When he got back to the square the keepers of the security switches were lounging by their posts, Hagbarth included, and a large group of Slugs were hooting one of their mournful hymns nearby. Other mayors were arriving, too. Mrs. Brownbenttalon poked her snout out of her can and beckoned to him. "My husband here say to tell you congratulations on excellent fall you took for new Kalkaboo stinky High Champion," she said. "I share sentiment. Extremely well done, I say!"
"Thanks," he said, nodding at the tiny male in his wife's neck fur. "I hope I'm not late."
"Be commoded, Large Male Giyt. Is last-minute decision of Slugs to arrive early, laster-minute to be somewhat later, typical Slug thing." She paused to listen as her husband chittered in her ear. "Oh, yes," she said. "Have sorrow about unfortunate forthcoming event—no, waiting a bit now, no time for discussing bad news. Hear warning dingle."
The chime had sounded to announce the imminent arrival of the leaders. As Mrs. Brownbenttalon flopped out of her cart the waiting Slug delegation redoubled their hooting, the people at the security switches came to attention, and the golden glow began to surround the portal as the field built up.
Then it was all very quick. The chamber door opened. There was the pop of expelled air from inside, the glow cleared, and two large Slugs appeared, eye stalks waving. They were immediately surrounded by Tupelo's own Slug delegation, escorted to the waiting damp-controlled carts, and borne away.
Giyt blinked after them. "That's it?" he asked.
"That is the all of the it," Mrs. Brownbenttalon confirmed, already getting back into the cart that had brought her. "No orations. No shaking of hands, no sniffing of noses, nothing like that. Only all us dignitaries required properly physically present here at time of peace treaty delegation arriving or will take offense. Is a Slug thing," she added, looking around and lowering her voice. "Delts are even worse and, hey, you know all about Kalkaboos from own self's experience already, right? Esteemed Giyt wife possess wisdom creating associations only with Petty-Primes and Centaurians such as self. Presume former-mentioned esteemed wife presently condoling."
"Condoling?"
He heard a tiny chittering as Mr. Brownbenttalon poked his nose out of his wife's neck fur and spoke confidentially into her ear. "Oh, is understood," she said to Giyt. "You don't know yet. Well, you hearing soon enough, only not from us. Centaurians don't like telling bad news. We hope for seeing you in more happy time. Good-bye."
On the way home Giyt reflected on yet another cryptic utterance. He couldn't tell how much of the mystery was due to deficiencies in the translation programs and how much to simple eetie weirdness; but as the cart approached his house he got a hint of what Mrs. Brownbenttalon had been talking about. There were Petty-Prime kits playing happily in the mud of the de Mir yard with the younger de Mir children, and on the de Mir porch was their mother, with both of the de Mirs and his own wife, talking earnestly to each other while the children played. As Rina caught sight of Giyt she excused herself and came toward him, looking worried.
He was peering over her shoulder at the Petty-Prime female. "Isn't that the wife of your farming friend?"
"Ex-wife, actually; they change partners a lot, I understand. But they're friendly, and he told her something she came hurrying over to tell me. It's Hoak Hagbarth, Shammy. He's circulating a recall petition for you. He doesn't want you to be mayor anymore."
XXI
It's official, all you misters and mizzes, they're getting ready to jump! Our official delegation to the six-power meeting is getting final instructions from their governments, and they'll be arriving here on Tupelo in three days. Let's all be there to give them a good old Tupelo welcome when they come! Because, remember, these aren't Ex-Earth people, these are the official representatives of the old United Nations, and that means they're speaking for the head honchos of our whole damn home planet! So we want to look our best for them. Too bad there's one little piece of housekeeping that we probably can't have finished cleaning up by then—you all know what I mean! But there 'II be plenty of time to take care of that later on.
—SILVA CRISTL'S BROADCAST
If there was one experience that Evesham Giyt definitely did not want to have as mayor, it was being fired. If his term of office had come to its scheduled end, he could have walked away happily. He might even be willing to peacefully resign; in fact, that thought had crossed his mind more than once. But to be kicked out? No, that was something else entirely. It was unacceptable. It didn't take Giyt long to find out why they hadn't seen the recall petition on the net. Someone had, not very expertly, cut the Giyts and the de Mirs out of the basic loop, so that all that came to their personal screens was a censored version of what went to the whole community. Once Giyt had an idea of what to look for, he located it in less than half an hour and created a detour around the block.
Then he studied the petition with growing distaste. It wasn't very specific. There wasn't anything that actually said that Rina had once been a prostitute or that accused Giyt himself of any serious misdeeds. But in and among all the whereases—presumably Olse Hagbarth's work, or Lieutenant Cristl's—there were a lot of words and phrases like malfeasance and prejudicial conduct, and what they all added up to was that the people who signed the petition were asking for a special election to be held to kick Evesham Giyt out of his job as mayor.
Rina came in, and peered over his shoulder. "Lunch is ready," she announced, counting the names. "Seventy-six signatures," she said thoughtfully. "They need twenty-four more to make it count."
He turned to gaze at her. "How do you know that?"
"I looked it up, of course. It's what the regulations say: a recall petition must be signed by at least ten percent of the voting citizens, and that's a hundred. You know what I think, Shammy? I think they're having trouble getting the hundred. There are a lot of people who like you."
But there were a lot who didn't, too. While he was eating his lunch Giyt studied the signatures on the hard copy, trying to fit a face to each name. More than half the members of the fire company had signed. So had, he estimated, a majority of the various people who had asked him for favors at one time or another and been turned down. So had the former mayor and her husband, and all those were easy enough, if not pleasant, to understand. But there were at least a dozen signatures that Giyt hardly recognized. Certainly he could not remember ever having done anything to offend them.
When he said as much to Rina, sitting pensively across from him and nibbling a stalk of celery while he ate, she shrugged. "Hagbarth's had plenty of time to hand out favors. I guess they owe him, don't you think? That's how politics works."
"I suppose." Then he looked at her more closely. "You're not eating," he accused. She shrugged again, and he remembered some of the things he'd learned about pregnancy. "Hey! What is it, is it this morning-sickness business?"
"It turns out it isn't just in the morning," she admitted ruefully. "Now, Shammy, don't get all worried about it. It's just something that pregnant women do. I'm going to go to the clinic this afternoon for a checkup anyway, and they'll give me something for it."
"I'm going with you," he announced. "I—wait a minute." There was an action message coming in on his screen, and when he looked at it what it said was that the Delt delegation would be arriving in ninety Tupelovian minutes. "Damn," he said. "Well, I'm going to go with you anyway."
"Oh, hon. That's sweet of you, but what's the point? I can handle it by myself; you stay home and work until it's time to meet the Delts."
But Giyt didn't stay home, he went right along with her, as much to be ready to glare down any citizen who chose to give his wife any dirty looks as because he thought she needed company.
There wasn't any of that. Business was slack at the little hospital building, and the couple of people sitting in the waiting room seemed more concerned with their own problems than with whatever was happening with the Giyts. The doctor on duty took Rina into the examination room without comment, except to firmly veto Giyt's no
tion of coming with them, leaving Giyt with nothing to do but wait.
The proper place for that was the waiting room, but Giyt was too restless for that. He roamed around the little building, pausing in front of the window that looked on the cribs for newborns. There was only one baby there, with a medic who looked faintly familiar bending over her. Giyt wondered what it would be like to see his own child in that place, perhaps exchanging with other new fathers the ritual cigars that nobody was ever going to smoke . . . if anybody was going to be friendly enough with Giyt for that sort of sociability. If, for that matter, they were still going to be on Tupelo when the baby got around to being born.
The medic had finished what he was doing with his charge, saw Giyt outside, and came out to speak to him. "Remember me?" he asked. "I was the one who helped you with the kid that was choking? Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I'm on your side. So's Cheryl here," he added, nodding to the woman who had come out of the pharmacy across the hall.
"So are most of us," she said, shaking Giyt's hand. "I don't go much for politicians, but I can stand you a lot better than that damn Vardersehn woman. She was always coming around and telling us what to do. At least you don't interfere."
So Giyt was in a much better mood when Rina came out of the examining room. "She gave me a patch," she said, showing it. "She says that'll control the nausea—and listen, hon, you don't have to come home with me. Go welcome the damn Delts. You're a sweet man, but you worry too much,"
But actually, he told himself on the way over to the portal he couldn't help worrying about her. Maybe worrying wasn't exactly the right word. He was sensible enough to know that morning sickness wasn't a life-threatening kind of thing. What was on his mind was that he wanted to protect her. Evesham Giyt, who had never concerned himself with covering any ass but his own, had now assumed total responsibility for the well-being of the woman he had married. It wasn't a rational thing; it was the old story of the caveman guarding his mate.
And when he got to the square and saw Hagbarth preparing to take his place at the switches, he gave the man a belligerent look, but succeeded in not going over to him and punching him in the nose. Hagbarth looked startled and turned hastily away. Which gave Giyt some minor satisfaction.
All the other mayors were there, with a large company of Delts waiting to greet their dignitaries. Giyt nodded to Mrs. Brownbenttalon, returned the gesture when the Petty-Prime Responsible One waved a paw at him, even got a greeting from the new Kalkaboo High Champion. One of the Delts broke ranks to come over to him; Giyt recognized him as the pilot from their trip to Energy Island. "Hey, you Earth Person Giyt," he said affably, both eyes on Giyt. "Greetings. Regrettings, too, because hear stinky Hagbarth person trying screw you. Pity. All us Delts think you not quite so bad. Comparing to other Earth persons, I mean. Sorry we can't vote, this matter none of our business, you know."
"Well, thanks," Giyt said, somewhat touched.
"Anyway," the Delt went on, one eye wandering toward the portal, where the golden glow was just beginning to develop, "what I wanted asking you, what do you think? How long you guess it take them for bouncing you out? Reason want to know, can then get bets down in the pool."
By the time Giyt got home again he felt reasonably sure that if the recall vote included all the eeties on Tupelo, he would probably win in a landslide. It didn't, of course. But, all the same, it was a cheering thought, at a time when such thoughts were scarce.
Rina greeted him at the door, looking flushed and pleased with herself. "I've got something to show you, Shammy. Come in here a minute."
What she had to show him was her screen, which was displaying a freeze frame of eight or nine human beings, all looking either solemn or angry or just dejected. "It's that Shura Kenk's deportation hearing, hon. It took a little hunting, but I found it. Only I don't think it's much use for what we want, because there aren't any lawyers there, either."
She touched a key and the picture began to move, Giyt gazing wonderingly at it. It wasn't much of a trial, if that was what it was supposed to be. Not only weren't there any lawyers, there didn't seem to be any witnesses, either. Former Mayor Mariam Vardersehn was sitting in what appeared to be the chair, while Hoak Hagbarth was reading a list of accusations concerning Shura Kenk. Who sat in a straight-back chair, listening but hardly speaking; she was the one who looked dejected, and had reason enough.
There did not seem to be a lot of justice being dispensed at this hearing. Even the complainant, the twelve-year-old Grayhorn boy, wasn't present. When Hoak Hagbarth had finished, the half a dozen others in the room—Silva Cristl and three or four others Giyt recognized to be from the fire-house prominent among them—whispered among themselves for a moment or two. Then Cristl nodded to the mayor. "Looks like she's probably guilty, Mariam," she said, "and anyway what can we do? The eeties wouldn't have any respect for us if we let somebody like that stay here. So she has to go."
That was it. All that was left was for Mayor Vardersehn to pronounce the sentence. "Since a jury of your peers has found you an undesirable presence on this planet," she lectured, "you are hereby given forty-eight hours to collect—what?" As Hagbarth was whispering to her. "Oh, sorry, I was thinking of something else. You're given sixty-seven Earth hours—two Tupelo days, that is—to collect your belongings and report to the portal for return to Earth. The session is concluded."
"What do you think, Shammy?" Rina asked anxiously as the screen went black.
He said, "I think it's a classical frame-up."
"Well, yes, but did you notice something else? Do you remember what Lupe said, that Kenk claimed the real reason they were out to get her was something about the Pole?"
Puzzled, Giyt looked at her. "But she didn't say anything about the Pole."
"Right, hon. Like that old Sherlock Holmes story, you know? Dr. Watson asks him what was interesting about the dog barking. And Holmes says, why, just the fact that it didn't bark at all. Do you see what I mean? Shura Kenk didn't mention the Pole at her hearing."
XXII
The physical plant on Tupelo's polar continent comprises fourteen main manufacturing domes scattered over nearly four hundred square kilometers. These are in general linked by covered passages, supplemented by robot ground-effect vehicles to transport materials back and forth. In addition to the main complex there are eleven additional sourcing sites. These are mineral mines, where robot moles sniff through reefs of ore and extract it for processing, and refineries, where the ore is cooked into pure metals, then batch-processed into whatever alloys are required for scheduled production runs in the factories. In addition there are six relatively small oil and natural-gas wells, providing fuel for the polar continent's dedicated power plant as well as feedstock for its chemical factories.
The autofactories themselves receive these raw materials and fabricate them into whatever is required for the use of the inhabitants of Tupelo, or for export to their home planets.
—BRITANNICA ONLINE, "TUPELO."
Shura Kenk not only hadn't said anything about the Pole at her hearing, she hadn't said anything at all. Nevertheless Giyt took his wife's words seriously. He had decided long since that although Rina's reasoning was sometimes a little hard to follow, she was usually right.
So he sat himself down to recheck everything there was in the databank about the polar factories. A lot of the information was in what Hoak Hagbarth had presumably thought to be secure files. That wasn't much of a problem to Giyt. What was a problem was what he had discovered on his first look at Ex-Earth's business correspondence. A lot of the most potentially interesting material employed code words for whatever it was talking about. What was even more of a problem was that he didn't know what he was looking for.
At the end of two hours of digging he had found out more than he ever wanted to know about the products of the Earth factory at the Pole. In recent months the machines had turned out a bewildering variety of cookware and clocks, underwear and utensils, dolls and toys in a dozen varieti
es, construction materials, personal hygiene products, bed linen, cutlery—all routine stuff, as far as Giyt could see. It all appeared to be properly accounted for, too. Bills of lading showed that the goods had gone into the robot subs that carried them to the island and then either to the hypermarket or, as export goods, to the portal for shipment to Earth. Almost all the runs were small. That wasn't surprising; that was the special virtue of an autofactory. At need you could produce, say, six gross of carpenter's nails if you wanted them, and you could make them in a dozen different sizes. For that matter, you could make a single nail if you happened to want just one. You could make just about anything at all, as long as the manufacturing specifications were in the factory's memory and the raw materials were at hand. And all the specifications were there. There was file after file of manufacturing protocols for endless lists of components for endless items—most of them incomprehensible to Giyt. What, for instance, was the purpose of one file, apparently unerased because forgotten, which contained a complete set of stats for eetie body odors?
That one Giyt could not figure out. Were the colonists perhaps planning to create a line of dolls to export to the eetie planets—because they were programmed to odor-respond only to eeties? It seemed like a dumb idea to Giyt. If the Centaurians or the Kalkaboos wanted anything like that they were perfectly capable of manufacturing the things themselves. Or—he thought ruefully—maybe it wasn't all that dumb. If someone as resourceful as himself couldn't figure out what they were doing with the data, maybe leaving it unerased was quite smart.