"They're changed here too, Fatski."
"Not for the better that I can see. You appear to have established a stupid, inefficient compromise between the family unit and the old-style gang system. The result is a lot of petty clans each with its jerry-built headquarters, its hunting grounds and nothing else. No comfort, no security, no progress, no morals."
"No taxes, no work, no regimentation," Hamarverd added.
The Ambassador dismissed this with a disdainful wave of his hand. "Let him have those denims. He needs them, God knows. Doubtless he'd appreciate a few bars of soap as well."
Hamarverd said suspiciously, "What's soap?"
"Stuff that gets rid of the smell."
"What smell?"
"You wouldn't know, having lived with it so long," said the Ambassador. "But
I've a pretty good idea of why your women get themselves traded from place to place. Hope springs eternal in the human breast."
Scowling, Hamarverd asked, "Are you trying to be funny, you pot-bellied slob?" "That's enough!" interjected Grayder, sharply. He turned and addressed the trooper who had just entered. "Give him the denims and let him go."
"Right, sir!" The two departed. Soon afterward Hamarverd went to the shore bearing a bundle under one arm. The boat pulled in, took him aboard. Then it edged away for fifty yards and stopped there, rocking gently in the calm water, while its three occupants shouted unbearable remarks and made vulgar gestures at the ship. Picking up the phone, Shelton said, "Ah, Sergeant Major, has Trooper Wagstaff got his knife?"
There was a short silence before Bidworthy came back with, "Yes, sir."
"Well, that's something," said Shelton.
Gazing through the port at the rude antics of those in the boat, the Ambassador
said with much sourness, "A world full of no-good bums."
"Hereditary or environmental?" prompted Grayder.
"Obviously hereditary. Don't you think so?"
"I'm far from sure, Your Excellency."
"Not sure?" The Ambassador stared at him. "Originally we shipped a million hardened criminals, didn't we?"
"Yes, that's right."
"And what have we seen here?"
"I don't know. The characters we threw out of Terra were multiple murderers, incorrigible perverts, all the criminal rubbish we could well afford to lose. Their descendants don't seem quite as bad as that. I'll readily admit they're off then-heads in some respects but that doesn't make them criminals in the same sense that their forefathers were."
"Sorry, I don't agree with you, Captain," curtly responded the Ambassador. "They're dirty, dissolute, lazy, shiftless and totally without moral fiber. They are criminals suffering from serious lack of opportunity to be criminals-because in a world composed solely of their own kind, dog can only eat dog."
"The real test would come," offered Shelton, "if we transferred some of them back to Terra."
"Heaven forbid!" said the Ambassador. He took a chair, lay back and pondered awhile before he went on, "On each world I am supposed to make contact with the central authority and come to an agreement about mutual defense. Being listed as hostile, this world is the only exception. Here, I am expected to use my own judgment in the light of existing conditions."
He eyed the others as if inviting comment, but none came. So he continued, "I am also supposed to establish myself as the representative of Terran authority on the biggest, best-organized world, leaving a Consul complete with staff and bodyguard on each of the others."
"Fat lot of use that would be here," opined Colonel Shelton. "You'd need a vertible army of bureaucrats even if you appointed only one per stronghold. Moreover, to live beyond a week, each would need a bodyguard large enough to protect him morning, noon and night." He paused to let it sink in, finished, "Estimate the total number of troops required and you'll find it amounts to complete military occupation of the planet."
"Unthinkable!" declared the Ambassador. "The strategic value is too low and the cost too high." He did a bit more thinking, decided, "Before we can get anywhere with this planet it will have to undergo extensive and intensive education and organization, whether it likes it or not. That is Terra's problem and not ours. We'll make out a comprehensive report for the benefit of the experts and-"
He was cut off by the sound of a tremendous raspberry blown somewhere outside. Grayder went to the port and looked out expectantly. So did the others.
The boat was now halfway across the lake and progressing slowly toward the island keep. A figure stood in its bow holding something that had a metallic glitter. Again came the derisive sound. Reaching for his field-glasses, Grayder looked through them, silently handed them to Shelton. He in turn had a look, let go an oath and grabbed the telephone.
"Is Sergeant Major Bidworthy there? Then where is he? Well go and fetch him. I wish to speak to him immediately."
At the other end a voice called, "Hey, Casartelli, the Colonel wants the S.M."
Beyond it another voice echoed hollowly along a metal corridor, "Hey, Pongo, you there? Old Cheeseface is howling for Ruthless Rufus. You tell him."
Shelton growled into the phone, "Kindly inform Trooper Casartelli that he will report to Old Cheeseface in one hour's time."
"Yes sir," came back in startled tones. Then, after a pause, "The Sergeant Major is coming right now, sir."
"Well, Sergeant Major?" inquired Shelton grimly when Bid-worthy was on the line.
There sounded an embarrassed cough before Bidworthy said in precise, formal tones, "I regret to report, sir, that Trooper Wagstaff has lost his trumpet."
"And how did he contrive to do that?"
"He left it upon a rock on the shore, sir, while he conducted that visitor to the ship. Since he did not take the visitor back to the shore he forgot the trumpet. He has only just remembered it."
"Because those louts in the boat have seen fit to remind him," said Shelton
sarcastically.
Another long-drawn and somewhat over-ripe noise came across the waters by way of confirmation. Shelton looked pained.
"I take a very poor view of this, Sergeant Major."
"Yes, sir."
"It was our only trumpet."
"Yes, sir."
"We are issued with one and no more."
"Yes, sir."
"And now it has gone."
"Yes, sir."
"That and a jungle-knife."
"Yes, sir."
"Can't you say anything else but "Yes, sir?" shouted Shelton".
"Yes, sir," Bidworthy admitted.
"Then say it!"
Sucking in a good, long breath, Bidworthy let go with, "1768421 Trooper
Wagstaff, Arnold Edward Sebastian, charged with losing equipment while on active service, namely, one B-flat Gabriel Horn, brass--"
"One what?" asked Shelton."One B-flat Gabriel Horn," repeated Bidworthy. "It is the correct stores definition, sir."
"I don't want to hear any more," said Shelton, and slammed down the phone.
Angrily he stamped out of the cabin.
Raising his eyebrows, the Ambassador remarked, "Our dear Colonel appears to be irked."
"We all have our bad moments," said Grayder.
"True, true." The Ambassador released a deep sigh. "We have other worlds yet to visit. Do you think that we can manage without a trumpet?"
"I should hope so, Your Excellency."
"Then what is eating Shelton?"
The ship went up but did not immediately depart. It circumnavigated the planet a
couple of times and took photographs to add to those made during the first approach. This record covered only a few well-selected portions of the sunlit side but provided a fair sampling of the world as a whole.
A photographic interpretation squad got busy with these pictures and concocted some data based upon the known size and population of the Tung stronghold. As the ship raced through the starfield they produced their statistics.
The world as a whole, they said, probably contained about sixteen thousand strongholds, not counting fifty or a hundred Rom encampments. The strongholds ranged in size from small ones of four hundred inhabitants to the largest with three thousand, the average probably being about twelve hundred. The world's total population was probably between seventeen and eighteen millions.
Reading through this report, the Ambassador said ironically, "I find this most useful. It justifies the expert time spent upon it. We now have a number of so-called facts each preceded by the word 'probably.' It shows commendable caution on the part of those who don't want to accept responsibility for their own statements."
"An intelligent guess is better than no guess at all, Your Excellency," suggested Shelton, who by now had worked off his ire on the unfortunate Trooper Casartelli.
"It isn't even an intelligent guess," denied the Ambassador. "It is based solely upon what can be seen. No account has been taken of what cannot be seen."
"I don't know how it is possible to do that," said Shelton, failing to understand what the other was getting at.
"I neither ask nor expect the impossible," the Ambassador gave back. "My point is that data based exclusively on the visible may be made completely worthless by the invisible." He tapped the report with an authoritative forefinger. "They estimate sixteen thousand strongholds-above ground. How many are below ground?"
"Subterranean ones?" exclaimed Shelton, startled. "Of course. There may be fifty thousand of those for all we know."
"We didn't see any."
"He says we didn't see any," the Ambassador said to Grayder. He spread hands to indicate that there was no comment worth making.
Grayder observed, "There were other things we didn't see."
"I know," answered the Ambassador. "We didn't see any women, not one. But since the race exists it's reasonable to assume that its females exist. That's an intelligent guess made independently of visible evidence."
"They mentioned their women repeatedly," Shelton pointed out.
Ignoring that, the Ambassador went on, "We have soared over more strongholds than I'd care to count without seeing a single factory. However, I don't think they've those hidden underground. It is my opinion that they have no factories-they have too low a standard of living and too strong a dislike of honest work."
"There's something else they don't seem to have," contributed Grayder. He mused a moment, said, "The crooks we deported were, I believe, a drunken lot. About ninety percent of them were incurable alcoholics."
"So--?" prompted the Ambassador.
"We haven't seen anything resembling a brewery or a distillery."
"Come to that, we haven't," the Ambassador admitted. "Which means," finished Grayder, "that no matter what other faults they may have the present inhabitants are at least a sober crowd."
"Not necessarily. They may lack the raw materials necessary for large-scale brewing. Or the technique, the know-how. So they've turned to native drugs. That Tor Hamarverd was glassy-eyed, insulting and aggressive. A hophead if ever I saw one."
Grayder shrugged, not wishing to argue the point. Discussion was futile, anyway. For sheer lack of facts the subject must remain speculative and the injection of personal prejudices didn't help one little bit. Fatski naturally resented having been called Fatski and that made the name-caller a drug-addict.
"When I was a kid," informed the Ambassador, "I detested spinach. Whenever I found it on my plate I bolted it first. Then, having got rid of it, I could proceed to enjoy my dinner." He smiled at the memory. "That is what we've done: we've disposed of the only hostile planet and now should have something more pleasant in prospect. Which is the next one, Captain?"