“This humble being is flattered by the presence of so many illustrious humans, and he will do his utmost to justify the honour,” he said. “Now that formal talks are about to begin, I propose that New Sicily should make a detailed presentation of its proposals. Twenty days should be sufficient for that phase of the talks, but I will not object to your taking longer as long as I am permitted equal time for my preliminary rejection of all your suggestions. As soon as each side has stated its position we can allocate, say, twenty days for debate on each point that we…”
“Pardon me for interrupting,” Ciano said firmly, “but we’re not going to bother with all that time-wasting crap.”
Kston’s smile faded. “Crap? This humble being doesn’t understand.”
“I’ll explain. Starting tomorrow, we are going to send mining equipment and crews to your planet and we’re going to take all the minerals we need. And if anybody tries to stop us we will drop thermonuclear bombs on your cities and large numbers of your people will be vaporised.”
“Vaporised?” Kston gazed solemnly into Ciano’s eyes. “You mean they would be … dead?”
“Very.” Ciano felt an uncharacteristic twinge of pity as he noted the stunned expression on Kston’s face. “You can’t get any more dead than they would be.” To his left the Secretary for War made an involuntary growling sound.
“But this is unfair! Unethical! If you are really prepared to do such a thing there is no point at all in discussing, debating, conferring, negotiating …”
“That’s what we like about our system,” Ciano put in. “Now, do you agree to give us unlimited mining rights?”
“This humble being has no other option,” Kston said faintly, rising to his feet. “This has been a great shock—twenty thousand years of tradition swept away in a few seconds—but this humble being will return to his people immediately and explain the new situation.”
“There’s no need to go this very minute.” Ciano stood up too, wishing the little alien had turned nasty instead of accepting the ultimatum so meekly. “After all, now that we understand each other there’s no reason why we can’t go on being good friends. Stay and share a bottle of wine with us while your ship is being readied.”
“Perhaps that is a good idea.” Kston summoned up a tremulous smile. “This humble being should try to get something out of the agreement.”
Ciano and Ritzo led the laughter which greeted the alien’s remark. Amid a sudden hubbub of good cheer the group, some of whom were slapping Kston’s back, moved to the refreshments table at the end of the conference room. Red wine was decanted in generous quantities and somebody conjured up appropriately festive music.
“That went off easier than I expected,” Ciano whispered to Ritzo. “I’ve never seen anybody cave in so fast.”
“That’s the way them Dorrinians is made,” Ritzo said contemptuously. “I told you, fighting is unknown to them. They ain’t got the spunk for it. No manliness. No pride. Watch this.”
“Maybe you should leave well enough alone.” Ciano tried to restrain his cousin, but was too late to prevent him sauntering over to Kston with a condescending grin.
“Drink a toast to eternal friendship,” Ritzo said with an insulting lack of sincerity, raising his glass.
“To eternal friendship,” Kston replied submissively, raising his glass.
“My little grey arazco!” Ritzo bellowed, wine glistening on his chin as he gave Kston a resounding slap on the back.
“My large pink amico!” Kston lifted his free hand and, before Ciano could react to the sudden clamour of alarms in his head, used it to slap Ritzo’s back. The effect was instantaneous and dramatic. The force of the blow, in addition to snapping Ritzo’s spine, propelled him across the room and into a sickening impact with a marble column which became liberally smeared with blood as he slid down it. To all but one of the assembly it was obvious that Ritzo was dead.
“Why is my friend Frankie lying on the floor?” Kston piped, breaking the abrupt silence which had descended.
Secretary Vicenzi knelt beside the body and prodded it tentatively, then looked up at Kston with an ominous coldness in his yellowish eyes. “Because you killed him.”
“Killed him! But that is impossible. All this humble being did was …” Kston stared at his hand in perplexity for a moment, then raised his gaze to take in the intent group of humans. There was a look of dawning wonderment in his pebble-like eyes, a look which produced an icy sensation of dread in Ciano’s gut.
“We take you to our bosoms as a trusted friend,” Vicenzi rumbled, rising to his feet as he slid his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket. “And this is how you repay us!”
“But this humble being can’t believe that humans can be so frail,” Kston said, almost to himself. “You are so big, so aggressive that one naturally assumes …”
“I’ll show you aggressive,” Vicenzi interrupted as he produced an antique bone-handled cut-throat razor, a favourite weapon from his early days, and advanced on Kston. “I will also show you the colour of your own liver.”
“That would be most interesting,” Kston said politely, “but first this humble being must conduct a small experiment.” Moving with frightening speed, he grasped Vicenzi’s lapels in his left hand, pulling the big man down to his level, and slapped sideways with his right. There was an immediate fountaining of blood and something heavy struck the wall, bounced off and rolled underneath the conference table. Ciano, who had closed his eyes, knew without being told that it was Vicenzi’s head, a conclusion which was verified by the hoarse cries of dismay from the remaining onlookers.
He also understood, belatedly and with a terrible clarity, that he and Ritzo and the others had made a lethal error of judgement concerning the Dorrinians. Men had been partial to the use of violence ever since the first distant ancestor had used a club to settle a dispute, but there had been one necessary underlying condition—among mankind violence worked. There were, thanks to design deficiencies in the human physique, dozens of quick and comparatively simple ways in which a critic or an opponent could be rendered silent and ineffective, either temporarily or permanently. It was natural therefore that the more pragmatic of the species should exploit the situation, but the Dorrinians—as Ciano had observed—were virtually indestructible. Far back in their history individuals had probably experimented with clubs, knives and bullets, found them totally ineffective, and in consequence had been forced to accept that the only way to resolve differences was by means of discussion.
From Ciano’s point of view the sudden insight was cause for deep anxiety, but there was an even more disturbing factor to consider. Over the millennia man had developed a thing called a conscience, that inner voice which tempered his urge to kill off all who displeased him, thus making it possible for even the most violent to live in association with their fellows. Kston, however, was like a child who was enraptured with a brand-new plaything…
“I’ve been thinking things over, Kston,” Ciano announced, trying to keep his voice steady. “It occurs to me that we have been unreasonable in our demands—I think it only fair that we should have further talks.”
“This humble being has also been thinking things over, and he has an even better idea,” Kston said, tossing Vicenzi’s body into a far corner of the room. “My people can have as much sulphur as they want from this world—all this humble being has to do is kill the humans who would try to object. It’s so simple.”