As Clawhammer hesitated, a prod of the blade at his jugular a.s.sisted him in finding his tongue.

"Why, ah, Mr. President," he babbled, "er, I have the honor, et cetera, and will Your Excellency kindly tell Your Excellency"s thugs to put those horrible-looking knives away?" His voice rose to a whispered shriek on the last words.

"Certainly, Mr. Amba.s.sador," Retief said easily. "Just as soon as we"ve cleared up a few points in the treaty. I think it would be a good idea if the new Planetary Government has a solemn CDT guarantee of noninterference in elections from now on..."

"Retief-you wouldn"t dare-" At a sharp nudge Clawhammer yipped. "I mean, of course, my boy, whatever you say."

"Also, it would be a good idea to strike out those paragraphs dealing with CDT military advisers, technical experts, and fifty-credit-a-day economists. We Oberonians would prefer to work out our own fates."

"Yes-yes-of course, Mr. President! And now-"

"And as to the matter of the one-sided trade agreement: Why don"t we just sc.r.a.p that whole section and subst.i.tute a free-commerce clause?"

"Why-if I agree to that, they"ll have my scalp, back in the Department!" Clawhammer choked.

"That"s better than having it tied to a pole outside my tent," Hoobrik pointed out succinctly.

"On the other hand," Retief said, "I think we Tsuggs can see our way clear to supply a modest security force to ensure that nothing violent happens to the foreign diplomats among us as long as they stick to diplomacy, and leave all ordinary crime to us Oberonians."

"Agreed!" Clawhammer squeaked. "Where"s the pen?"

It took a quarter of an hour to delete the offending paragraphs, subst.i.tute new wording, and affix signatures to the imposing doc.u.ment establishing formal relations between the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne and the Republic of Oberon. When the last length of red tape had been affixed and the last blob of sealing wax applied, Retief called for attention.

"Now that Terran-Oberonian relations are off on a sound footing," he said, "I feel it"s only appropriate that I step down, leaving the field clear for a new election. Accordingly, gentlemen, I hereby resign the office of President in favor of my Vice-president, Hoobrik."

Amid the clamor that broke out, Clawhammer made his way to confront Retief.

"You blundered at last, sir!" he hissed in a voice aquiver with rage. "You should have clung to your spurious position long enough to have gotten a head start for the Galactic periphery! I"ll see you thrown into a dungeon so deep that your food will have to be lowered to you in pressurized containers! I"ll-"

"You"ll be on hand to dedicate the statue to our first Ex-President, I ween?" President Hoobrik addressed the Terran envoy. "I think a hundred-foot monument will be appropriate to express the esteem in which we hold our Tsugg emeritus, Dir Tief, eh?"

"Why, ah-"

"We"ll appreciate your accrediting him as permanent Political Adviser to Oberon," Hoobrik continued. "We"ll need him handy to pose."

"To be sure," Clawhammer gulped.

"Now I think it"s time we betook ourselves off to more private surroundings, Dir Tief," the President said. "We need to plot party strategy for the coming by-election!"

"You"re all invited to sample the hospitality of the Plump Sausage," Binkster Druzz spoke up. "Provided I have thy promise there"ll be no breeching of walls."

"Done!" Hoobrik cried heartily. "And by the way, Dir Druzz, what wouldst think of the idea of a coalition, eh?"

"Hmm... Twilprit sagacity linked with Tsugg bulk might indeed present a formidable ticket," Binkster concurred.

"Well, Retief," Magnan said as the party streamed toward the gate, "yours was surely the shortest administration in the annals of representational government. Tell me, confidentially: How in the world did you induce that band of thugs to accept you as their nominee?"

"I"m afraid that will have to remain a secret for now," Retief said. "But just wait until I write my memoirs."

Mechanical Advantage

1.

"Twenty thousand years ago," said Cultural Attache Pennyfool, "this, unless I miss my guess, was the capital city of a thriving alien culture."

The half-dozen Terrans-members of a Field Expeditionary Group of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne-stood in the center of a narrow strip of turquoise-colored sward that wound between weathered slabs of porous, orange masonry, rusting spires of twisted metal to which a few bits of colored tile still clung, and anonymous mounds in which wildflowers nodded alien petals under the light of a swollen orange sun.

"Imagine," Consul Magnan said in an awed tone, as the party strolled on through a crumbling arcade and across a sand-drifted square. "At a time when we were still living in caves, these creatures had already developed automats and traffic jams." He sighed. "And now they"re utterly extinct. The survey"s life detectors didn"t so much as quiver."

"They seem to have progressed from neon to nuclear annihilation in record time," Second Secretary Retief commented. "But I think we have a good chance of bettering their track record."

"Think of it, gentlemen," Pennyfool called, pausing at the base of a capless pylon and rubbing his hands together with a sound like a cicada grooming its wing cases. "An entire city in pristine condition-nay, more, a whole continent, a complete planet! It"s an archaeologist"s dream come true! Picture the treasures to be found: the stone axes and telly sets, the implements of bone and plastic, the artifacts of home, school, and office, the tin cans, the beer bottles, the bones-oh, my, the bones, gentlemen! Emerging into the light of day after all these centuries to tell us their tales of the life and demise of a culture!"

"If they"ve been dead for twenty thousand years, what"s the point in digging around in their garbage dumps?" an a.s.sistant Military Attache inquired sotto voce. "I say Corps funds would be-better spent running a little nose-to-ground reconnaissance of Boge, or keeping an eye on the Groaci."

"Tsk, Major," Magnan said. "Such comments merely serve to reinforce the popular stereotype of the cra.s.sness of the military mind."

"Who"s so cra.s.s about keeping abreast of the opposition?" the officer protested. "It might be a nice change if we hit them first, for once, instead of getting clobbered on the ground."

"Sir"-Magnan tugged at the iridium-braided lapels of his liver-colored informal field coverall-"would you fly in the face of six hundred years of tradition?"

"Now, gentlemen," Pennyfool was saying, "we"re not here to carry out a full-scale dig, of course, merely to conduct a preliminary survey. But I see no reason why we shouldn"t wet a line, so to speak. Magnan, suppose you just take one of these spades and we"ll poke about a bit. But carefully, mind you. We wouldn"t want to damage an irreplaceable art treasure."

"Heavens, I"d love to," Magnan said as his superior offered him the shovel. "What perfectly vile luck that I happen to have a rare joint condition known as motorman"s arm-"

"A diplomat who can"t bend his elbow?" the other replied briskly. "Nonsense." He thrust the implement at Magnan.

"Outrageous," the latter muttered as his superior moved out of earshot, scanning the area for a likely spot to commence. "I thought I was volunteering for a relaxing junket, not being dragooned to serve as a navvy."

"Your experience in digging through Central Files should serve you in good stead, sir," Second Secretary Retief said. "Let"s just pretend we"re after evidence of a political prediction that didn"t pan out by someone just above you on the promotion list."

"I resent the implication that I would stoop to such tactics," Magnan said loftily, "in any case, only an idiot would go on record with guesswork." He eyed Retief obliquely. "I, ah, don"t suppose you know of any such idiot?"

"I did," Retief said. "But he just made Amba.s.sador."

"Aha!" Pennyfool caroled from a heavily silted doorway flanked by a pair of gla.s.sless openings. "A well-nigh intact structure, quite possibly a museum. Suppose we just take a peek." The diplomats trailed their enthusiastic leader as he scrambled through into a roofless chamber with an uneven, dirt-drifted floor and bare walls from which the plaster had long since disappeared. Along one side of the room a flat-topped ridge projected a foot above the ground. Pennyfool poked a finger at a small mound atop it, exposing a lumpy object.

"Eureka!" he cried, brushing dirt away from his find. "You see, gentlemen? I"ve already turned up a masterpiece of the Late Meretricious!"

"I say, sir," a plump Third Secretary addressed the expedition"s leader, "since Verdigris is a virgin world, and we"re the first beings to set foot here since its discovery, how does it happen the era already has a name?"

"Simple, my boy," Pennyfool snapped. "I just named it."

"Look here, sir," an eager Information Agency man who had been poking at the find said, "I think there"s been an error. This place isn"t a museum; it"s a lunch counter. And the masterpiece is a plate of petrified mashed potatoes and mummified peas."

"By Jove, I think you"ve got something there, Quagmire," a portly Admin Officer said. "Looks just like the stuff they served at the Testimonial Dinner for Amba.s.sador Clawhammer-"