The Star Beast

  “This little Hroshia had a role to play, a part planned more than two thousand years ago, around the time of Christ. And her part was a necessary link in a larger planning, a shaping of the race that has been going on, I am told, for thirty-eight thousand of our years. Can you grasp that, Mrs. Stuart? I find it difficult. A plan running back to when Cro-Magnon man was disputing with Neanderthals for the prize of a planet…but perhaps my trouble lies in the fact that we are ourselves the shortest-lived intelligent race we have yet found.

  “What would we do if a child was missing for more than a century? No need to discuss it; it in no way resembles what the Hroshii did. They were not too worried about her welfare; they did not think of her as dead…but merely misplaced. They do not die easily. They do not even starve to death. Uh, perhaps you have heard of flatworms? Euplanaria?”

  “I have never taken any interest in xenobiology, Mr. Kiku.”

  “I made the same error, ma’am; I asked, ‘What planet is it from?’ Euplanaria are relatives of ours; there are many more flatworms on Earth than there are men. But they have a characteristic in common with Hroshii; both breeds grow when fed, shrink when starved…and seem to be immortal, barring accidents. I had wondered why Lummox was so much larger than the other Hroshii. No mystery…you fed Lummox too much.”

  “I told John Thomas that repeatedly!”

  “No harm done. They are already shrinking her down. The Hroshii were not angry, it seems, over the theft or kidnapping or luring away of their youngster. They knew her—a lively, adventuresome disposition was part of what had been bred into her. But they did want her back and they searched for her year after year, following the single clue that she must have gone off with a certain group of visitors from space; they knew what those visitors looked like but not from what part of the sky they came.

  “It would have discouraged us…but not them. I have a misty impression that the century they spent chasing rumors, asking questions, and checking strange planets was—to them—about what a few months would be to us. In time they found her. Again, they were neither grateful nor angry; we simply did not count.

  “That might have been our only contact with the noble Hroshii had not a hitch developed; the Hroshia, now grown big but still young, refused to leave without her monstrous friend—I speak from the Hroshian viewpoint This was terrible to them, but they had no way to force her. How bitter a disappointment it was I ask you to imagine…a mating planned when Caesar fought the Gauls all now in readiness, with the other strains matured and ready…and Lummox refuses to go home. She shows no interest in her destiny…remember, she is very young; our own children do not develop social responsibility very early. In any case she won’t budge without John Thomas Stuart.” He spread his hands. “You see the predicament they are in?”

  Mrs. Stuart set her mouth. “I’m sorry but it is no business of mine.”

  “True. I suppose that the simplest thing to do is to let Lummox go home…to your home, I mean…and…”

  “What? Oh, no!”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You can’t send that beast back! I won’t stand for it.”

  Mr. Kiku stroked his chin. “I don’t understand you, ma’am. It’s Lummox’s home; it has been the Hroshia’s home much longer than it has been yours, about five times as long I believe. If I remember correctly, it isn’t your property, but your son’s. Am I right?”

  “That has nothing to do with sit! You can’t load me down with that beast.”

  “A court might decide that it was up to your son. But why cross that bridge? I am trying to find out why you oppose something so clearly to your son’s advantage.”

  She sat silent, breathing hard, and Mr. Kiku let her sit. At last she said, “Mr. Kiku, I lost my husband to space; I won’t let my son go the same way. I intend to see to it that he stays and lives on Earth.”

  He shook his head sadly. “Mrs. Stuart, sons are lost from the beginning.”

  She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “I can’t let him go off into the sky…he’s only a little boy!”

  “He’s a man, Mrs. Stuart. Younger men have died in battle.”

  “Is that what you think makes a man?”

  “I know of no better gauge.”

  He went on, “I call my assistants ‘boys’ because I am an old man. You think of your son as a boy because you are, by comparison, an old woman. Forgive me. But the notion that a boy becomes a man only on a certain birthday is a mere legal fiction. Your son is a man; you have no moral right to keep him an infant.”

  “What a wicked thing to say! It’s not true; I am merely trying to help him and guide him.”

  Mr. Kiku smiled grimly. “Madam, the commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes. I repeat, you have no right to force him into your mold.”

  “I have more right than you have! I’m his mother.”

  “Is ‘parent’ the same as ‘owner’? No matter, we are poles apart; you are trying to thwart him, I am helping him to do what he wants to do.”

  “From the basest motives!”

  “My motives are not an issue and neither are yours.” He stood up. “As you have already said, it seems pointless to continue. I am sorry.”

  “I won’t let him! He’s still a minor… I have rights.”

  “Limited rights, ma’am. He could divorce you.”

  She gasped. “He wouldn’t do that to me! His own mother!”

  “Perhaps. Our children’s courts have long taken a dim view of the arbitrary use of parental authority; coercion in choice of career is usually open-and-shut. Mrs. Stuart, it is best to give into the inevitable gracefully. Don’t oppose him too far, or you will lose him completely. He is going.”

  CHAPTER XV

  Undiplomatic Relations

  MR. KIKU returned to his office with his stomach jumping but he did not stop to cater to it. Instead he leaned across his desk and said, “Sergei. Come in now.”

  Greenberg entered and laid down two spools of sound tape. “I’m glad to get rid of these. Whoo!”

  “Wipe them, please. Then forget you ever heard them.”

  “Delighted.” Greenberg dipped them in a cavity. “Cripes, boss, couldn’t you have given him an anesthetic?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Wes Robbins was pretty rough on him. I felt like a window peeper. Why did you want me to hear them? I don’t have to deal with the mess. Or do I?”

  “No. But someday you will need to know how it is done.”

  “Mmmm… Boss…did you have any intention of letting it stick when he fired you?”

  “Don’t ask silly questions.”

  “Sorry. How did you make out with the hard case?”

  “She won’t let him go.”

  “So?”

  “So he is going.”

  “She’ll scream her head off to the papers.”

  “So she will.” Mr. Kiku leaned toward his desk. “Wes?”

  “Mr. Robbins is at the funeral of the Venerian foreign minister,” a female voice answered, “with the Secretary.”

  “Oh, yes. Ask him to see me when he returns, please.”

  “Yes, Mr. Kiku.”

  “Thank you, Shizuko.” The Under Secretary turned to Greenberg. “Sergei, your acting appointment as diplomatic officer first class was made permanent when you were assigned to this affair.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes. The papers will no doubt reach you. You are now being promoted to chief diplomatic officer, acting. I will hold up the permanent appointment for ninety days to let some noses get back in joint.”

  Greenberg’s face showed no expression. “Nice,” he said. “But why? Because I brush my teeth regularly? Or the way I keep my brief case polished?”

  “You are going to Hroshijud as deputy and chief of mission. Mr. MacClure will be ambassador, but I doubt that he will learn the tongue…which will of course place the burden of dealing with them on you. So you must acquire a wo
rking knowledge of their language at once. Follow me?”

  Greenberg translated it to read: MacClure will have to talk to them through you, which keeps him in line. “Yes,” he answered thoughtfully, “but how about Dr. Ftaeml? The Ambassador will probably use him as interpreter rather than myself.” To himself he added: boss, you can’t do this to me. MacClure can short me out through Ftaeml…and there I am, nine hundred light-years from help.

  “Sorry,” Kiku answered, “but I can’t spare Ftaeml. I shall retain him to interpret for the Hroshij mission they will leave behind. He accepted the job.”

  Greenberg frowned. “I’ll start picking his brain in earnest, then, I’ve soaked up some Hroshija already…makes your throat raw. But when did they agree to all this? Have I slept through something? While I was in Westville?”

  “They haven’t agreed. They will.”

  “I admire your confidence, boss. They strike me as being as stubborn as Mrs. Stuart. Speaking of such, Ftaeml spoke to me while you were bickering with her. He says they are getting insistent about the Stuart kid. Now that you know he’s going shouldn’t we quiet them down? Ftaeml is jittery. He says the only thing that restrains them from giving us the works is that it would displease our old pal Lummox.”

  “No,” answered Kiku, “we do not tell them. Nor do we tell Ftaeml. I want him to remain apprehensive.”

  Greenberg chewed a knuckle. “Boss,” he said slowly, “isn’t that asking for trouble? Or do you have a hunch that they aren’t the heavyweights they claim to be? If it comes to a slugging match, can we outslug them?”

  “I doubt it extremely. But the Stuart boy is my hole card.”

  “I suppose so. Far be it from me to quote you-know-who…but if the risk is that great, aren’t the people entitled to know?”

  “Yes. But we can’t tell them.”

  “How’s that again?”

  Mr. Kiku frowned. “Sergei,” he said slowly, “this society has been in crisis ever since the first rocket reached our Moon. For three centuries scientists and engineers and explorers have repeatedly broken through to new areas, new dangers, new situations; each time the political managers have had to scramble to hold things together, like a juggler with too much in the air. It’s unavoidable.

  “But we have managed to keep a jury-rigged republican form of government and to maintain democratic customs. We can be proud of that. But it is not now a real democracy and it can’t be. I conceive it to be our duty to hold this society together while it adjusts to a strange and terrifying world. It would be pleasant to discuss each problem, take a vote, then repeal it later if the collective judgment proved faulty. But it’s rarely that easy. We find ourselves oftener like pilots of a ship in a life-and-death emergency. Is it the pilot’s duty to hold powwows with passengers? Or is it his job to use his skill and experience to try to bring them home safely?”

  “You make it sound convincing, boss. I wonder if you are right?”

  “I wonder also.” Mr. Kiku went on, “I intended to hold the conference with the Hroshii tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell Ftaeml. They ought to stay quiet overnight.”

  “But, since they are anxious, we will postpone until the following day and let them grow still more anxious.” Kiku thought. “Have Ftaeml tell them this. Our customs require that a party wishing to negotiate send presents ahead; therefore they must send us presents. Tell them that the lavishness of the gifts gauge the seriousness of the matter to be discussed; too poor a gift will prejudice their petition.”

  Greenberg frowned. “You have some swindle in mind, but I miss the point. Ftaeml knows that our customs don’t call for it.”

  “Can you convince him that this is a custom which he has not encountered? Or can you take him into your confidence? I see conflict in him; his loyalty is to his clients but his sympathies appear to be with us.”

  “I had better not try to kid him. But getting a Rargyllian to lie when he is interpreting professionally… I doubt if he can.”

  “Then phrase it so that it is not a lie. Tell him that it is a very old custom…which is true…and that we resort to it only on sufficiently important occasions…which this is. Give him an out, let him see your purpose, gain a sympathetic translation.”

  “Can do. But why, boss? Just for bulge?”

  “Precisely. We are negotiating from weakness; it is imperative that we start with the upper hand. I have hopes that the symbolism of the petitioner bearing presents is as universal as we have found it to be up to now.”

  “Suppose they won’t kick through with the loot?”

  “Then we sit tight until they change their minds.” Kiku added, “Start selecting your team. Let me see a list tomorrow.”

  Greenberg groaned. “I was going to turn in early.”

  “Never count on it in this business. Oh yes…as soon as the conference is over, send a good man… Peters, perhaps…up to their ship to see what changes are needed for human passengers. Then we’ll tell the Hroshii what we require.”

  “Wait a minute, boss. I prefer one of our own ships. How do you know they’ve got room for us?”

  “Our ships will follow. But the Hroshia Lummox goes with them and young Stuart goes with Lummox, therefore our mission goes in their ship in order that the boy will be accompanied by humans.”

  “I see. Sorry.”

  “There will be room. They will leave their own mission behind at this same time…or no one will go. One hundred Hroshii, to pluck a figure, will certainly vacate living space for one hundred of our sort.”

  “In other words, boss,” Greenberg said softly, “you are insisting on hostages.”

  “‘Hostage’,” Mr. Kiku said primly, “is a word that no diplomat should ever use.” He turned back to his desk.

  The ground floor auditorium of the Spatial Affairs building was selected for the conference because its doors were large enough and its floors strong enough. It might have been safer to hold it at the space port, as Dr. Ftaeml urged, but Mr. Kiku insisted on the Hroshii coming to him for reasons of protocol.

  Their presents preceded them.

  The gifts were stacked on both sides of the great hall and were lavish in quantity; their values and qualities were still unknown. The departmental xenologists were as eager as a child faced with birthday presents, but Mr. Kiku had ordered them to hold off until the conference was over.

  Sergei Greenberg joined Mr. Kiku in the retiring room behind the rostrum as the Hroshii delegation entered the hall. He looked worried. “I don’t like this, boss.”

  Kiku looked up. “Why not?”

  Greenberg glanced at the others present—Mr. MacClure and a double for the Secretary General. The double, a skilled actor, nodded and went back to studying the speech he was about to deliver, but MacClure said sharply, “What’s the trouble, Greenberg? Those devils up to something?”

  “I hope not.” Greenberg addressed Kiku, “I checked arrangements from the air and they look good. We’ve got the Boulevard of the Suns barricaded from here to the port and enough reserves on each side for a small war. Then I picked up the head of their column as it left the port and flew above it. They dropped off reserves of their own about every quarter of a mile and set up gear of some sort at each strong point. It might just be communication links back to their ship. I doubt it. I think it must be weapons.”

  “So do I,” agreed Kiku.

  The Secretary said worriedly, “Now look here, Mr. Kiku…”

  “If you please, Mr. MacClure. Sergei, the Chief of Staff reported this earlier. I advised the Secretary General that we should make no move unless they try to pass our barricades.”

  “We could lose a lot of men.”

  “So we could. But what will you do, Sergei, when you are required to enter a stranger’s camp to palaver? Trust him completely? Or try to cover your retreat?”

  “Mmm…yes.”

  “I consider this the most hopeful sign we have had yet. If those are weapons, as I hope they are, it means th
at they do not regard us as negligible opponents. One does not set up artillery against mice.” He looked around. “Shall we go? I think we have let them stew long enough. Ready, Arthur?”

  “Sure.” The Secretary-General’s double chucked his script aside. “That boy Robbins knows how to write a speech. He doesn’t load up a sentence with sibilants and make me spray the first five rows.”

  “Good.” They went in, the actor first, then the Secretary, then the Permanent Under Secretary followed by his assistant.

  Of the long procession of Hroshii that had left the space port only a dozen had entered the auditorium, but even that number made the hall seem filled. Mr. Kiku looked down at them with interest, it being the first time that he had laid eyes on a Hroshiu. It was true, he saw, that these people did not present the golliwog friendliness shown in the pictures of the Hroshia Lummox. These were adults, even though smaller than Lummox. The one just in front of the platform and flanked by two others was staring back at him. The stare was cold and confident. Mr. Kiku found that the creature’s gaze made him uneasy; he wanted to shift his eyes. Instead he stared back and reminded himself that his own hypnotherapist could do it as well or better than the Hroshiu.

  Greenberg touched his elbow. “They’ve set up weapons in here, too,” he whispered. “See that? In the back?”

  Mr. Kiku answered, “We are not supposed to know that it is a weapon. Assume that it is apparatus for their own record of the conference.” Dr. Ftaeml was standing beside the foremost Hroshiu; the Under Secretary said to him, “Tell them what our Secretary General is. Describe him as chief of seventeen powerful planets.”

  The Rargyllian hesitated. “What about the President of your Council?”

  “The Secretary General embodies both of them for this occasion.”

  “Very well, my friend.” The Rargyllian spoke in high-pitched speech which reminded Kiku of puppies whining. The Hroshiu answered him briefly in the same tongue, and suddenly Mr. Kiku no longer felt the dread that had been inspired by the creature’s stare. It was not possible to feel awe for a person who sounded like a lonesome puppy. But he reminded himself that deadly orders could be given in any speech.