Ajax looked pained. “Please watch your language before royalty. Shall I call you ‘Miss Hackenwhacken’?—No, but,” he overrode her reply and continued serenely: “really, though, my objection to this item in the treaty should be blatantly obvious. I yielded exploitation rights to EMSA in return for EMSA’s recognition of my sovereign state. But if EMSA dismembers and carts off the planetoid-ship, there goes my sovereign state.”
“Your so-called ‘sovereign state’ “—she pronounced the words with scathing emphasis—“is going to have to go, anyway, Ajax, dismembered or not. EMSA can’t leave that flying treasure trove of scientific secrets within grabbing range of the Saturnian border. Which reminds me. I should never have let you persuade me to join you here on Earth… it’s pretty dumb for both of us to be here, leaving the planetoid-ship unattended. What if the Saturnians make a grab while we’re sitting here yelling at each other? Where’s your ‘sovereign state’ then?”
Ajax smiled his infuriatingly superior smile, plucked a stimulette from the rosewood box on the nearest end table and drew on it until the self-igniting tip caught. He did this with the practiced smoothness of a stereovision actor performing a bit of “business” designed to communicate something to the effect that “cooler heads than thine, my saucy miss, are at work and have already anticipated the eventuality.”
“You forget the Wuj,” he said calmly.
As ever, the thought of the diminutive Martian spider-being made him smile with quiet pride. Out of all the recent mishmash of phony planetoids and amoebic pseudo-subjects and interplanetary war, the one good thing that had happened to him in his quixotic quest for a private planetary empire was—the Wuj. Alexander had his Hephaestion, Dr. Johnson his Boswell… and Ajax the First, the Third Least Wuj of the Northern Panel Spinnery and the Eggery of the Silvery Downs!
Emily looked dubious.
“I don’t know… the Wuf is certainly loyal, but… well, he’s not human and doesn’t think like a human, and who can predict what hell do in an unexpected situation? Besides, those Saturnians are tricky, unscrupulous, and about as trustworthy as a homicidal maniac with a blowtorch.”
He smiled smugly. “I know… and they learned it all from your precious EMSA, didn’t they?”
Emily glared, but bit her lip in silence; it was uncomfortably true. When the first manned expedition from EMSA had reached Saturn some thirty years past, they discovered that the surface of the Ringed Planet supported life despite all scientific predictions to the contrary. The gravity was considerable, but not as bad as had been anticipated, since the actual planet proved very small. What had showed up on Earthside telescopes as a vast orb, only a trifle smaller than giant Jupiter, proved mostly atmosphere. The native dominant lifeform was a bit odd, however: a race of plastic, large amoebas whose bodily configuration was under conscious control and who could extrude rubbery pseudopods at will. They had a childlike, malleable mentality to match their outward form, and soon hero-worshipped the Earthmen from EMSA, copied their ways and imitated their institutions—a situation which led to rapid industrialization, to the growth of imperialistic dreams of conquest, and to the present impending interplanetary war whose first major engagement the Earthmen had won, with the aid of the age-old Asteroidal arsenal on Ajaxia.
“Well,” she said at last, “wherever they learned it from, they have mastered their lessons. And unless you agree to our terms and let EMSA break up the planetoid-ship and carry it into an in-world orbit somewhere safe, the very next move the Saturnians make will be to seize ‘Your Majesty’s sovereign state.’ Wuj or no Wuj!”
II
Ajax shook his head decisively. “This EMSA-Saturnian war has nothing to do with the Imperial Kingdom of Ajaxia! Our reign shall be one of peace and plenty for all… providing EMSA leaves me anything to rule. Ajaxia stays just where it is. Oh, I agree to let your scientists study the drive and the weapons and all, but they’ve got to leave my kingdom intact.”
Emily sighed and shook her head despairingly. “Ajax, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you! Look: you’re already in the war, whether you like it or not. Ajaxia is right smack on the front lines, in fact. And the Saturnians have already made one aggressive move against your flacking kingdom—by hoaxing you into thinking your so-called ‘loyal subjects’ were loyal subjects, and not sneaking, treacherous Saturnians in disguise. Now, we’re going to get this settled, Ajax if it takes all night! But we’ve got to have your full permission or we can’t do anything. EMSA has officially recognized you as the government of Ajaxia; our people can’t touch your planetoid-ship without repercussions that would shake the very foundations of Interplanetary Law. You must allow the Treaty to stand as I’ve drafted it: EMSA must move Ajaxia sunwards, and soon—before the Saturnians have recovered from the loss of their fleet and are ready to strike again. And we have to break up the planetoid and take those machines apart! Their potential military value is incalculable, and we have no time to hanky-panky around being careful to leave your precious kingdom intact!”
Ajax drew himself up with a superb gesture and a flawless sneer of regal contempt which he had been practicing before a mirror for days. “Oho!” he said witheringly. “So that’s it, eh? I am to permit my kingdom to be taken from me—I am to stand by while you maroon-clad monkeys break it up for scrap? And where does that leave me? Will the Earth-Mars Space Administration agree to a swap?”
“A… swap? For what?” she demanded suspiciously.
“One kingdom for another. Little Ajaxia with its store of scientific secrets … for some other planetoid whereon I can settle my loyal subjects (when I have recruited some)… Let’s see… how about Vesta? Ceres would be nice. Or maybe Pallas…?”
She gave a little ladylike snort of contempt. “Oh, shut up Ajax, you fool! You want to trade your vest-pocket antique spaceship for one of the largest, wealthiest asteroids in the Solar System, eh? Come off it! You know perfectly well EMSA has no power to make a swap like that. Besides, there are fifty-‘leven interplanetary laws and treaties covering those worlds right now. It would take years of red tape to arrange such a deal. Then again, Vesta, Ceres and Pallas already have considerable populations and legal local governments. It’s no good trying that one, Ajax.”
“Ahem! Pray pardon the intrusion, Sir, and Miss. Dinner will be served shortly.”
They turned to the door where Jenkins, the robutler, stood, his bland countenance beaming obsequiously. One of Earth’s most noted roboticists had designed Jenkins inside and out to reflect the appearance and obedience-patterns of a typical butler from Queen Victoria’s golden reign.
“Oh, bother!” Ajax snapped pettishly. “We’ve been jawing on forever, and I wanted to get in a spot of hunting before sitting down to table!”
“Hunting?” Emily repeated incredulously. “With the fate of the System hanging in the balance?”
“Certainly, hunting,” he said, nonchalantly (he had practiced that, too). “Why do you think I built this hunting lodge up here in the middle of the great Canadian wilderness? Perfect hunting country. And as a royal sport, it goes back to the days of Nimrod. King Edward VII was a famous hunter. Napoleon himself…”
She shrugged. “Oh, all right! Forget the genealogies. If you want to call this gigantic Grand Hotel of yours a hunting lodge, it’s perfectly all right with me, Ajax Calkins! And if you want to go hunting, there’s a big fat moose out there that’s been watching us for half an hour…”