and down, clapping his hands.
The threesome so diligent in plotting subversion only a short time before now stared at the maniac who was central to their plans. Konski stared back and then noticed his cigar had gone out.
With a flourish, he produced an old-fashioned lighter in the shape of a gun. Once again it was time for the lady present to gasp. (Fainting, feigning shock and blushing with artificial aids were all part of her Feminist Finishing School charms. She only flunked fainting.)
Even possessing the likeness of a gun was forbidden on Earth. Everywhere one could attend Museums of the Gun to learn of the iniquity of firearms.
Bretygne looked at Palmer and noticed his lack of concern. Sometimes she forgot that soldiers and special agents were deprogrammed from the anti-gun conditioning everyone received from birth.
While the drama of the lighter was taking place Astaroth noticed a servo-mech and gestured it over. Everyone must have been standing too close together because just as the ambassador successfully lit his cigar the robot jostled his arm and he dropped the smoldering black rope of tobacco to the antiseptically clean floor.
“Mechanical imbecile!” he shouted. “Lowly metal egg, clean up that mess!”
Suddenly there came the dread cry of “
Then the same mysterious voice shouted, “End robot slavery now!”
“Oh, no,” muttered Palmer.
“What is it?” asked Bretygne.
“Not what. Who.”
Palmer peered into the crowd. The voice cried out again but the words were garbled.
“I can’t believe it,” said Palmer. “The voice is the same. I always thought Konski was kidding me. The idea seemed too horrible to credit.”
The crowd parted. Bretygne grabbed Palmer’s arm. Astaroth shook his head and ordered another martini. Approaching them was not merely the twin brother of the ambassador. Worse, the other maniac of the evening was in the same costume presenting a perfect mirror image. He was even smoking another cigar.
The ambassador stood tall, reached into his pocket as if to brandish a weapon and then pulled out another cigar that quickly found its way to his mouth. “Konski, Part Two,” thundered the ambassador, “you have no authority here.”
“Robots of the world unite!” came an even more thunderous reply. “They have nothing to lose but your chain-smoking!”
“I repeat, you have no standing in this official and officious embassy.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Astaroth exploded, a new drink in his hand. “You’re both insane anarchists. How can there even be an anarchist embassy? The whole idea is preposterous.”
The two looked at him and sneered.
“You are a minarchist,” said the first Konski.
“You are therefore a deviationist,” said Part Two.
“Furthermore,” continued number one, “Palmer will verify that I am indeed in a position to represent trade deals with Lysander.”
“Well, I…” began Palmer, but to no avail.
Konski, Part Two, was having none of it. “This slaveholder cannot possibly represent the free and autonomous beings that inhabit the paradise of Kropotkia.”
“What the hell is that?” Astaroth wanted to know.
Konski the former was helpful. “Oh, it’s just Lysander. My brother refuses to call the planet by its proper name.”
“More drinks!” suggested Bretygne. “Make them doubles.”
“Triples,” amended Palmer.
Ambassador Konski started to touch the servo-mech but it shied away from him. With one last suck of its suction tentacle, it removed the final remains of the fallen cigar and fled. Ashes to ashes, and thence to the garbage recycler.
“It doesn’t like you,” said Part Two.
Konski shrugged. “Nonsense, a robot can neither like nor dislike anything. Fortunately it has departed before you can violate my private property.”
“Ha! You cannot own a self-aware being.”
“You can’t make a contract with a household appliance.”
By this point, the twins were face to face, cigar to cigar. There seemed nothing in heaven or Luna that could stop them.
“Even if they could make contracts,” complained Part Two, “such agreements would be null and void, for they cannot sell their primary property which is themselves.”
Konski’s new cigar quivered with indignation. “Oh, yeah? If you can’t sell aspects of your primary property then how can we have the most beloved trade of all true lovers of liberty, namely the fine social work performed by prostitutes throughout the ages?”
“Your area of expertise, eh? Hookers can get away from you but not these poor servo-mechs.”
“They don’t need liberty any more than your damned cigar needs to escape your incisors!”
“How do you know? Maybe they only lack initiative. I’m fighting for their honor which is more than they ever did.”
It went on like that for another five minutes until the Lady Bretygne Lamarr found deep inside her soul the power of two words almost equal to the power of
She was so loud that her voice was heard throughout the entire ballroom. Dead silence fell over the throng and brought all revelry to a grinding halt. Then someone in the crowd finally realized that underneath the grease paint mustaches and wild hair lurked at least one guest of honor.
The crowd surged forward. A beautiful young girl of twenty-nine was first to speak as children are wont to do. “Rockets away! Seeing two of you is pure lox. May I have dual autographs?”
“Only I am the true ambassador,” said Konski.
“But my autograph is more valuable,” said Part Two. “It doesn’t come free, by the way.”
“Mine costs the same!” piped in Konski.
The autographs kept the two of them out of trouble for a while while Palmer, Bretygne and Astaroth discovered a heretofore-unrealized capacity for cocktails. Finally a servo-mech floated above the multitude and announced that dinner was about to be served.
Alas, Part Two heard the announcement. “Will we be violating animal rights tonight?” he wanted to know. “Or perhaps vegetable rights?”
Palmer was starting to feel his fifth drink of the evening. That played no small role in his responding to the terrible twin. “I know for a fact, Mister Brother of the Anarchist Ambassador, that all our food tonight is completely synthetic. The only violation of rights has been on the molecular level.”
“Don’t ask this one what he thought of the Nano War,” pleaded Bretygne in his ear.
“You used the ’n’ word,” he chided.
Somehow the unwieldy mass of well-dressed and undressed humanity wandered over to the dining area. Part Two went with them. As for Ambassador Konski, he grabbed Lady Lamarr by the arm and announced, “This is our chance. Follow me!”
“Why are you grabbing me by the arm?” asked Bretygne, but not really resisting. “Isn’t that a violation of my elbow rights or something?”
“I’ll make restitution,” he grinned. “Besides, this way I know your boyfriends will follow.”
They all went through a service entrance where a space cadet limo was waiting. They piled in and Konski ordered the robot driver to take them out into the lunar night.
Konski’s tone of voice lost its strident quality. He sounded like a different person when he said, “Tonight reminded me of an observation by the twenty-first century philosopher Garmon. He said that the truth of all technological societies lies in the manner by which we come to resemble our tools. But I don’t want to look like a silver egg with tentacles! I don’t want to belong to any labor force that would have me as a member.”
