Lone Star Planet | Page 6

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