"Powers of Detection" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stabenow Dana, Andrews Donna, Green Simon R., Straley John, Bishop Anne, Harris...)

The Death of Clickclickwhistle by MIKE DOOGAN

“Is it dead?”

Probationary Intern to the second assistant undersecretary Oscar Gordon looked around for the speaker, but the hallway outside the delegates’ quarters was empty. Even in a small, busy spaceship, the crew was giving the alien diplomats a wide berth.

“Up here, mudfoot,” the voice said.

Gordon looked up. A pale, thin young man was standing on what was, to Gordon, the ceiling, his left hand wrapped around a gripfast to keep himself from floating away.

“Is it dead?” he asked again.

Gordon shrugged. “How can I tell if it’s dead if I don’t know what it is?”

The man sighed, flipped himself off the ceiling, tumbled through the zero gravity to another gripfast, and oriented himself with Gordon.

“Mudfoots,” he said to the air. Then, to Gordon, “It’s in contact with the deck, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer, instead raising his voice, and saying, “Computer, is the object on the deck near the location of my voice an organic?”

“It is,” a voice drawled out of the air, “if you mean the other object besides Probationary Intern to the second assistant undersecretary Oscar Gordon of the Federated Planets’ Corps Diplomatique.”

Gordon laughed. “I guess starspawn don’t know everything,” he said to the young man.

“Probationary Intern Gordon,” the voice drawled, “name-calling with ship’s fourth officer John Carter isn’t really an occupation for a member of the Corps Diplomatique. You humans should get along better, whatever your superficial differences.”

Gordon recognized the justice of the computer’s rebuke. His command of diplomacy wasn’t all that it should have been. He’d only graduated from the academy at Alpha Cen six months before, and this was his first real assignment.

The sentient races were having a big powwow on Rigel A1101, called Ricketts by the humans who lived there. Protocol prevented any extraterrestial ships from approaching the inner system that held Ricketts, so the Chuck Yeager had been assigned, along with a dozen other ships, to meet the arriving interstellar vessels, pick up their legations, and ferry them to Ricketts. This was hardly a plum assignment, so the Brahmins had assigned the lowest-ranking and least-well-connected diplos to the ships.

Gordon looked at the young man hanging in front of him. He’s one of the reasons I don’t like spaceflight, he thought. So at ease in zero G, and so superior about it. Look at his uniform. Plain gray silk without an insignia on it. How does anyone tell who’s an officer out here?

His own uniform, the uniform of a very junior diplomat, was a thousand times nicer. Rainbow bodysuit, lavender cloak and spats, yellow gloves and boots. He might be short and dark and even a trifle plump from an endless round of practice state dinners, but compared to the other young man, who was long and pale from years of no-gravity spaceflight, he looked like a million credits.

Say what you want about the Corps Diplomatique, he thought, we know how to dress. Even if the magnetics he needed to keep from floating away in zero gravity did ruin the drape of his cloak.

“You are quite correct, Computer,” the young diplomat said aloud, bowing slightly to the ship’s officer. “Can you tell me how this object got here?”

The object, somehow thoroughly anchored to the deck, was an oval, thicker in the middle than at the ends, its surface divided into segments by snaky lines. To Gordon, it looked like the shell of an earth tortoise with the leg and head holes filled in.

“I can,” the voice drawled. “It was rolled out the hatchway leading to the diplomats’ quarters. I’ll show you.”

The air in front of the two humans congealed into a replica of the hallway. The hatch opened, and the object rolled out on its side, wavered and fell, ever so slowly, to the deck, where it remained.

“Attila the Hun!” Gordon said. “If it came out of the diplomats’ quarters, it’s my problem. Computer, can you tell us who moved it here?”

“No can do. Before any of the alien species came aboard the captain ordered me not to snoop in their quarters. Something about diplomatic immunity.”

More likely worried about the Xtees bringing bug detectors and catching him red-handed, the young diplomat thought. Gordon looked at the object on the deck. “Computer, we didn’t take on any aliens that look like this, did we?”

It was Fourth Officer Carter who answered.

“We took on thirteen species, all oxygen breathers, none of which looked like that.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “But one that could. It’s a Husker.”

Gordon snorted. “That’s no Husker, starspawn, “he said, flipping his cape so that the synthmaterial rippled. “They’re eight feet tall, and they have all those arms, or fronds, or whatever they are.”

“Which one of us was it that smoked spatial geometries, mudfoot?” the ship’s officer asked. “Oh, that’s right. It was me. That’s a Husker.”

The Huskers were a recent contact. They were from a system in Clarke’s Cloud, a raft of stars in toward the center of the universe. Or so they said. They called their home star “the sun” and their home planet “Earth,” just like every other sentient species, which drove the translation program crazy. It also made it hard to locate their home planet. They were officially designated Unknown Origin 37s. But they looked like nothing so much as walking-sort of-talking-after a fashion-stalks of corn. So it didn’t take fifteen minutes after first contact for some wag to hang the nickname on them.

The young diplomat opened his mouth to argue, but the computer interrupted. “Fourth Officer Carter is right. Look.”

A full-grown Husker appeared in the air in front of Gordon’s nose, then folded itself slowly this way and that until what was left was an object like the one on the deck.

“Vlad the Impaler!” Gordon said. “How am I going to explain this to Second Assistant Undersecretary Tulk?”

“Who’s that?” Carter asked.

“My boss in the Corps Diplomatique,” Gordon said.

“Aren’t you going to have to explain it to the chief Husker first?”

Gordon’s answer was cut off by a throat-clearing noise.

“Actually, fellas,” the computer said, “there’s a more pressing problem.”

“What’s that?” the young diplomat snapped. “And why in the name of Jeffrey Dahmer do you talk like that?”

The computer’s drawl sounded aggrieved. “There’s no need to keep using foul language,” it said. “This is the authentic dialect of pilots from time immemorial, and is thought to have started with the mid-twentieth-century test pilot this ship is named for.”

There were several loud sniffs, followed by silence.

“Whatever you do, don’t irritate the computer,” the ship’s officer said. “The HAL 2750s are touchy as a hair trigger, and if it gets a case of the sulks, we won’t be able to get anything out of it for hours.”

“Ted Bundy!” Gordon said. “You mean I’ve got to apologize to a machine?”

Carter nodded.

The young diplomat thought about refusing, but he was in a tight spot and needed all the help he could get. So he sucked in a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry, Computer. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“Thanks for that handsome apology, Probationary Intern Gordon,” the computer said. “I’m pleased as punch you gave it, because I’ve got something important to tell you. The internal temperature of the object near you that we believe to be an Unknown Origin 37 has been rising steadily.”

The two men looked at one another.

“Uh, computer,” Carter said. “What is the significance of this information?”

“Why, Fourth Officer Carter, I’m surprised at you,” the computer said. “Given your physics studies, you should know what happens when heat builds up in a self-contained vessel.”

“Jack the Ripper,” Carter said, “the thing’s going to explode.”

“Explode?” Gordon said. “It isn’t bad enough one of my diplomats is dead, it’s got to explode, too? How do you think that’s going to look on my record?”

“Computer,” the ship’s officer said, “can you tell me what the force of this explosion will be?”

The computer displayed some numbers in front of Carter, who gave a low whistle.

“We’ve got to get that thing out of here before it goes off,” he said, “which will be when, Computer?”

“Thirty-three minutes,” the computer said.

The young diplomat turned, grabbed the edge of the Unknown Origin 37, and heaved. Nothing happened.

He looked at Carter, who wasn’t exactly rushing to help.

“It’s stuck to the deck,” he said. “Can’t you give me a hand?”

“Not a lot of muscle to lend,” the ship’s officer said. “Haven’t been spending much time at gravity recently. But I’ve got something better. Computer, have engineering send us a couple of hands and their decking tools. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

In a matter of minutes, two young men who didn’t look very different from Carter turned up. Unlike him, however, they were wearing powered exoskeletons.

“Subengineers Seamus Harper and James Scott,” one of them said. “What’s the trouble?”

“This object,” the ship’s officer said, “is going to explode in about half an hour.”

“Twenty-eight minutes,” the computer said.

“Okay, twenty-eight minutes,” Carter said. “The explosion is likely to be powerful enough to be inconvenient.”

“You want us to disarm it?” one of the engineers asked.

“Can’t,” Carter said. “It’s organic. Biological. For some reason it’s building up heat. Enough heat and ka-blooie.”

“Roger that,” the other engineer said. “We’ll just pull up the deck plate it’s hooked to and carry it… well, what do you want us to do with it?”

“Space it, and fast,” Carter said.

“Hold on,” the young diplomat said. His normally dark complexion had turned almost as white as those of the ship’s crew. “You can’t just space a diplomat from another species. There will be letters of protest. Speeches in the all-creatures assembly. There might even be an exchange of notes!”

“And just what do you think will happen,” the ship’s officer asked amiably, “if this thing explodes and damages some more of the Xtees?”

Gordon thought about that. Finally, he said, “Go ahead and get rid of it.”

The two subengineers slapped screwdriver tips onto the end of their power arms and began unbolting the deck section. As they worked, Gordon took out his hushphone and spoke into it for a few minutes.

“Shouldn’t you go confer, or whatever it is you do, with the Husker delegation?” Carter asked, after the young diplomat ended his communication.

“I thought about that,” Gordon said. “But I don’t want to be haggling with a diplomat many grades my senior over this. Enough time would pass for a hundred of these things to go off before I got anywhere.”

Carter gave him a considering look. “Well, at least you’re not completely stupid,” the ship’s officer said. “My old granny always told me it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

“Besides,” Gordon said, “I just sent a laser burst to the office on Ricketts. Maybe I’ll hear from Tulk before I have to meet with the Unknown Origin 37s.”

Carter laughed.

“Not likely,” he said. “Bureaucrats are the same everywhere. Nobody on Ricketts is going to want to touch this mess for fear they’ll get some on them.”

The two men watched the engineers take up bolts. When they had finished, they fitted their power arms with grapples, pulled up the section of deck containing what was perhaps a dead Husker, and prepared to carry it off.

“Couldn’t we just stick that in a stasis tube until we figure out something better?” the young diplomat asked.

The two engineers looked at one another.

“Not enough time to modify one, even if we knew how,” one of them said.

“But if you’re worried about spacing this,” the other said, “well, if we could get it open and vent the heat, we wouldn’t have to.”

They looked at one another again.

“Electrical charge,” one said.

“Low voltage should do it,” said the other.

The ship’s officer cleared his throat.

“I said space it,” he said.

“Yes, but then you would, wouldn’t you,” said one of them. “You’re not an engineer.”

The two of them moved off, balancing the deck plate between them.

“Computer,” Carter said, “maybe it would be a good idea if you kept an eye on those two. Say, an on-command display?”

“Right you are, Fourth Officer Carter,” the computer said.

Carter looked at Gordon, and said, “You’re the diplomat. Now what?”

Gordon gave a theatrical sigh. There wasn’t any help for it but to start taking his medicine. He could see the end of the career he’d just started staring him right in the eye.

“Now, I guess I’ll have to go talk to the Unknown Origin 37 delegation and see if I can find out what happened,” he said. “We’re just assuming that this is a dead member of the delegation, after all. Would you like to come along?”

“Love to,” the ship’s officer said. “Just let me get a power suit. And, Computer, why don’t you join us? I’ll explain it to the captain.”

Carter was back in a few minutes wearing an exoskeleton, and the two of them proceeded to the hatchway.

“I don’t know what your experience with other species is,” the young diplomat said, “but we have some in this group that are a bit exotic by human standards.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Carter said as he undogged the hatch.

The diplomats were housed near the Chuck Yeager’s center of mass, where it was easiest to maintain gravity. Each had quarters suitable to its environmental needs, but most came from planets with atmospheres and gravities not far off Earth normal. When humans first mastered interstellar travel, they were surprised by two things: the diversity of the sentient life-forms they encountered and the similarities in the planets that supported them. There were a number of theories about why this was, the dominant one being that the universe has a wicked sense of humor.

The Chuck Yeager wasn’t a cruise ship, so the individual quarters were small. But there was one fairly large common area, and when the two humans stepped through the second hatchway door, that’s where they found themselves. It was empty.

“Who cut the cheese?” Carter asked.

“Excuse me?” Gordon asked.

“It’s a piece of old Earth slang,” Carter said. “Old Earth studies are a hobby of mine. I was referring to the smell.”

The young diplomat tapped his nose. “I’m wearing filters. But I think one of these creatures is a flier that uses methane emissions to help keep itself aloft.”

The ship’s officer rubbed his upper lip vigorously.

“Methane emissions,” he said. “You mean the thing…”

His sentence was cut short by the arrival of an Xtee. It shot out of the entrance to a hallway at about five feet off the deck, banked sharply, and headed for the two humans. It had a vaguely human face, a long, sharp beak, and four stubby appendages on each side of its body, all of which were flapping furiously. It looked like a cross between a Leprechaun and a penguin.

As it sank toward the deck, the creature emitted a loud noise from its rear. It immediately regained height and speed.

“Ah, Saddam Hussein,” Carter said, “it’s a Gaspasser.”

The creature shot toward the two humans. Gordon couldn’t tell if it was under control, but decided to take no chances. He hit the deck. The Gaspasser flew over, headed directly for the ship’s officer.

“Screw diplomacy,” Carter said, and walloped the flying creature with a power arm. The Gaspasser tumbled beak over butt, righted itself, wobbled on, hit the far wall, and fell to the deck, where it lay with its stubby appendages still flapping feebly.

“Adolf Hitler, Carter,” Gordon said. “What if you’ve killed it? Don’t you think one dead Xtee diplomat on my record is enough?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the ship’s officer said, “I’ve run into things like this before. They usually aren’t that easy to hurt.”

He strode over to where the Gaspasser lay, picked it up, and lofted it into the air. The beat of its wings picked up, it emitted an even louder noise from its rear, and shot off toward the hallway from which it had come.

“Whew!” Carter said. “Imagine what the atmosphere on that thing’s home planet is like. You haven’t got an extra pair of nose filters, do you?”

The young diplomat shook his head.

“How did you encounter an Xtee on this tub?” he asked.

“Oh, I get around,” Carter said vaguely. “Where are the Huskers, anyway?”

Gordon decided not to push it. “They’re down here,” he said.

The two humans walked through the common area and down the hallway, which ran in a circle around the ship. They passed a series of compartments, each with a hatchway. Some were open, some shut. The closed hatches had small windows in them. Carter and Gordon stopped to look into each compartment.

“Enough to make you want to dig up Charles Darwin and slap him silly, isn’t it?” the ship’s officer said.

Gordon nodded. The creatures in the compartments seemed to be living proof that there was no rhyme or reason to sentience or planetary dominance.

The first compartment contained a group of wicked-looking lizard-like creatures with long snouts that had several eyestalks at their ends.

“These are from Enid IV,” the young diplomat said.

“Yeah, I know,” said Carter. “Peepers.”

The next compartment held what might have been a coatrack covered in spiny balls that seemed to leap away from the coatrack, then snap back. No telling, Gordon thought, if that’s all one creature or a whole bunch and the coatrack is some sort of transport.

“From somewhere in the Echo systems,” Gordon said.

The ship’s officer nodded. “Tether balls,” he said.

In the next were a collection of what appeared to be dogs of various types. Their door was open. Most of them were sitting around a green-topped table, playing a card game. Several seemed to be smoking cigars.

“From Canus III,” the young diplomat said.

“Mutts,” said Carter.

One of the Mutts was lying on the floor, licking between its hind legs. It raised its head, and growled, “What are you looking at?”

The pair moved on.

“Was he doing what I think he was doing?” Carter asked.

“That’s nothing,” Gordon said. “You should take part in their traditional greeting ceremony.”

The next compartment contained the Gaspassers.

Next to them were what appeared to be a herd of cuddly lambs, until they smiled and showed rows of razor-edged teeth. When they lifted their feet, the humans could see they were taloned and not hooved.

“These are from somewhere down space, toward the core,” the young diplomat said.

“Cute little devils, aren’t they?” Carter said. “You can see why they’re called Lambchops.”

The Huskers were in the next compartment. Their door was closed. Gordon rang the doorbell with great reluctance.

The door flew open, and a Husker stood in the doorway. It gave off a series of squeaks and squawks.

“What the hell do you want?” the human’s translation program asked. The translation program was wired into each of the Xtee compartments, and was supposed to be able to translate among the aliens as well as between alien and human. Gordon had his doubts.

“Not exactly the most diplomatic opening, is it?” the ship’s officer said.

“It’s probably the program,” Gordon said. “We haven’t got all of the bugs worked out of it.”

“Oh, sure, say it’s my fault,” the program said. “Shoot the messenger.”

“We were wondering if all the members of your delegation are accounted for,” Gordon asked the Husker.

The Husker listened to the squeaks and clicks that came from the translation program. The middle of its body rotated away, then rotated back.

“We’re all here,” it said.

This wasn’t the answer Gordon was expecting. He didn’t know what to say next.

“Ship’s fourth officer John Carter,” Carter said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to come in and take a census.”

The Husker’s midsection swiveled away, then back again.

“Under the rules of diplomacy, this is our sovereign territory,” it said. “I’m afraid I can’t let you pass.”

“I’m desolated to have to tell you that the safety of the ship is involved,” Carter said, “and that takes precedence over protocol.”

The Husker went into its swivel routine again.

Gordon opened his mouth, but closed it without saying anything. The ship’s officer was a bold and smooth liar. He could have a real future in the Corps Diplomatique.

The Husker stepped back without speaking. The two men entered the compartment. The ship’s officer made a show of counting the inhabitants. “We brought twelve of you on board,” he said, “but there are only eleven here.”

“I am John Smith, the leader of this delegation,” the biggest Husker said. “You are correct. John Doe is missing.”

“John Smith?” Gordon said. “John Doe? Is that the best you can do?”

“It’s not my fault,” the translation program said. “These are common names on this species’ home planet, and that’s the way they translate.”

“Why don’t you just leave the names in their language?” the young diplomat said. “Fewer distractions.”

Which was how the two humans learned that it was Clickclickwhistle who was missing, according to Clicksquawksqueal.

“We think we know where Clickclickwhistle is,” Carter said. “Computer, would you show us the Unknown Origin 37 we removed from the deck?”

The computer threw up a scene on the opposite wall. The Huskers seemed to see in the same spectrum as humans, so Gordon figured they should be able to follow what was going on. Unfortunately, what was going on was that the two subengineers had the Unknown Origin 37 on the shuttle deck, the section that was open to space. There were wires running from it to a console some distance away where the subengineers stood in space suits.

“Computer!” the ship’s officer yelled. “Stop whatever they are doing immediately!”

Too late. One of the space-suited figures threw a switch, and there was a tremendous explosion. Pieces of Unknown Species 37 flew everywhere. The two subengineers were blown backward and dangled at the end of tethers, their suits leaking air in dozens of places. Other space-suited figures began moving their way.

Carter began whispering into the left forearm of his powered exoskeleton.

“Is this the way you treat visiting diplomats?” Clicksquawksqueal demanded. “You blow them up?”

Gordon moved closer to the ship’s officer, who seemed to have finished whispering. For a reason Gordon couldn’t quite name, the Huskers suddenly seemed much more dangerous.

“We didn’t blow up Clickclickwhistle,” he said. “We found him all folded in the hallway outside the diplomats’ area and his temperature was rising. Our computer told us he would explode on his own. Why is that?”

“All folded up?” Clicksquawksqueal said. “What do you mean?”

“Show him, Computer,” Gordon said.

The computer projected a photograph of the Unknown Origin 37-or, rather, the late, lamented Clickclickwhistle-in front of Clicksquawksqueal. The creature did the same swiveling routine as the doorman and was silent for several minutes.

“Clickclickwhistle was in decommissioned pose,” Clicksquawksqueal said. “He would have expanded to the universe on his own.”

“Decommissioned pose?” Gordon said.

“Hey, I’m doing the best that I can,” the translation program said.

“Is that how your species disposes of its dead? Explosion?” the young diplomat asked.

Clicksquawksqueal swiveled and was silent again.

“It is,” it said at last, “it is our way of returning our biological material to the planet.”

“Well, I’d hate to walk through one of your graveyards,” Gordon said.

“Graveyards?” Clicksquawksqueal said. “What are graveyards?”

“Perhaps we should turn our attention to what happened to Clickclickwhistle,” the ship’s officer suggested. “When did you see him last?”

Gordon thought about strangling the starspawn. The demise of an alien diplomat in his keeping was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

Clicksquawksqueal seemed to share that sentiment. It swiveled and was silent for so long that Gordon thought perhaps it’d gone to sleep.

“Clickclickwhistle was an adventurous sort,” the Husker said, when it had swiveled back. “He went out exploring and never came back.”

“Weren’t you worried?” Gordon asked.

The swiveling was shorter this time.

“Define worried,” Clicksquawksqueal said.

“Never mind,” Carter said. “Perhaps it would be better if we discussed this in more comfortable surroundings. Will you and your colleagues follow me?”

He turned his exoskeleton and walked out the hatch into the hall. Gordon was right behind him. “What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed at Carter.

“Solving a mystery,” the ship’s officer said. “Watch and learn.”

After a few minutes of what had no doubt been furious swiveling in the compartment, Clicksquawksqueal emerged, followed by the rest of the Huskers.

The two humans led them down the hall. When they reached the Lambchops’ quarters, one of the creatures was standing in the hatchway.

“Where’s the party?” it asked.

“No party,” Carter said. “We are simply going somewhere more comfortable to continue our discussion with the Unknown Origin 37 delegation about the demise of one of its members.”

“Cool,” the Lambchop said. “Mind if we tag along?”

Gordon opened his mouth to tell the Lambchop, as diplomatically as possible, to mind his own beeswax, but the ship’s officer beat him to the punch. “Not at all,” he said. “The more the merrier.”

“What are you doing?” the young diplomat demanded in a fierce whisper. “Do you think I want the whole galaxy knowing about the blot on my record?”

“I said watch,” Carter said. “I didn’t say talk.”

He stopped his exoskeleton opposite the hatchway to the Gaspassers’ quarters. He pressed the doorbell. No response. He tried the handle. Locked.

“Computer,” he said.

The hatchway popped open. The Gaspassers were all huddled in one corner.

“We’re having a meeting,” Carter said cheerfully. “Diplomats love meetings. Come along.”

Without waiting for a reply, he moved on. When he reached the door to the Mutts’ compartment, he stopped again. “If you creatures can tear yourselves away from your card game for a minute, there’s a discussion in the common room you won’t want to miss.”

“Says who?” one of the Mutts growled.

“Believe me, you’ll want to be there,” Carter said pleasantly, “and so will the Unknown Origins next door.”

“Josef Stalin!” Gordon said. “Are you going to invite the entire diplomatic corps to this meeting?”

“Nope,” Carter said. “That’s it.”

With that, he led his group down the rest of the hallway and into the common room.

“Table,” he said, and a long, rectangular table rose out of the floor.

“Chairs,” he said, and chairs rose to line the table.

“This is normally the ship’s conference room,” he explained, striding to the head of the table. “Please, take a seat.”

The Lambchops and Huskers all sat on one side of the table. As they sat, the chairs shaped themselves to fit their anatomies.

“Now,” Clicksquawksqueal said, “perhaps you can explain what we’re doing here.”

“Not just yet,” Carter said. “Let’s wait for the other delegations to arrive.”

“You’re pretty confident they’re coming,” said Gordon, who’d taken a seat next to the ship’s officer.

“It’s my winning personality,” Carter said. “It’s irresistible.”

Sure enough, a minute later the Gaspassers came into the room, trailed by the Mutts. They took seats facing the Lambchops and Huskers.

“Thank you for coming, gentle creatures,” Carter said. “In the interests of universal harmony, it is truly an honor to welcome you to this historic meeting aboard…”

“Get on with it,” a Mutt that looked like a border collie snapped, “I’ve got a full house waiting back at the game.”

“Yes,” said one of the Lambchops, “you said you had something to reveal about the death of one of the Unknown 37 diplomats. Let’s not spend more time than we have to in such odiferous surroundings.”

“Who you calling odiferous, you cotton-covered assassin?” the collie barked.

This started all the Lambchops and Mutts bleating and barking. The Huskers rustled their fronds, and the Gaspassers emitted noises that indicated that they were about to become airborne.

“Oh, great,” Gordon said to Carter, “you’re starting a riot. Well, why not? They can’t drum me out of the Corps Diplomatique twice.”

“Silence,” the ship’s officer thundered, his voice enhanced by speakers in the exoskeleton. “I can have the walls lined with Federation Marines in a heartbeat.”

That seemed to make an impression. “Now,” Carter said, “we know that the unfortunate Clickclickwhistle left the Unknown Origin 37s’ compartment and never came back. We know that he was, what was the word, decommissioned inside diplomat country and was rolled through the hatchway into the outside hall. So we know that the culprit is a member of one of the diplomatic missions.”

“What?” the border collie snarled. “You’re accusing one of us of murder? I won’t stand for that.”

“If you don’t calm down,” Carter said, “I’ll send for a rolled-up newspaper. Now, before we go any further, perhaps the leader of the other Unknown Origin delegation can explain why one of its members is missing.”

That caused a flap among the Gaspassers, who chirped and whistled at one another, then at Carter.

“Missing? No one is missing from our delegation,” one of the Gaspassers said.

“Now, now,” Carter said. “Do you take us for chumps? Computer, how many of this species came aboard?”

“Twelve, just like all the other delegations,” the computer drawled.

“And how many do you count now?”

“Eleven.”

The heads of the Gaspassers all bobbed as they tried to count each other. The other delegates seemed to be trying to count them, too.

“Do you mean to say,” Clicksquawksqueal said, “that one of that species was involved in the decommissioning of Clickclickwhistle?”

“What sort of a charge is that, you overgrown bush?” the border collie howled.

“Who are you calling names, bitch?” the head Lambchop bleated.

In the next instant, all of the Lambchops and Mutts were standing in their chairs snarling and snapping. The Huskers were standing and shaking their fronds at the Gaspassers, who in unison emitted loud noises and rose into the air. Clicksquawksqueal slammed a frond down on the table.

And it cut right through the tabletop.

“George W. Bush!” Gordon shouted, “that tabletop is high-density alloy.”

The Gaspassers shot across the table at the Huskers. One pair of their appendages was moving so fast they looked like circular saws.

“Tanglefoot!” yelled Carter, and every alien froze in place.

“That’s a neat trick,” the young diplomat said. “How’d you do that?

The ship’s officer smiled. “Oh, just a precaution,” he said. “When I went to get this exoskeleton, I took the opportunity to ask engineering to modify a couple of stasis fields so they’d work on the Xtees. Later, I got on the communicator concealed in here”-he waved his left power arm-“and ordered the stasis projectors installed in the floor of the deck above us. The computer is controlling them.”

“Well, I hope you know that subjecting diplomats to stasis without their consent is a violation of several all-creature protocols,” Gordon said. “Not that it matters to me. I’ve lost not one but two alien diplomats. My career is over.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Carter said. “Computer, why don’t you release oh, say, the border collie-looking Mutt and the Lambchop with the biggest mouth.”

The aliens came out of stasis yelling at one another, but when they saw what had happened to their colleagues, they stopped.

“You can’t do this to us,” the Lambchop said. “When we report this to your Corps Diplomatique, both of you will regret it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the ship’s officer said. “I just thawed you two to see if you want to come clean.”

The Mutt and the Lambchop looked at one another, then back at Carter. Neither made a sound.

“No?” Carter said. “Then why don’t you two sit quietly while I explain what happened to my young friend here? Now, then, Probationary Intern to the second assistant undersecretary Oscar Gordon, let’s pretend. Say you’re a species in toward the core of the universe, and you’re engaged in an all-planets donnybrook with another species in your neck of the stars. Let’s call you, oh, I don’t know, Lambchops, and your opponents Mutts.”

“You and your opponents are pretty evenly matched, and each of you is always looking for an advantage. That includes sending out long-range teams, searching for new military technologies.

“Within a few years of each other, you both encounter the Federation of Planets. They won’t sell you weapons, but you figure if you get to know your way around, you’ll find some member species that will. So you send out spies disguised as diplomats, traders, what have you.

“Then you get word from your spies that there’s going to be a big meeting. You hear your opponents will be there, too. One of the items on the agenda will be the little tiff you’re having. You know it will take some time to make arrangements for the meeting that are satisfactory to diplomats representing more than five hundred species. And it’s taken, what, forty years to make the arrangements and get everybody together?

“So you could use two things. Allies. And, in case things don’t go your way, weapons. You know the Federation forces won’t let you bring weapons to the conference, at least not anything they recognize as weapons.

“But you’ve got an edge. You use mechanical weapons in your fight with the Mutts, but you also use biological weapons. And you figure that you might be able to get some of those weapons past by having them posing as diplomats from a new species.”

“How am I doing so far?” Carter asked the Lambchop.

“Eat dirt, you bald ape,” the Lambchop replied.

“I must be pretty close,” Carter said. “So you need something a little more sophisticated, and, just as important, something your opponents have never seen before. So you modify some plant life you found somewhere and, voilà, you have the Unknown Origin 37s, also known as the Huskers.”

With a snarl, the Lambchop leaped toward Carter. It hit the intervening stasis field and was knocked to the floor.

“You mean, Clickclickwhistle wasn’t an alien diplomat, it was a weapons system?” the young diplomat asked. “How did you figure that out?”

“I’ve had occasion to see military hardware once or twice,” Carter said, “and I didn’t like the look of those fronds the minute I saw them. But what convinced me was the explosion. Giving his biological material back to the planet, my eye. I know a fragmentation bomb when I see one.”

“Bahhhd, bahhhd species,” the border collie taunted. “We’ll have to report these miscreants to the proper authorities.”

“Not so fast,” Carter said. “I’m not finished. You see, one of the reasons you and your opponents have been at war so long is that you are pretty evenly matched. So it’s no surprise when they have exactly the same idea as you do.”

“What?” said the Lambchop, which had shaken off the effects of its collision with the stasis field and climbed back into its chair. “They brought weapons, too?”

“That’s right,” Carter said, “the Gaspassers. I suspect that when we check, we’ll find that their first contact was within months of the Huskers’. So when you sent Clickclickwhistle out on whatever errand it was on, it ran into one of the Gaspassers. Was it out doing some snooping, too?”

“I’m not saying anything,” the border collie whined.

“No matter,” Carter said to Gordon. He gestured to the aliens in stasis. “This little display here shows me everything I need to know. Maybe the Gaspasser couldn’t control its flight too well in the different gravity. The one we saw was certainly having trouble. Maybe Clickclickwhistle did something that led it to attack. Whatever happened, it struck the Husker in some vital spot with something, its beak or one of those saw-blade appendages. And Clickclickwhistle est mort.”

“But what happened to the Gaspasser?” Gordon asked.

“I’m guessing the Huskers are bred so that when they take a fatal hit, they fold up immediately to form a fragmentation bomb,” the ship’s officer said. “The Gaspasser couldn’t free itself in time, and ended up inside the bomb. And remember, it was full of methane.”

“So when Clickclickwhistle exploded, the Gaspasser did, too?” the young diplomat asked.

“Precisely, my dear Watson,” Carter said.

“Who’s Watson?” Gordon asked.

“Never mind,” Carter said.

Nobody said anything for a minute.

“Interesting theory,” the border collie yapped, “but how are you going to prove it?”

“Well, I’ve got some proof already,” Carter said. “The computer monitored shortwave communications between the Lambchops and the Huskers, and between you and the Gaspassers. Probably the Lambchops telling the Huskers what to say to us humans, and you ordering the Gaspassers to this meeting. And then there’s the fact that few species but you Mutts could put up with a weapons system that smells like that.”

“Hardly conclusive,” the Lambchop said.

“I know,” Carter said. “That’s why you two are going to confess.”

That set them both to protesting, but Carter waved a power arm at them. “The jig’s up, fellas,” he said. “If you don’t confess, we’ll have Federation cruisers in your systems within a month. You won’t be able to warn your governments, because I’ll just have the computer put you back in stasis. Then Probationary Intern to the second assistant undersecretary Oscar Gordon and I will depart. We’ll block off this room, drop the stasis fields, and deal with whoever survives.”

“Personally, I hope its a Lambchop or two. The crew hasn’t had fresh meat in a while.”

That brought a gasp from the Lambchop.

“But I don’t want to be speciesist about it. The Mutts aren’t really dogs, so they might taste just fine, too.”

A snarl from the border collie.

After their confessions had been recorded, the weapons systems moved to a safer place, and Marine guards stationed in the diplomatic area, Carter and Gordon went to visit the two subengineers in the infirmary. Harper and Scott, who were mostly encased in healing gel, had some pretty wicked-looking wounds, but didn’t seem to have learned much from their brush with death.

“It’s like I told him,” Harper said, “we just needed slightly lower voltage and everything would have been fine.”

Gordon and Carter left the infirmary, the former walking gingerly and the latter propelling himself along the hallway from gripfast to gripfast.

“I guess I’d better be getting back to the diplomats,” Gordon said.

“Yes,” said Carter, “I don’t think the destruction of a couple of alien weapons systems is going to mar your record. Particularly since my report is going to play up your role in preventing the introduction of dangerous weapons into the all-creatures conference. You might even get the ‘probationary’ taken off your title.”

“That’d be nice,” Gordon said. He was silent for a moment, then said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how does someone so young have so much knowledge and authority?”

The ship’s officer laughed. “The whole idea behind the Mutts’ and Lambchops’ plans was that everyone would take things at face value,” he said. “You’re still doing that. I’ve spent much of my life in zero gee. No gravity, no wrinkles. I might look sixteen, but I’m old enough to be your father. Maybe your grandfather.”

“And you’re not really fourth officer of the Chuck Yeager are you?” Gordon said.

“Yes, I am,” said Carter, “but only for this trip. I’ve been fourth officer on several ships, as well as other things. But I imagine you can guess my real occupation.”

The two humans reached the door to the diplomats’ area. Gordon stood awkwardly, not knowing what to do next. Carter did a backflip and sailed off down the hall.

“Take care, mudfoot,” he called.

“You, too, starspawn,” Gordon replied, then turned and let himself through the hatch.