“Then would you say that the opposition to annexation comes from the people who are afraid that if New Texas enters the Solar League, there will be League troops sent here and this … this interesting system of insuring government responsibility to the public would be brought to an end?”
“Yes. If you can show the people of this planet that the League won’t interfere with local political practices, you’ll have a 99.95 percent majority in favor of annexation. We’re too close to the z’Srauff star-cluster, out here, not to see the benefits of joining the Solar League.”
We left the Hickock ranch on Sunday afternoon and while Hoddy guided our aircar back to New Austin, I had a little time to revise some of my ideas about New Texas. That is, I had time to think during those few moments when Hoddy wasn’t taking advantage of our diplomatic immunity to invent new air-ground traffic laws.
My thoughts alternated between the pleasure of remembering Gail’s gay company and the gloom of understanding the complete implications of the Colonel’s clarifying lectures. Against the background of his remarks, I could find myself appreciating the Ghopal-Klüng-Natalenko reasoning: the only way to cut the Gordian knot was to have another Solar League Ambassador killed.
And, whenever I could escape thinking about the fact that the next Ambassador to be the clay pigeon was me, I found myself wondering if I wanted the League to take over. Annexation, yes; New Texas customs would be protected under a treaty of annexation. But the “justified conquest” urged by Machiavelli, Jr.? No.
I was still struggling with the problem when we reached the Embassy about 1700. Everyone was there, including Stonehenge, who had returned two hours earlier with the good news that the fleet had moved into position only sixty light-minutes off Capella IV. I had reached the point in my thinking where I had decided it was useless to keep Hoddy and Stonehenge apart except as an exercise in mental agility. Inasmuch as my brain was already weightlifting, swinging from a flying trapeze to elusive flying rings while doing triple somersaults and at the same time juggling seven Indian clubs, I skipped the whole matter.
But I’m fairly certain that it wasn’t till then that Hoddy had a chance to deliver his letter-of-credence to Stonehenge.
After dinner, we gathered in my office for our coffee and a final conference before the opening of the trial the next morning.
Stonehenge spoke first, looking around the table at everyone except me.
“No matter what happens, we have the fleet within call. Sir Rodney’s been active picking up those z’Srauff meteor-mining boats. They no longer have a tight screen around the system. We do. I don’t think that anyone, except us, knows that the fleet’s where it is.”
No matter what happens
, I thought glumly, and the phrase explained why he hadn’t been able to look at me.
“Well, boss, I gave you my end of it, comin’ in,” Hoddy said. “Want me to go over it again? All right. In Bonneyville, we found half a dozen people who can swear that Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney was making preparations to protect those three brothers an hour before Ambassador Cumshaw was shot. The whole town’s sorer than hell at Kettle-Belly for antagonizing the Hickock outfit and getting the place shot up the way it was. And we have witnesses that Kettle-Belly was in some kind of deal with the z’Srauff, too. The Rangers gathered up eight of them, who can swear to the preparations and to the fact that Kettle-Belly had z’Srauff visitors on different occasions before the shooting.”
“That’s what we want,” Stonehenge said. “Something that’ll connect this murder with the z’Srauff.”
“Well, wait till you hear what I’ve got,” Parros told him. “In the first place, we traced the gun and the aircar. The Bonney brothers bought them both from z’Srauff merchants, for ridiculously nominal prices. The merchant who sold the aircar is normally in the drygoods business, and the one who sold the auto-rifle runs a toy shop. In their whole lives, those three boys never had enough money among them to pay the list price of the gun, let alone the car. That is, not until a week before the murder.”
“They got prosperous, all of a sudden?” I asked.
“Yes. Two weeks before the shooting, Kettle-Belly Sam’s bank account got a sudden transfusion: some anonymous benefactor deposited 250,000 pesos—about a hundred thousand dollars—to his credit. He drew out 75,000 of it and some of the money turned up again in the hands of Switchblade and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard. Then, a week before you landed here, he got another hundred thousand from the same anonymous source and he drew out twenty thousand of that. We think that was the money that went to pay for the attempted knife-job on Hutchinson. Two days before the barbecue, the waiter deposited a thousand at the New Austin Packers’ and Shippers’ Trust.”
“Can you get that introduced as evidence at the trial?” I asked.
“Sure. Kettle-Belly banks at a town called Crooked Creek, about forty miles from Bonneyville. We have witnesses from the bank.
“I also got the dope on the line the Bonney brothers are going to take at the trial. They have a lawyer, Clement A. Sidney, a member of what passes for the Socialist Party on this planet. The defense will take the line of full denial of everything. The Bonneys are just three poor but honest boys who are being framed by the corrupt tools of the Big Ranching Interests.”
Hoddy made an impolite noise. “Whatta we got to worry about, then?” he demanded. “They’re a cinch for conviction.”
“I agree with that,” Stonehenge said. “If they tried to base their defense on political conviction and opposition by the Solar League, they might have a chance. This way, they haven’t.”
“All right, gentlemen,” I said,
