“You do such! Most important. Peace treaty is reason Peace Planet exists. Very tedious document, sure, but very important. Is in database and very valuable for survival. With treaty now, persons, husbands, and young on home planets live in security, no more wars.”
“Old times of war horrible,” Mrs. Whitenose squeaked. “Much destruction, cities in ruin.”
“But long, long ago, even before us great ancestors born. And all repaired now,” said Mrs. Brownbenttalon. “Home planet completely restored to state of great beauty and prospering, not counting radioactive waste areas.”
“It must be a wonderful place,” Rina said politely. “I’d love to see it.”
“Never happen,” Mrs. Whitenose said positively, and her mother gave her a reprimanding look.
“What Mrs. Whitenose mean,” she said, “is of course humans don’t come to Centauri planet, Centaurians don’t come to human Earth planet, not ever. Meet only here. Much better that way.”
“Had experience of other races visiting our planet,” Miss Whitenose said, shaking her pointy nose. “Other races come first in dumb little fire-squirting rocket ship thing. I am talking Slug here, you understand? Long, long, long ago. At first all friendliness, talk trade, talk friendship, talk all kinds animal excrement stuff but don’t mean; come next time in battle fleets, you know? Bang-bang-bang bombing, shooting, killing. Very much killing in which many, many persons die, also males. No good. Know better now. You stay your place, we stay our place, everybody happy.”
“And no shooting,” added Mr. Brownbenttalon.
XVII
The armistice treaty agreed to by the Centaurians and the Slugs (who, of course, were also Centaurians, which somewhat confused earlier researchers) was so complete in spelling out the conditions of peace between the two extraterrestrial races that, as the so-called Treaty of Perpetual Peace, it became the document which all subsequent species signed.
Under the peace treaty all signatory species agree, in painstaking detail, to refrain from attacking each other and to eliminate all weaponry on any spacecraft approaching within 356,803 kilometers (so the translation reckons the units of the original draft) of any signatory’s planet. The signatories further agree that the Peace Planet (known on Earth as Tupelo, the name given to it by the original exploring team at Huntsville) was to be perpetually disarmed, with no weapons of any kind except the equivalent of bug sprays and mechanical fly-swatters. That was all the significant parts. The rest was codicils, four of them, of which the one for Earth was most recent, admitting the other arrivals to the original compact subject to the same provisions as for Centaurians and Slugs.
The morning after the Centaurian party Giyt took Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s advice. As the translated text of the treaty scrolled through his screen he whistled to himself. “No weapons of any kind” obviously meant no weapons at all. What had Hagbarth been thinking of with his nonsensical application to bring in guns? And for that matter, why hadn’t Hagbarth warned him about Kalkaboo customs? Or that his proposal for jointly exploiting Tupelo’s resources with the eeties would be laughed down?
Obviously Hagbarth was deliberately withholding information that Giyt needed to do his job properly. Why? Was he just intent on making Giyt look bad? And if so, what was the reason for that?
And, thinking of information withheld, what about Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s little bombshell concerning Professor Sommermen and the portal?
He attacked the system again, but there was nothing new about the portal to be found on a quick search. He sighed and prepared to dig deeper. He created a scout program to dig through the whole huge database for conjunction of key terms, wherever they might be found. But by the time the Kalkaboo morning barrage told him it was sunrise, nothing useful had turned up.
He showered and dressed abstractedly, sat abstractedly down to the breakfast Rina had made for him. She looked at him quizzically. “Are you all right. Shammy? Not hung over from last night?”
He blinked at her, mildly indignant. “I didn’t have that much to drink, did I?”
“Of course not, hon. You just seem a little down. It isn’t still that business with the Kalkaboos?” When he shook his head she changed the subject. “Shammy? Do you mind if I leave you alone for a while today? It’s Lupe and Matya. Today’s their anniversary, and they’ve got this kind of romantic idea, they want to go off for a picnic in the woods without all the kids around. So I promised I’d babysit.”
“Sure. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re positive? Because I could bring the little kids over here after I get the others off to school—”
That got his full attention. “No, no, that’s all right. Should you be doing all that in your condition, though?”
She beamed fondly at him. “You’re sweet, Shammy, but I’ll be fine. I love my condition, and you know what? I love you, too.”
Giyt was just sitting down to his terminal again when he heard someone at. the door. It turned out to be one of Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s lesser husbands. He was carrying a package as big as himself, that was wrapped in a shimmering silk-like fabric, decorated with flowers. Giyt scrambled to find his translator button and put it in his ear, just in time to hear the little creature say, “Object is freely given gift for enjoyment of you from honored wife and also from highly esteemed principal daughter. You observe have cart vehicle waiting? Reason for waiting of cart vehicle is must return quickly to home for urgent household duties.” He expertly detached a tiny record plate from the package and held it out for Giyt. “Sign signature for gift, please?”
Giyt pressed his thumb on the glassy section of the plate and scrawled his name over it, surprised and pleased. But as the Centaurian was getting into his cart another cart was pulling up behind it, and the good feelings evaporated as Hoak Hagbarth got out.
Hagbarth scowled curiously after the departing cart, but, if he had something to say about it, Giyt didn’t give him the chance to get it out. “Hagbarth, why is everybody lying about the portal?” he demanded without preface.
The expression on Hagbarth’s face changed in a way Giyt had never seen before. The scowl didn’t go away. If anything, it deepened, but at the same time Hagbarth’s pale eyebrows went up in incredulous shock. “Oh, God,” he moaned, “what is it with you now, Giyt?”
“You know what I’m talking about. The portal. Sommermen didn’t invent it. It was given to us by the eeties. I want to know why that’s been lied about.”
The frown and shock melted away from Hagbarth’s face, leaving only polite incredulity. “It was?”
“Of course it was. Mrs. Brownbenttalon told me about it herself.”
“Oh, right. You were at her place last night, weren’t you? How’d you like it?”
“Look,” Giyt said. “We’re not talking about the party. We’re talking about why Ex-Earth tells everybody the portal was Dr. Sommermen’s invention when it wasn’t.”
“Well now, how would I know that? Be reasonable, Giyt. I just work for Ex-Earth, they don’t tell me any secrets.”
“But you must know something.”
“No I mustn’t. I don’t, and that’s all there is to it. Aren’t you going to open your present?”
It was a standoff. Clearly if Hagbarth did have any information he wasn’t going to share it with Giyt, who surrendered and began to unwrap the package. It turned out to be half a dozen of the bamboo segments Mrs. Brownbenttalon had served, and Hagbarth’s scowl was replaced with a look of revulsion. “Oh, Christ, look what they’re giving you! It’s some of that damn lizard shit.”