"Hold it!" I yelled at them. "You've been cleared of killing a politician, but you still have killing a Solar League Amba.s.sador 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 bra.s.s-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!_"

"d.a.m.n! 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 n.o.body shooting at me, and n.o.body for me to shoot at; the big room was silent, and I was aware that Judge Nelson and his eight a.s.sociates 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 Hick.o.c.k had also drawn a pistol and he was covering Sidney with it, occasionally moving the muzzle to the left to include the z'Srauff Amba.s.sador and his two attaches.

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 a.s.sure 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 Amba.s.sador to pa.s.s 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 n.o.body 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 Amba.s.sador. 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-cl.u.s.ter 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 Amba.s.sador calling another Amba.s.sador 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 s.p.a.cE-COMMANDER STONEHENGE TO SECRETARY OF AGGRESSION, KLuNG:

... so the measures considered by yourself and Secretary of State Ghopal Singh and Security Coordinator Natalenko, as transmitted to me by Mr. Hoddy Ringo, were not, I am glad to say, needed. Amba.s.sador Silk, alive, handled the thing much better than Amba.s.sador 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 Amba.s.sador had expected. They dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ceships and reports reaching here indicate that no more than twenty got back to z'Srauff Cl.u.s.ter.

... 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 a.s.sumed, 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 s.p.a.ce-ship...._

_FINAL MESSAGE OF THE LAST SOLAR AMBa.s.sADOR 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 inst.i.tutions 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 Amba.s.sador, Colonel Andrew Jackson Hick.o.c.k) and is still active in politics on that planet, often in opposition to Solar League policies, which he seems to antic.i.p.ate 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 Amba.s.sadors 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 Coordinator scrawled a note comprehensible only to himself....

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