"Eh? What?"
"I ain't."
Robbins went on, "Henry wouldn't do anything that wasn't cricket. Me, I was raised in a river ward. and I'm not bothered by niceties. I'm going to gather the boys together and give 'em the word. I'm going to tell them where the body is buried, how the apple cart was upset, and who put the overalls in the chowder."
MacClure said angrily, "You hand out an unauthorized interview and you'll never hold another job with the administration!"
"Don't threaten me, you over-ripe melon. I'm not a career man; I'm an appointee. After I sing my song I'll get a job on the Capital Upside Down column and let the public in on the facts about life among the supermen."
MacClure stared at him. "You don't have any sense of loyalty at all."
"From you, Mac, that sounds real sweet. What are you loyal to? Aside from your political skin?"
Mr. Kiku interposed mildly, "That's not exactly fair, Wes. The Secretary has been quite firm that the Stuart boy must not be sacrificed to expediency."
Robbins nodded. "Okay, Mac, we'll give you that. But you were willing to sacrifice Henry's forty years of service to save your own ugly face. Not to mention shooting off that face without checking with me, just to grab a front-page story. Mac, there is nothing a newspaper man despises more than headline hunger. There is something lascivious and disgusting about a man overanxious to see his name in headlines. I can't reform you and don't want to, but be sure that you are going to see your name in headlines, big ones... but for the last time. Unless..."
"What do you mean?... 'unless'?"
"Unless we put Humpty-Dumpty together again."
"Uh, how? Now look, Wes, I'll do anything within reason."
"You sure will." Robbins frowned. "There's the obvious way. We can serve Henry's head up on a platter. Blame that interview yesterday on him. He gave you bad advice. He's been fired and all is sweetness and light."
Mr. Kiku nodded. "That's how I had envisioned it. I'd be happy to cooperate... provided my advice is taken on how to conclude the Hroshii affair."
"Don't look relieved, Mac!" Robbins growled. "That's the obvious solution and it would work... because Henry is loyal to something bigger than he is. But that is not what we are going to do."
"But, if Henry is willing, then in the best interests-"
"Stow it. It won't be Henry's head on the platter; it will be yours."
Their eyes locked. At last MacClure said, "If that is your scheme, Robbins, forget it and get out. If you are looking for a fight, you'll get one. The first story to break will be about how I had to fire you two for disloyalty and incompetence."
Robbins grinned savagely. "I hope you play it that way. I'll have fun. But do you want to hear how it could be worked?"
"Well... go ahead."
"You can make it easy or hard. Either way, you are through. Now... keep quiet and let me tell it! You're done, Mac. I don't claim to be a scholar of xenic affairs, but even I can see that civilization can't afford your county-courthouse approach to delicate relations with non-human races. . So you're through. The question is: do you do it the hard way? Or do you go easy on yourself and get a nice puff in the history books?"
MacClure glowered but did not interrupt. "Force me to spill what I know, and one of two things happens. Either the Secretary General throws you to the wolves, or he decides to back you up and risk a vote of 'no confidence' from the Council. Which is what he would get. The Martian Commonwealth would gleefully lead the stampede, Venus would follow, the outer colonies and the associated xenic cultures would join in. At the end you would have most of the Terran nations demanding that the North American Union surrender this one individual to avert a bust-up of the Federation.
"All you have to do is to shove the first domino; all the others would fall... and you would be buried under the pile. You couldn't be elected dogcatcher. But the easy way runs like this. You resign... but we don't publish the fact, not for a couple of weeks... Henry, do you think two weeks will be long enough?"
"It should be ample," Mr. Kiku agreed gravely.
"During that time you don't wipe your nose without Henry's permission. You don't say a word unless I okay it. Then you resign in a blaze of glory, with the conclusion of the Hroshian Affair to crown your career. Possibly some way can be found to kick you upstairs to a gaudier job... if you are a good boy. Eh, Henry?"
Mr. Kiku nodded.
MacClure looked around from Kiku's expressionless face to Robbins' contemptuous one. "You two have it neatly plotted," he said bitterly. 'Suppose I told you both to go to the devil?"
Robbins yawned. 'It won't matter in the long run, believe me. After the administration falls, the new Secretary General will call Henry out of retirement, a safe man will be stuck in your place, and Henry will get on with outmaneuvering the Hroshii. Probably lose three days maybe less. Whitewashing you is harder, but we meant to give you a break. Right, Henry?"
"It would be better so. Dirty linen is best kept in a cupboard."
MacClure chewed his lip. "I'll think it over."
"Good! And I'll wait while you do. Henry, why don't you get back to work? I'll bet that trick desk is lighted up like a Christmas tree."
"Very well." Mr. Kiku left the room.
His desk did look like a fireworks celebration, with three blinking red lights and a dozen amber ones. He disposed of urgent matters, brushed off lesser ones, and began to reduce the stack in his basket, signing without bothering to consider whether his signature continued to carry authority.
He was just sustaining a veto on a passport for a very prominent lecturer-the last time the idiot had been off Earth, he had broken into a temple and taken pictures-when Robbins walked in and chucked a paper on his desk. "Here's his resignation. Better see the Secretary General at once."
Mr. Kiku took it. "I shall."
"I didn't want you there when I twisted his arm. It's harder for a man to say 'Uncle' with a witness. You understood?"
"Yes."
"I had to bring up the time we covered up for him about the convention with Kondor."
"Regrettable."
"Don't waste tears. Enough is enough. Now I am going to write the speech he will make before the Council. After that I'll look up the boys he talked to last night and beg them, for the sake of their dear old home planet, to take the proper line on the follow-up story. They won't like it."
"I suppose not."
"But they'll go along. Us humans have got to stick together; we are badly outnumbered."
"So I have always felt. Thanks, Wes."
"A pleasure. Just one thing I didn't mention to him..."
"So?"
"I didn't remind him that the boy's name was John Thomas Stuart. I'm not sure the Martian Commonwealth would have bolted, in view of that one fact, The Council might have sustained Mac, after all and we might have found out whether the Hroshian laddies can do what they say they can."
Kiku nodded. 'I thought of that, too. It didn't seem time to mention it."
"No. There are so many swell places for a man to keep his mouth shut. What are you smiling at?"
"I was thinking," Mr. Kiku explained, "that it is a good thing that the Hroshii do not read our newspapers."
XIV "Destiny? Fiddlesticks!"
Mrs. Stuart did read newspapers. Greenberg had had great trouble persuading her to come to Capital and to bring her son, because he was not free to tell her why. But he did persuade her and she had agreed to go the following morning.
When Greenberg arrived the next morning to pick them up he found himself persona non grata. She was in a white fury and simply shoved the newspaper into his hand. He glanced at it. "Yes? I saw a copy at the hotel. Nonsense, of course."