Schleim could even mop up the other belligerents using the Tolnep fleet if it came to that.
It was very neat planning.
The only thing he had to solve now was how to get this entire conference out into the bowl.
He was now feeling so confident he was hardly even listening to this devil as he resumed his actions. Whatever the devil did would be useless, without avail.
Tolerantly, Lord Schleim sat back and lent half an ear to the continuing proceedings.
Diplomacy was, indeed, quite an art. But if it failed, there was always force.
He fingered the bottom end of his scepter.
He tuned the rest of his hearing in to catch the first rumbles of his fleet in the sky.
Chapter 4
There had been a delay while a technician changed the cartridges in the atmosphere projector.
The emissaries, seeing that Jonnie was again about to speak, settled down.
“My lords,” said Jonnie. “I do appreciate your indulgence in permitting me to clean up the remaining bits of this odious Tolnep matter. Indeed, I am impressed by your patience. I assure you we may soon be able to proceed with the legitimate concerns of such an authoritative group.” The influence of the polite instruction discs of the Chinkos was coming in very handy now. These lords, except for the combatants, were definitely on his side.
Jonnie stood tall in the mine spotlight.
His buttons flashed. The dragon on the helmet seemed to move as he turned his head to Lord Schleim.
"Tolnep," said Jonnie, with disdain and contempt in the word, “I have some views that were taken while the conference was verifying credentials. I am going to ask you to identify certain things for me.”
Schleim sat back easily, quite composed now. “Go ahead, devil,” he said almost airily.
Jonnie looked at him closely. What had caused this sudden calm? Was it just an exhibition of diplomatic supercontrol? Schleim was, after all, a clever and well-trained diplomat.
With a deft touch of switch buttons, the mine spotlight went off and a new view appeared, filling all the empty space in the room to Jonnie's left. It was a remarkable shot. The emissaries sat up and peered, very interested.
There, just as though seen from the port of a spaceship, bright and clear, projected in three dimensions upon the empty air, was the whole system where the Tolnep planet rode in the ninth ring. The huge combination sun, a double star with the small companion circling the larger orb, shed its double-shadowed light upon the vast system of planets and their moons. The name of the system was Batafor in the Psychlo coordination books, "Sirius" or the “Dog Star” in the ancient man-constellation charts.
“Is this Batafor?” Jonnie asked Lord Schleim.
The Tolnep laughed. "If you took the shot, you know what it is. Why ask me?”
Jonnie searched out the Hawvin in the second row with his wand as a pointer. “Perhaps the regal emissary of the Hawvins might care to assist us. Is this the Batafor System?”
The Hawvin had been regretting his involvement in all this for some time. His nation was a traditional enemy of the Tolneps and had suffered much in times past from their slave raids. He had begun to suspect that there were penalties and reparations coming up sometime soon. This “spirit of Earth” seemed to have been taking pains to exclude the other combatants, and he had seen a possibility of escaping censure if it all went wrong here– as it definitely seemed to be doing. Best curry some favor. He could see no danger in it.
He rose and came forward and Jonnie handed him his wand with the pointer beam turned on.
The Hawvin waved the beam generally across the system. “I recognize and attest this is indeed the Batafor System. That is the old Psychlo name. We locally call the double sun 'Twino' which stands for 'Mother and Child' in the Hawvin tongue.”
He tapped the planet ring nearest the sun. “This is Jubo, uninhabited due to its extreme heat and gravity pulls.” He pointed rapidly to the second, third, fourth, and fifth rings. “These have names but are not important. Uninhabited, for they are subject to earthquakes and volcanic upheavals.” He tapped the sixth ring, the planet almost hidden behind the double sun. “This is Torthut, a Psychlo mining planet: it had a population once but they were annihilated.”
The Hawvin looked inquiringly at the Hockner. “My lord, do you mind if I go on?”
The Hockner shrugged, then gave a strained laugh. “As you have already as much as said so, my dear colleague, you may tell them it is a possession of Hockner!”
“Very good,” continued the Hawvin. “This seventh planet is Holoban, part of the Hockner Confederacy. The eighth planet is Balor, one of our own Hawvin planets.”
He lowered the beam and looked at Lord Schleim. But Lord Schleim simply shrugged and said, “You make a very fine astronomy lecturer, lord of the Hawvins. You have omitted some of the fauna and flora but go ahead.”
The Hawvin put the pointer on the ninth ring. “And this, I can attest, is Tolnep." He peered more closely. “Yes, these specks about it are the five moons, though one is hidden from this angle. Tolnep is remarkable for its moons in a system where planets seldom have more than one. The reflective quality of these moons is a bit remarkable due to their composition. The double sun can give out the normal light spectrum but on reflection from these moons, the light shifts upward in the spectrum. The Tolnep civilization prefers to work by moonlight and normally sleeps in the direct sun. It is said they are not indigenous-”
“Oh, spare us, spare us,” said Lord Schleim. “You'll be telling us about Tolnep egg-mating next! Keep it clean, Hawvin!"
Some of the uninvolved emissaries laughed. Schleim was wriggling his way back into their good graces.
“The tenth planet,” the Hawvin went on, “is a Psychlo mining planet, Tung. The population existed once but had actually been removed by the Tolneps before Psychlo occupation. The eleventh-”
“Thank you very much, lord of the Hawvins," said Jonnie. “You have been very helpful.”
The Hawvin stepped down and would have gone back to his seat but Jonnie checked him. Jonnie hit another button.
A clear view of the city magically appeared in the air. It was just as though one were suspended in space well above it.
“That is Creeth," said the Hawvin. “The Tolnep capital. Very distinctive. See how the streets wind their way and entwine.” He came back up and took the pointer. “This is the House of Plunder, their legislative center; see how its sections wind around and come back together. Unmistakably Tolnep in its architecture. This is Grath, their famous combined public park and slave auction center. This rock hill with the holes in it-'
“Thank you,” said Jonnie. “And now this is what I really want you for.” He pushed a button and the picture changed. It swooped down at the park and gave the emissaries the feeling they were free-falling in space. The park stayed still but all the surroundings swooped sideways and away, making it look for a moment like a bowl. The camera had steadied.
The view now showed just the park.
One could see the long slave auction blocks, the comfortable seats and boxes for the buyers. But what was remarkable was the huge clock face laid out in the hill at the edge.
“The clock,” said Jonnie.
“Ah, yes, the clock.” The Hawvin sighed and glanced at Lord Schleim, but his lordship was sitting there, a smile on his mouth below his glasses, fingering his scepter. “The clock is built of slave bones, it is said. Huge masses of them have been inset into wheels that turn and show through the windows. It is said that fifty-eight thousand female slaves were killed to make up the border you see-'