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Lone Star Planet

<h1>Lone Star Planet</h1> <h3>by</h3> <h2>H. Beam Piper</h2> <h3>and</h3> <h2>John J. McGuire</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h3>CHAPTER I</h3> They started giving me the business as soon as I came through the door into the Secretary's outer office. There was Ethel K'wang-Li, the Secretary's receptionist, at her desk. There was Courtlant Staynes, the assistant secretary to the Undersecretary for Economic Penetration, and Norman Gazarin, from Protocol, and Toby Lawder, from Humanoid Peoples' Affairs, and Raoul Chavier, and Hans Mannteufel, and Olga Reznik. It was a wonder there weren't more of them watching the condemned man's march to the gibbet: the word that the Secretary had called me in must have gotten all over the Department since the offices had opened. "Ah, Mr. Machiavelli, I presume," Ethel kicked off. "Machiavelli, Junior." Olga picked up the ball. "At least, that's the way he signs it." "God's gift to the Consular Service, and the Consular Service's gift to Policy Planning," Gazarin added. "Take it easy, folks. These Hooligan Diplomats would as soon shoot you as look at you," Mannteufel warned. "Be sure and tell the Secretary that your friends all want important posts in the Galactic Empire." Olga again. "Well, I'm glad some of you could read it," I fired back. "Maybe even a few of you understood what it was all about." "Don't worry, Silk," Gazarin told me. "Secretary Ghopal understands what it was all about. All too well, you'll find." A buzzer sounded gently on Ethel K'wang-Li's desk. She snatched up the handphone and whispered into it. A deathly silence filled the room while she listened, whispered some more, then hung it up. They were all staring at me. "Secretary Ghopal is ready to see Mr. Stephen Silk," she said. "This way, please." As I started across the room, Staynes began drumming on the top of the desk with his fingers, the slow reiterated rhythm to which a man marches to a military execution. "A cigarette?" Lawder inquired tonelessly. "A glass of rum?" <hr style="width: 50%;"/> There were three men in the Secretary of State's private office. Ghopal Singh, the Secretary, dark-faced, gray-haired, slender and elegant, meeting me halfway to his desk. Another slender man, in black, with a silver-threaded, black neck-scarf: Rudolf Klüng, the Secretary of the Department of Aggression. And a huge, gross-bodied man with a fat baby-face and opaque black eyes. When I saw him, I really began to get frightened. The fat man was Natalenko, the Security Coördinator. "Good morning, Mister Silk," Secretary Ghopal greeted me, his hand extended. "Gentlemen, Mr. Stephen Silk, about whom we were speaking. This way, Mr. Silk, if you please." There was a low coffee-table at the rear of the office, and four easy chairs around it. On the round brass table-top were cups and saucers, a coffee urn, cigarettes—and a copy of the current issue of the Galactic Statesmen's Journal, open at an article entitled Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy, by somebody who had signed himself Machiavelli, Jr. I was beginning to wish that the pseudonymous Machiavelli, Jr. had never been born, or, at least, had stayed on Theta Virgo IV and been a wineberry planter as his father had wanted him to be. As I sat down and accepted a cup of coffee, I avoided looking at the periodical. They were probably going to hang it around my neck before they shoved me out of the airlock. "Mr. Silk is, as you know, in our Consular Service," Ghopal was saying to the others. "Back on Luna on rotation, doing something in Mr. Halvord's section. He is the gentleman who did such a splendid job for us on Assha—Gamma Norma III. "And, as he has just demonstrated," he added, gesturing toward the Statesman's Journal on the Benares-work table, "he is a student both of the diplomacy of the past and the implications of our present policies." "A bit frank," Klüng commented dubiously. "But judicious," Natalenko squeaked, in the high eunuchoid voice that came so incongruously from his bulk. "He aired his singularly accurate predictions in a periodical that doesn't have a circulation of more than a thousand copies outside his own department. And I don't think the public's semantic reactions to the terminology of imperialism is as bad as you imagine. They seem quite satisfied, now, with the change in the title of your department, from Defense to Aggression." "Well, we've gone into that, gentlemen," Ghopal said. "If the article really makes trouble for us, we can always disavow it. There's no censorship of the Journal. And Mr. Silk won't be around to draw fire on us." Here it comes, I thought. "That sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it, Mr. Silk?" Natalenko tittered happily, like a ten-year-old who has just found a new beetle to pull the legs out of. "It's really not as bad as it sounds, Mr. Silk," Ghopal hastened to reassure me. "We are going to have to banish you for a while, but I daresay that won't be so bad. The social life here on Luna has probably begun to pall, anyhow. So we're sending you to Capella IV." "Capella IV," I repeated, trying to remember something about it. Capella was a GO-type, like Sol; that wouldn't be so bad. "New Texas," Klüng helped me out. Oh, God, no! I thought. "It happens that we need somebody of your sort on that planet, Mr. Silk," Ghopal said. "Some of the trouble is in my department and some of it is in Mr. Klüng's; for that reason, perhaps it would be better if Coördinator Natalenko explained it to you." "You know, I assume, our chief interest in New Texas?" Natalenko asked. "I had some of it for breakfast, sir," I replied. "Supercow." Natalenko tittered again. "Yes, New Texas is the butcher shop of the galaxy. In more ways than one, I'm afraid you'll find. They just butchered one of our people there a short while ago. Our Ambassador, in fact." That would be Silas Cumshaw, and this was the first I'd heard about it. I asked when it had happened. "A couple of months ago. We just heard about it last evening, when the news came in on a freighter from there. Which serves to point up something you stressed in your article—the difficulties of trying to run a centralized democratic government on a galactic scale. But we have another interest, which may be even more urgent than our need for New Texan meat. You've heard, of course, of the z'Srauff." That was a statement, not a question; Natalenko wasn't trying to insult me. I knew who the z'Srauff were; I'd run into them, here and there. One of the extra-solar intelligent humanoid races, who seemed to have been evolved from canine or canine-like ancestors, instead of primates. Most of them could speak Basic English, but I never saw one who would admit to understanding more of our language than the 850-word Basic vocabulary. They occupied a half-dozen planets in a small star-cluster about forty light-years beyond the Capella system. They had developed normal-space reaction-drive ships before we came into contact with them, and they had quickly picked up the hyperspace-drive from us back in those days when the Solar League was still playing Missionaries of Progress and trying to run a galaxy-wide Point-Four program. In the past century, it had become almost impossible for anybody to get into their star-group, although z'Srauff ships were orbiting in on every planet that the League had settled or controlled. There were z'Srauff traders and small merchants all over the galaxy, and you almost never saw one of them without a camera. Their little meteor-mining boats were everywhere, and all of them carried more of the most modern radar and astrogational equipment than a meteor-miner's lifetime earnings would pay for. I also knew that they were one of the chief causes of ulcers and premature gray hair at the League capital on Luna. I'd done a little reading on pre-spaceflight Terran history; I had been impressed by the parallel between the present situation and one which had culminated, two and a half centuries before, on the morning of 7 December, 1941. "What," Natalenko inquired, "do you think Machiavelli, Junior would do about the z'Srauff?" "We have a Department of Aggression," I replied. "Its mottoes are, 'Stop trouble before it starts,' and, 'If we have to fight, let's do it on the other fellow's real estate.' But this situation is just a little too delicate for literal application of those principles. An unprovoked attack on the z'Srauff would set every other non-human race in the galaxy against us.... Would an attack by the z'Srauff on New Texas constitute just provocation?" "It might. New Texas is an independent planet. Its people are descendants of emigrants from Terra who wanted to get away from the rule of the Solar League. We've been trying for half a century to persuade the New Texan government to join the League. We need their planet, for both strategic and commercial reasons. With the z'Srauff for neighbors, they need us as much at least as we need them. The problem is to make them understand that." I nodded again. "And an attack by the z'Srauff would do that, too, sir," I said. Natalenko tittered again. "You see, gentlemen! Our Mr. Silk picks things up very handily, doesn't he?" He turned to Secretary of State Ghopal. "You take it from there," he invited. Ghopal Singh smiled benignly. "Well, that's it, Stephen," he said. "We need a man on New Texas who can get things done. Three things, to be exact. "First, find out why poor Mr. Cumshaw was murdered, and what can be done about it to maintain our prestige without alienating the New Texans. "Second, bring the government and people of New Texas to a realization that they need the Solar League as much as we need them. "And, third, forestall or expose the plans for the z'Srauff invasion of New Texas." Is that all, now? I thought. He doesn't want a diplomat; he wants a magician. "And what," I asked, "will my official position be on New Texas, sir? Or will I have one, of any sort?" "Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Silk. Your official position will be that of Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary. That, I believe, is the only vacancy which exists in the Diplomatic Service on that planet." At Dumbarton Oaks Diplomatic Academy, they haze the freshmen by making them sit on a one-legged stool and balance a teacup and saucer on one knee while the upper classmen pelt them with ping-pong balls. Whoever invented that and the other similar forms of hazing was one of the great geniuses of the Service. So I sipped my coffee, set down the cup, took a puff from my cigarette, then said: "I am indeed deeply honored, Mr. Secretary. I trust I needn't go into any assurances that I will do everything possible to justify your trust in me." "I believe he will, Mr. Secretary," Natalenko piped, in a manner that chilled my blood. "Yes, I believe so," Ghopal Singh said. "Now, Mr. Ambassador, there's a liner in orbit two thousand miles off Luna, which has been held from blasting off for the last eight hours, waiting for you. Don't bother packing more than a few things; you can get everything you'll need aboard, or at New Austin, the planetary capital. We have a man whom Coördinator Natalenko has secured for us, a native New Texan, Hoddy Ringo by name. He'll act as your personal secretary. He's aboard the ship now. You'll have to hurry, I'm afraid.... Well, bon voyage, Mr. Ambassador." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h3>CHAPTER II</h3> 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. <hr style="width: 50%;"/> 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 <div class="blockquot">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. </div> DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM <div class="blockquot">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. </div> 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 <div class="blockquot">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.... </div> DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM <div class="blockquot">After seven years on New Texas, Ambassador Godwinson was recalled; adjudged hopelessly insane. </div> And then: FINAL MESSAGE OF THE THIRD SOLAR LEAGUE AMBASSADOR TO NEW TEXAS R. F. GULLIS <div class="blockquot">I find it very pleasant to inform you that when you are reading this, I will be dead. </div> DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM <div class="blockquot">Committed suicide after six months on New Texas. </div> I turned to the last page cautiously, found: FINAL MESSAGE OF THE FOURTH SOLAR LEAGUE AMBASSADOR TO NEW TEXAS SILAS CUMSHAW <div class="blockquot">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. </div> DEPARTMENT ADDENDUM <div class="blockquot">Murdered at the home of Andrew J. Hickock. (see p. 1.) </div> 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.... <hr style="width: 50%;"/> 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! <hr style="width: 50%;"/> 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! <hr style="width: 50%;"/> 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. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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