Meanwhile, they had to handle this other matter, and leaving Jonnie a bit mystified, Mr. Tsung went out in the hall.
Seeing that for the moment Jonnie wasn't busy, Chief Chong-won slid in the door. He was beaming and bobbing his head. “The dam!” And he made a tight grip with both fists and gestured with his hands. “The hole. The outflow is decreasing. The level of the lake is rising.” He bobbed his head vigorously, bowed deeply, and vanished.
Jonnie thought, well that was one thing that had gone right. The power wouldn't go off and leave some diplomat parked in some wrong space! All he had to worry about now was a burning planet, the fate of its people, and this conference.
That shot had worked. He wasn't dizzy.
Chapter 6
The “other matter” turned out to be a haircut. The daughter came in and sat him in a chair facing the viewscreens and got to work with a small pair of scissors and a comb. The idea was rather novel to Jonnie-he usually just hacked his hair off with a knife when it got too long.
She seemed to be very practiced and expert and no doubt took care of the tonsorial requirements of many, for she just sailed in with her scissors moving so fast they sounded like an ore belt running at high speed, clip, clip, clip.
So diplomacy was like a battle, Jonnie was thinking. Watching these lords arrive one could see that they practically oozed authority and power. The visitors attacking Earth were almost local small fry, controlling at the most a few dozen planets. Some of those arriving, he knew from earlier readings, were from other universes and controlled hundreds of planets in just one governmental sphere. And they were very arrogant, very sure of themselves. Whatever their physical form, there was no doubt that they were ministers plenipotentiary to powerful heads of state. What wealth and striking power they represented! Behind them were collective populations numbering trillions in just one state alone. They were the veterans and victors of hundreds of such conferences. Yes, a conference was a battle and an even more important one than a war.
And what chance did he and Sir Robert have against these experienced diplomats? They were both warriors, not glib, smooth, cunning courtiers with a thousand parliamentary tricks up their sleeves. With no guns or battalions, but with only his wits and the tips Mr. Tsung had given him, he felt quite outnumbered. And so far he had no strategy at all.
The girl had a small mirror she was holding up so he could see. She had cut his hair to collar height in back and combed and rolled it at the bottom. It looked kind of like a helmet he had seen with a back neck guard. And the hair was shiny. His beard and mustache looked very precise, much shorter. He hardly knew himself– had she seen some old paintings of men with beards and mustaches cut like this? Indeed she had– there was an ancient man-book, English, open on the bed to a picture of somebody named “Sir Francis Drake” that had defeated somebody called “the Spaniards” long, long ago.
His attention was attracted by something and he took the mirror from her. His neck! The scars had been quite faint for they were really callouses. And they were gone.
He had to look very hard to see the remains of the Brigante grenade scar on his cheek. That would probably vanish too.
Somehow he felt freed with the collar scars gone. He understood the irony of it and would have smiled but his attention was pulled to the ops room screen. The sound relay had been off and he gave the girl back the mirror and hit the button.
“...can't think what they're up to!” Stormalong was saying as he angrily finished pulling another picture out of the drone resolver. "I’ve lost count!”
“Fifteen,” said somebody else.
“Look at this! A spray of fire bombs going down into this deserted...” he looked at a map. “Detroit! Why set Detroit on fire? There's been nobody in Detroit for over a thousand years! Are they trying to pull defenses over to that continent? They're insane.” He threw the picture down. "I’m not providing any air cover for a bunch of ruins! What's the latest from Edinburgh?”
“Antiaircraft still replying,” said someone at the ops board. “Smoke interfering with visual firing. Dunneldeen just shot down his sixteenth Hawvin strafing plane.”
Jonnie touched the button to “sound off.” He felt an impatience taking hold of him. These diplomats coming in one by one...it was too slow!
The Coordinator had come in with Mr. Tsung, who was holding a lot of things in his arms. It was obvious that Jonnie was under strain. Mr. Tsung said something in his singsong voice.
The Coordinator said, “Mr. Tsung reminds you that even a lost battle can be redeemed at a conference table, to be patient and use skill.”
Mr. Tsung had other things now. He took the haircut cloth off Jonnie and showed him a tunic.
It was a very plain garment at first glance. It was cut from shimmering black silk; it had a stand-up collar. It was supposed to be a tight form fit. But it was the silver-colored buttons that attracted Jonnie's attention.
He knew what they were. He had once remarked to Ker that it was surprising to see such pretty metal on a Psychlo emergency switch. It looked like silver at first glance but the least amount of light striking it made it glow in rainbow colors. Ker had said, no, it wasn't used for emergency switches because it was pretty. It was used because it was hard. It was a one-molecule-thick metal spray of an iridium alloy, and no matter how many claw points hit it, it wouldn't wear off. And when you were in a dark mine with little light, the emergency button was visible because it looked like it flashed in colors. He knew what the son-in-law had been doing– plating buttons. Enough to blind you!
Mr. Tsung had him put it and the black silk pants on and buttoned the tunic all up-iridium buttons every couple of inches down the front.
Then Mr. Tsung made him put on a pair of boots. They were Chinko boots but they had plated them with iridium alloy.
A belt was fastened around him, a wide one, and it was also plated. All except the buckle. And that was his old gold-colored “U.S. Air Force” buckle, shined until it gleamed. He remembered thinking once in the cage he might be the last surviving member of a long-gone force. A strange thing to think. But right now it sort of cheered him up.
He had thought he was getting dressed and was a bit dismayed to find that Mr. Tsung did not like a pucker on the shoulder and a certain gather in the tunic back and took it all off him and sent them back.
Mr. Tsung had something else now. It was his twisted knobkerrie with the carved figures. But they had plated it with iridium. It flashed like a length of flame. He knew he couldn't use it that way but he was glad not to be going into that conference totally without a weapon.
Then the son-in-law came in. He was carrying a helmet. Basically it was just a Russian helmet they had smoothed down. But what had they done to it? The chin strap was plated with iridium alloy. So was the whole helmet. But what was this? The son-in-law turned it, a bit proudly, so Jonnie could see what was on the front.
How had they done this? Then he saw that the son-in-law was holding the paper patterns he had laid down on the helmet front and sides, one after the other, and sprayed through the open holes with different metal sprays.
It was a dragon. And what a dragon!
Gold wings on the side of the helmet, clawed paws that seemed to grip the lower helmet edge, scales and spikes from the spine edged in blue, a ferocious face with what appeared to be real rubies for flaming eyes, white fangs in a scarlet mouth. Ferocious. And a round, whitish ball in its scarlet, otherwise gaping, mouth.