Lone Star Planet

as soon as I came through the door

assistant secretary to the Undersecretary for Economic Penetration, and Norman Gazarin, from Protocol,

's march to the gibbet: the word that the Secretary had called me in

lli, I presume,"

icked up the ball. "At least,

e, and the Consular Service's gift

n Diplomats would as soon shoot you

your friends all want important posts

it," I fired back. "Maybe even a few of

Secretary Ghopal understands what it wa

p the handphone and whispered into it. A deathly silence filled t

all star

to see Mr. Stephen Silk," s

the top of the desk with his fingers, the slow reiterate

r inquired tonelessl

ced, gray-haired, slender and elegant, meeting me halfway to his desk. Another slender man, in black,

man with a fat baby-fac

I really began t

atalenko, the Sec

his hand extended. "Gentlemen, Mr. Stephen Silk, about w

cups and saucers, a coffee urn, cigarettes-and a copy of the current issue of the Galactic Statesmen's Journal, open at

had never been born, or, at least, had stayed on Theta Virgo IV

king at the periodical. They were probably going to hang

others. "Back on Luna on rotation, doing something in Mr. Halvord's section. H

tesman's Journal on the Benares-work table, "he is a student both of t

" Klüng comme

eriodical 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 t

really makes trouble for us, we can always disavow it. There's no cens

comes, I

Natalenko tittered happily, like a ten-year-old who

going to have to banish you for a while, but I daresay that won't be so bad. The social l

mber something about it. Capella was a G

" Klüng hel

, no! I

d. "Some of the trouble is in my department and some of it is in Mr. Klüng's; for th

r chief interest in New

r breakfast, sir," I

alaxy. In more ways than one, I'm afraid you'll find. They just butche

shaw, and this was the

hen it ha

p something you stressed in your article-the difficulties of trying to run a centralized democratic government on a galactic scale. Bu

mates. 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

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 mete

. I'd done a little reading on pre-spaceflight Terran history; I had been impressed by the parallel between the pr

o you think Machiavelli, Junio

her fellow's real estate.' But this situation is just a little too delicate for literal application of those principles. An unprovoked attack on the

r 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 a

tack by the z'Srauff would

picks things up very handily, doesn't he?" He turned to Secr

Stephen," he said. "We need a man on New Texas w

red, and what can be done about it to maintain

f New Texas to a realization that they nee

xpose the plans for the z'S

ht. He doesn't want a dip

cial position be on New Texas, sir

assador Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary. That, I believe, is t

cer on one knee while the upper classmen pelt them with ping-pong balls. Whoever invented that and the other similar forms of hazi

st I needn't go into any assurances that I will d

tary," Natalenko piped, in a

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 Co?rdinator Natalenko has sec