It went down rather well. They were all reasonably honest men and they saw that official conduct should also be moral even though their different moral codes varied.
They unanimously passed the offered resolution that scandalous official conduct should result in removal from post of any offender. They felt very upright about it.
At least they had gotten one resolution passed. They adjourned.
Back in his office, Brown Limper reviewed some data with Lars about “button cameras.” Lars had some knowledge of them. Yes, he thought
Terl could tell him where some were in the compound.
The following morning, when all the officials were out of their rooms at the hotel, Lars, in the name of decency, put some button cameras in unsuspected places in rooms and connected them to automatic picto-recorders. The following night, Brown Limper had a very confidential meeting with General Snith. As a result, a dozen of the better-looking
Brigante women were employed at the hotel in various capacities by the manager, who was short of help and who agreed that such good-looking women should be in posts that directly contacted his guests to make their stay more comfortable.
The evening after that, Terl thought Brown's measures were very wise and said he was proud of him to have thought of it all on his own.
Brown Limper was very pleased and he went back to his office, to work late at night assembling the steps of his plans. Notable among them were charges to bring against Jonnie Goodboy Tyler when Brown Limper at last had a free hand. The list of charges were getting pretty long, and punishment was overdue.
Chapter 2
It was the dark of the moon. The lights of the cage area had been turned out. The sentry had been told to stay elsewhere.
Brown Limper sat on the ground. Terl crouched close to the bars. Lars Thorenson, using a tiny masked light to occasionally resort to his dictionary, sat between them.
Their voices were very low. There must be no possibility of any of this being overheard. Tonight was the big one!
Terl's claws twitched and little surges of energy ran through him. This conference was so important, its successful outcome so vital to his plans, he was having trouble breathing. Yet he must sound indifferent, casual, helpful (a new word he had learned). Conflicting impulses had to be sealed off, such as reaching through the bars (which he had de-electrified, unbeknownst to them, by using the inside remote control hidden in the stones); the pleasure of tearing them with claws was very, very subordinate to what he was attempting tonight. He made himself tensely concentrate on the business at hand.
Brown Limper was relating in whispers that he had succeeded in exposing blatant scandal in the Council. He had taken each of the four other Senior Mayors aside and shown them certain recordings, and they had realized their conduct was a total violation of their own laws. Each had looked at himself performing perversions he had recently been introduced to by the Brigante women, as many as four women at a time, and had agreed with shame he was a potential disgrace to the government. (Lars had trouble finding “shame” in the Psychlo dictionary but at last discovered it in the archaic section as an old Hockner word, obsolete.)
A resolution appointed Brown Limper Staffor Executive for the Council, assisted by the Secretary (who could sign his name after much drilling but who otherwise could not read). The entire authority of the Council now reposed in one Brown Limper Staffor as Senior Mayor Planet from here on out and forevermore as the most deserving and competent Councilman. The others had packed and gone home. Brown Limper's word was now law for the whole planet.
Terl would have thought some note of elation would be detectable. That was how he would have felt. He whispered an approval and a commendation on how statesmanlike this conduct was. But Brown Limper did not brighten. “Is there something else I could help you with?” whispered Terl.
Brown Limper drew a long breath, almost a sigh of despair. He had drawn up a list of criminal charges against that Tyler.
“Good,” said Terl in a very low voice. “You now have the power to handle him. Are they strong charges?”
“Oh, yes,” whispered Brown Limper, brightening. “He interrupted a Council-ordered removal of a tribe, kidnapped the Coordinators, murdered some of the tribesmen, stole their goods, and violated their tribal rights.”
“I should think,” whispered Terl, “that that was serious enough.”
“There's even more,” said Brown Limper. “He ambushed a Psychlo convoy and mercilessly slaughtered it, gave no quarter, and stole their vehicles.”
“You have proof of all this?” whispered Terl.
“Witnesses from the tribe are right here. And picto-recorder pictures of the ambush are being shown nightly at the Academy right over there in the hills. Lars has made copies.”
“I should think all that is more than adequate to bring about justice,” said Terl. The word “justice” was another one they had to look up in the translations going back and forth.
“There's even more,” said Brown Limper. “When he turned over the two billion Galactic credits found at the compound, it was over three hundred credits short. That's theft, a felony.”
Terl gasped. He wasn't gasping at the shortage. He was gasping at two billion Galactic credits. It made the coffins he supposed were in the cemetery on Psychlo mere kerbango change.
He needed a few minutes to sort this out and he told Lars he needed a fresh breathe-gas cartridge for his mask. Lars got him one, not noticing the electrification switch had been reversed. Terl had to flip his remote, which he did in the nick of time to prevent an electrocution.
As he fitted the new cartridges in place, Terl thought furiously. Old Numph? Must have been. Why, the bumbling idiot wasn't so bumbling after all! He'd had other swindles going for...thirty years?...must be! Two billion Galactic credits! Suddenly Terl updated his plans. He knew exactly what he could do with this. Those two billion were going into three or four sealed coffins marked “radiation killed” so they never would be opened and they were going to go right into his cemetery. He had had slightly less workable plans. He abandoned them and a whole new panorama spread before him, one that not only could not fail but also would be enormously profitable. All in a flash he had things rearranged. A plan far safer than he had had. Far more workable. No desperation in it.
The close, dark conference got going again.
“What,” whispered Terl, “is your problem really then?” He knew what it was exactly. This idiot couldn't lay his paws on the animal Tyler!
Brown Limper sagged once more. “It’s one thing to have charges. It 's quite another to get my hands on Tyler."
"Hmm," said Terl, hoping he sounded very thoughtful and considerate (a new word Terl had looked up). “Let me see. Ah. Hmm. The operating principle here is to attract him to the area.” This was just common security chief technology. “You can't go out and find him as he is elusive or too well protected, so the right thing to do is to lure him here, away from protection, and then pounce.”
Brown Limper sat up with a sudden surge of hope. What a brilliant idea!
“The last time he was active here,” whispered Terl, keeping the twitches down to a minimum, “was when we did a transshipment firing. If another transshipment firing were done and he knew about it, he would be here in a flash. Then you could pounce.”
Brown Limper saw that clearly.
“But,” said Terl, “you have another problem too. He is using company property. Company planes, company equipment. Now if you personally owned all that, you would really have him on grand theft.”