Ciano smiled to conceal a pang of irritation and anger. The Dorrinian made a great show of being humble and sweetly reasonable, but underneath he was a stubborn and bloody-minded monstrosity who deserved to be fitted with concrete boots and sent for a walk on a riverbed. The trouble was, Ciano was beginning to suspect, that were he to arrange such an excursion the alien actually would go for a submarine stroll and then come up smiling.
Taking a hefty swig of his drink, Ciano saw that Kston’s attention had been drawn by a burst of cheering from the television set behind the bar. A heavyweight boxing match was in progress on the screen and the ringside crowd was erupting with excitement as one of the fighters, a giant in blue shorts, moved in for a devastating finish. He drove his opponent on to the ropes with a flurry of body blows, stepped back and caught him on the rebound with a right cross to the chin which landed with such leathery finality that, in spite of his preoccupations, Ciano winced in sympathy. The recipient went down on the instant, obviously unconscious before he hit the canvas, and lay like a side of bacon while the victor danced around him.
“This humble being fails to understand,” Kston said. “What is happening?” Ciano put down his empty glass. “It’s a sport we humans call boxing. The idea is to…”
“The general idea is clear—we have a similar sport called dent-a-body—but why is that man pretending to sleep?”
“You mean you don’t…?” Ciano was wondering how he could explain the effects of a knock-out blow to the likes of Kston when his thoughts were diverted to a more serious problem—namely that of staying alive. A door at the rear of the large room crashed open, there were shouts and screams of panic, and in a mirror Ciano glimpsed his cousin Frankie—the Secretary for External Affairs—brandishing a demolisher. Ciano dropped to the floor with reflexive speed and crouched there, praying and swearing with equal fervour, while the weapon created its own version of hell. Blinding laser bursts seared the air and from the gun’s multiple barrels, firing at the rate of a hundred rounds a second, came sprays of high-velocity bullets—some of them explosive, some armour-piercing—converging on the sites of the laser strikes. For a brief moment Ciano saw the stubby outline of the Dorrinian at the terrible focus of the destruction—limned in radiant blue fire—then there was comparative silence, the only sounds being those of tinkling glass and fleeing footsteps.
Trying to control the trembling of his limbs, Ciano struggled to stand up, already rehearsing the disclaimer he would have to issue to the news media. I know the preliminary trade negotiations with the Dorrinian envoy were going badly, but that doesn’t mean my family was involved with his assassination. We are men of honour, not…not…
His thoughts dissolved into a confused blur as he saw that Kston was not only still on his feet, but apparently totally unharmed. The alien’s grey hide was, if anything, smoother than before, and the hand with which he helped Ciano to his feet was steady. Ciano began to feel ill.
“This humble being fears that your cousin has gone too far this time,” Kston said.
“You’re so right,” Ciano gritted. “I promise you he’ll pay for this.”
“The expense will be considerable.” Kston surveyed the shattered and smoking ruins of the bar counter. “Obviously Frankie learned about the Dorrinian custom of ablate-a-body—in which a thoughtful host refreshes a guest by scouring off the outer layer of dead skin cells—but it is usually done in special cubicles where there can be no damage to the surroundings. Perhaps your cousin got carried away in his eagerness to be hospitable.”
Ciano nodded, forcing his brain into action. “Frankie always was the cordial type. Look, Kston, can we go back to my office where it’s quiet and get on with the talks?”
“Of course!” Kston showed his dark teeth. “This humble being can’t imagine how you intend to negotiate from a position of such weakness, but he will be privileged to watch you try. Perhaps he will learn something.”
“Hope so.” Ciano spent a minute with the hotel manager, pacifying him by undertaking to foot all repair bills, then returned to his alien companion. “Let’s go—this place looks like there’s been a war.”
“War? Is that your word for ablate-a-body?”
“I suppose you could say that,” Ciano replied absently, his mind filled with the need to get hold of his wayward cousin and talk to him about his activities before something went seriously wrong. Ciano had no moral objections to murdering Kston—in fact, the more time he spent with the obsequious little alien the more attractive the idea seemed—but New Sicily was a recently formed colony, with severely limited military resources, and dared not antagonise the heavily populated neighbouring world of Dorrin. Secretary Ritzo was fully aware of the situation, which made his failed assassinations puzzling as well as embarrassing.
As soon as they were back in the Department of Trade building Ciano handed his guest over to the care of an assistant and went looking for Ritzo. He found him slumped over the bar in his private suite, drinking imported grappa straight from the bottle, his face several shades paler than usual.
“I got the shock of my life when I saw you coming back across the square with that…with that…” Unable to find a suitable epithet, Ritzo again raised the bottle with a trembling hand. “Didn’t I even scratch him?”
“Just about,” Ciano said. “Luckily for you, he enjoys being scratched.”
“I tell you, Johnny, that guy ain’t human.”
“Of course he isn’t human—that’s what being an alien means!” Ciano snatched the bottle from his cousin’s grasp and dropped it into a waste bin. “And there’s a couple of billion more where he comes from. Have you any idea what the Dorrinians would have done to us if by some chance you had managed to rub out their representative?”
“Nothing.”
“Precisely! And that’s why you’ve got to … What do you mean nothing?”
A look of furtive triumph appeared on Ritzo’s narrow face. “Some egghead in my department finally managed to translate those old Dorrinian books—you know the stuff that’s been gathering dust since the cultural exchange way back in ’22. One of them is a history book, Johnny, and d’you know what?”
“What?”
“The Dorrinians are total pacifists. Their written history goes back about twenty thousand years and they ain’t never had a war in all that time! These guys are so pacifist that they don’t have no armies or navies. They don’t have no weapons of any kind.”
“Maybe they don’t need them.”
“That’s not it, Johnny. They believe that everything can be settled by talking if they stick at it long enough. One of their conferences went on for over a hundred years—and that was just to decide on the height of streetlamps! We don’t have that sort of time.”
Ciano nodded. “So what do you propose?”
“A bit of old-style persuasion, is all. We send the little creep back where he came from in a wooden box and tell the Dorrinians they’re all gonna get the same treatment if they tries to interfere with our mining crews.”
“Mmmm.” Ciano stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “Not much finesse.”
“Johnny, this is not time to go soft.”
“Softness doesn’t come into it. It’s just that we have Kston here and we can talk to him. I think it would be better to make our intentions clear, then send him back to spread the word.”
“I guess you’re right.” Ritzo’s reluctant expression gave way to one of relief. “I was gonna try him with a bomb next, but it might have taken a tactical nuke.”
As the sole representative of his planet, Kston had one side of the long conference table to himself. Opposite him were Ciano and Ritzo, accompanied by six other members of New Sicily’s ruling family, including the hulking form of Mario Vicenzi, Secretary for War. The broad smile with which he faced the group indicated that, far from feeling overwhelmed, Kston was enjoying the prospect of a tough negotiating session.