarter water and three-quarters land-surface, at a stage ofevolutionary development approximately that of Terra during the latePliocene. They also found supercow, a big mammal looking like theunsuccessful attempt of a hippopotamus to impersonate a dachshund andabout 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 politicsof New Texas and such as it was, it was very scornful. There were suchexpressions as 'anarchy tempered by assassination,' and 'grotesqueparody of democracy.'

  There would, I assumed, be more exact information in the material whichhad 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 THEFIRST HYPERJUMP._ There was also a big trunk that had been placed in mysuite, sealed and bearing the same instructions.

  I got Hoddy out of the suite as soon as the ship had passed out of thenormal space-time continuum, locked the door of my cabin and opened theparcel.

  It contained only two loose-leaf notebooks, both labeled with the SolarLeague and Department seals, both adorned with the customarybloodthirsty threats against the unauthorized and the indiscreet. Theywere numbered _ONE_ and _TWO_.

  _ONE_ contained four pages. On the first, I read:

  _FINAL MESSAGEOF THE FIRST SOLAR LEAGUE AMBASSADORTONEW TEXASANDREW JACKSON HICKOCK_

  _I agree with none of the so-called information about this planet onfile with the State Department on Luna. The people of New Texas arecertainly not uncouth barbarians. Their manners and customs, whilelively and unconventional, are most charming. Their dress is gracefuland practical, not grotesque; their soft speech is pleasing to the ear.Their flag is the original flag of the Republic of Texas; it isdefinitely not a barbaric travesty of our own emblem. And the underlyingpremises of their political system should, as far as possible, beincorporated into the organization of the Solar League. Here politics isan exciting and exacting game, in which only the true representative ofall the people can survive._

  _DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM_

  _After five years on New Texas, Andrew Jackson Hickock resigned, marrieda daughter of a local rancher and became a naturalized citizen of thatplanet. He is still active in politics there, often in opposition toSolar League policies._

  That didn't sound like too bad an advertisement for the planet. I waseven feeling cheerful when I turned to the next page, and:

  _FINAL MESSAGEOF THE SECOND SOLAR LEAGUEAMBASSADOR TONEW TEXASCYRIL GODWINSON_

  _Yes and no; perhaps and perhaps not; pardon me; I agree with everythingyou 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 MESSAGEOF THE THIRD SOLAR LEAGUEAMBASSADOR TO NEW TEXASR. F. GULLIS_

  _I find it very pleasant to inform you that when you are reading this, Iwill be dead._

  _DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM_

  _Committed suicide after six months on New Texas._

  I turned to the last page cautiously, found:

  _FINAL MESSAGEOF THE FOURTH SOLAR LEAGUEAMBASSADOR TO NEW TEXASSILAS CUMSHAW_

  _I came to this planet ten years ago as a man
of pronounced andoutspoken convictions. I have managed to keep myself alive here bybecoming an inoffensive nonentity. If I continue in this course, it willbe only at the cost of my self-respect. Beginning tonight, I am going tostate and maintain positive opinions on the relation between this planetand 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 itcautiously at first, saw that it contained only about as many pages asthe 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 yourluggage._

  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 andblack, 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 withhigh heels and fancy leather-working, and a couple of hats withfour-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 frontof me.

  Attached to the belt were a pair of pistols in right- and left-handholsters. The pistols were seven-mm Krupp-Tatta Ultraspeed automatics,and the holsters were the spring-ejection, quick-draw holsters whichwere the secret of the State Department Special Services.

  _This must be a mistake_, I thought. _I'm an Ambassador now andAmbassadors never carry weapons._

  The sanctity of an Ambassador's person not only made the carrying ofweapons unnecessary, so that an armed Ambassador was a contradiction ofdiplomatic terms, but it would be an outrageous insult to the nation towhich 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 HoddyRingo....

  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 somethingunusual; even in the Hooligan Diplomats, we leaned over backward inwearing Terran costume to distinguish ourselves from the people amongwhom we worked.

  I was further advised to start wearing the high boots immediately, onshipboard, to accustom myself to the heels. These, I was informed, weretraditional. They had served a useful purpose, in the early days onTerran Texas, when all travel had been on horseback. On horseless andmechanized New Texas, they were a useless but venerated part of thecultural heritage.

  There were bits of advice about the hat, and the trousers, which forsome obscure reason were known as Levis. And I was informed, as anorder, that I was to wear the belt and the pistols at all times outsidethe Embassy itself.

  That was all of the second notebook.

  The two notebooks, plus my conversation with Ghopal, Klueng andNatalenko, completed my briefing for my new post.

  I slid off my shoes and pulled on a pair of boots. They fittedperfectly. Evidently I had been tapped for this job as soon as word ofSilas Cumshaw's death had reached Luna and there must have been somefantastic hurrying to get my outfit ready.

  I didn't like that any too well, and I liked the order to carry thepistols even less. Not that I had any objection to carrying weapons,_per se_: I had been born and raised on Theta Virgo IV, where thechildren aren't allowed outside the house unattended until they'velearned to shoot.

  But I did have strenuous objections to being sent, virtually ignorant oflocal customs, on a mission where I was ordered to commit deliberateprovocation of the local government, immediately on the heels of mypredecessor's violent death.

  The author of _Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy_ hadrecommended the use of provocation to justify conquest. If the NewTexans murdered two Solar League Ambassadors in a row, nobody wouldblame the League for moving in with a space-fleet and an army....

  I was beginning to understand how Doctor Guillotin must have felt whilehis neck was being shoved into his own invention.

  I looked again at the notebooks, each marked in red: _Familiarizeyourself with contents and burn or disintegrate._

  I'd have to do that, of course. There were a few non-humans and a lot ofnon-League people aboard this ship. I couldn't let any of them find outwhat we considered a full briefing for a new Ambassador.

  So I wrapped them in the original package and went down to the lowerpassenger zone, where I found the ship's third officer. I told him thatI had some secret diplomatic matter to be destroyed and he took me tothe engine room. I shoved the package into one of the mass-energyconvertors 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--ayoung lady from the Alderbaran system. She was on her way home from oneof the quickie divorce courts on Terra and was celebrating her maritalemancipation. They were so entangled with each other that they didn'tnotice me. When they left the bar, I slipped after them until I saw thementer the lady's stateroom. That, of course, would have Hoddyimmobilized--better word, located--for a while. So I went back to oursuite, picked the lock of Hoddy's room, and allowed myself half an hourto 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 werea few odds and ends, the kind any man with a real home planet will holdon to, in the luggage.

  He had another eleven-mm pistol, made by Consolidated-MartianMetalworks, mate to the one he was carrying in a shoulder-holster, and awide two-holster belt like the one furnished me, but quite old.

  I greeted the sight and the meaning of the old holsters with joy: theyweren't the State Department Special Services type. That meant thatHoddy was just one of Natalenko's run-of-the-gallows cutthroats, notimportant enough to be issued the secret equipment.

  But I was a little worried over what I found hidden in the lining of oneof his bags, a letter addressed to Space-Commander Lucius C. Stonehenge,Aggression Department Attache, New Austin Embassy. I didn't have eitherthe time or the equipment to open it. But, knowing our various Departments,I tried to reassure myself with the thought that it was only aletter-of-credence, with the real message to be delivered orally.

  About the real message I had no doubts: _arrange the murder ofAmbassador Stephen Silk in such a way that it looks like another NewTexan job...._

  Starting that evening--or what passed for evening aboard a ship inhyperspace--Hoddy and I began a positively epochal binge together.

  I had it figured this way: as long as we were on board ship, I wasperfectly safe. On the ship, in fact, Hoddy would definitely have givenhis life to save mine. I'd have to be killed on New Texas to giveKlueng's boys their excuse for moving in.

  And there was always the chance, with no chance too slender for me toignore, that I might be able to get Hoddy drunk enough to talk, yetstill be sober enough myself to remember what he said.

  Exact times, details, faces, names, came to me through a sort of hazyblur as Hoddy and I drank something he called superbourbon--a New Texandrink that Bourbon County, Kentucky, would never have recognized. Theyhad no corn on New Texas. This stuff was made out of something calledsuperyams.

  There were at least two things I got out of the binge. First, I learnedto slug down the national drink without batting an eye. Second, Ilearned to control my expression as I uncovered the fact that everythingon New Texas was supersomething.

  I was also cautious enough, before we really got started, to leave mybelt and guns with the purser. I didn't want Hoddy poking around thosese
cret holsters. And I remember telling the captain to radio New Austinas soon as we came out of our last hyperspace-jump, then to send theship's doctor around to give me my hangover treatments.

  But the one thing I wanted to remember, as the hangover shots brought meback to normal life, I found was the one thing I couldn't remember. Whatwas the name of that girl--a big, beautiful blond--who joined the partyalong with Hoddy's grass widow from Alderbaran and stayed with it to theend?

  Damn, I wished I could remember her name!

  When we were fifteen thousand miles off-planet and the lighters from NewAustin spaceport were reported on the way, I got into the skin-tightLevis, the cataclysmic-colored shirt, and the loose vest, tucked my bighat under my arm, and went to the purser's office for my guns, bucklingthem on. When I got back to the suite, Hoddy had put on his pistols andwas practicing quick draws in front of the mirror. He took one look atmy armament and groaned.

  "You're gonna get yourself killed for sure, with that rig, an' thempopguns," he told me.

  "These popguns'll shoot harder and make bigger holes than that pair ofmuseum-pieces you're carrying," I replied.

  "An' them holsters!" Hoddy continued. "Why, it'd take all day to getyour guns outa them! You better let me find you a real rig, when we getto New Austin...."

  There was a chance, of course, that he knew what I was using and wantedto 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 whatthings is really like on New Texas, an' you let it go in one ear an' outthe 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 hopingI'd be able to see that blond ... what _was_ her name; Gailsomething-or-other. Let's see, she'd been at some Terran university, andshe 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 thelighters came alongside, and I tried to push my way toward her. As Idid, the airlock opened, the crowd surged toward it, and she was carriedalong. Then the airlock closed, after she had passed through and beforeI 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 discof the planet grow into a huge ball that filled the lower half of theviewscreen and then lose its curvature, and instead of moving in towardthe planet, we were going down toward it.