Colorado, or whatever it is. Grand, certainly. But all I got was acrophobia and tears.
Uncle was just sitting, looking like Prometheus enduring the eagles. I put my hand in his and said, "Uncle Tom? I wish you would spank me."
"Eh?" He shook his head and seemed to see me. "Flicka! Why?"
"Because it's my fault."
"What do you mean, dear?"
"Because I'm responsibu-bul for Clark. I always have been. He hasn't any sense. Why, when he was a baby I must have kept him from falling in the Canal at least a thousand times."
He shook his head, negatively this time. "No, Poddy. It is my responsibility and not yours at all. I am in loco parentis to both of you-which means that your parents were loco ever to trust me with it."
"But I feel responsible. He's my Chinese obligation." He shook his head still again. "No. In sober truth no person can ever be truly responsible for another human being. Each one of us faces up to the universe alone, and the universe is what it is and it doesn't soften the rules for any of us-and eventually, in the long run, the universe always wins and takes all. But that doesn't make it any easier when we try to be responsible for another-as you have, as I have-and then look back and see how we could have done it better." He sighed. "I should not have blamed Mr. Cunha. He tried to take care of Clark, too. Of both of you. I knew it."
He paused and added, "It was just that I had a foul suspicion, an unworthy one, that he was using Clark to bring pressure on me. I was wrong. In his way and by his rules, Mr. Cunha is an honorable man-and his rules do not include using a boy for political purposes."
"Political purposes?"
Uncle looked around at me, as if surprised that I
was still in the room. "Poddy, I should have told you more than I have. I keep forgetting that you are now a woman. I always think of you as the baby who used to climb on my knee and ask me to tell her 'The Poddy Story.'" He took a deep breath. "I still won't burden you with all of it. But I owe Mr. Cunha an abject apology-because I was using Clark for political purposes. And you, too."
"Huh?"
"As a cover-up, dear. Doddering great-uncle escorts beloved niece and nephew on pleasure tour. I'm sony, Poddy, but it isn't that way at all. The truth is I am Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for the Republic. To the Three Planets Summit. But it seemed desirable to keep it a secret until I present my credentials."
I didn't answer because I was having a little trouble soaking this in. I mean, I know Uncle Tom is pretty special and has done some important things, but all my life he has been somebody who always had time to hold a skein of yarn for me while I wound it and would take serious interest in helping me name paper dolls.
But he was talking. "So I used you, Flicka. You and your brother. Because- Poddy, do you really want to know all the ins and outs and snarls of the politics behind this?"
I did, very much. But I tried to be grown up. "Just whatever you think best to tell me, Uncle Tom."
"All right. Because some of it is sordid and all of it is complex and would take hours to explain-and some of it really isn't mine to tell; some of it involves commitments Bozo-sony, the President- Some of it has to do with promises he made. Do you know who our Ambassador is now, at Luna City?"
I tried to remember. "Mr. Suslov?"
"No, that was last administration. Artie Finnegan.
Artie isn't too bad a boy... but he thinks he should have been President and he's certain he knows more about interplanetary affairs and what is good for Mars than the President does. Means well, no doubt."
I didn't comment because the name "Arthur Finnegan" I recognized at once- I had once heard Uncle Tom sound off about him to Daddy when I was supposed to be in bed and asleep. Some of the milder expressions were "a head like a sack of mud," "larceny in his heart," and a "size twelve ego in a size nine soul."
"But even though he means well," Uncle Tom went on, "he doesn't see eye to eye with the President- and myself-on matters that will come before this conference. But unless the President sends a special envoy-me, in this case-the Ambassador in residence automatically speaks for Mars. Poddy, what do you know about Switzerland?"
"Huh? William Tell. The apple."
"That's enough, I guess, although there probably never was an apple. Poddy, Mars is the Switzerland of the solar System-or it isn't anything at all. So the President thinks, and so I think. A small man (and a small country, like Mars or Switzerland) can stand up to bigger, powerful neighbors only by being willing to fight. We've never had a war and I pray we never do, because we would probably lose it. But if we are willing enough, we may never have to fight."
He sighed. "That's the way I see it. But Mr. Finnegan thinks that, because Mars is small and weak, Mars should join up with the Terran Federation. Perhaps he's right and this really is the wave of the future. But I don't think so; I think it would be the end of Mars as an independent country and a free society. Furthermore, I think it is logical that if Mars gives up its independence, it is only a matter of time until Venus goes the same way. I've been spending the time
since we got here trying to convince Mr. Cunha of this, cause him to have his Resident Commissioner make a common cause with us against Terra. This could persuade Luna to come in with us too, since both Venus and Mars can sell to Luna cheaper than Terra can. But it wasn't at all easy; the Corporation has such a long-standing policy of never meddling in politics at all. 'Put not your faith in princes'-which means to them that they buy and they sell and they ask no questions.
"But I have been trying to make Mr. Cunha see that if Luna and Mars and Terra (the Jovian moons hardly count), if those three were all under the same rules, in short order Venus Corporation would be no more free than is General Motors or I.G. Farbenindustrie. He got the picture too, I'm sure-until I jumped to conclusions about Clark's disappearance and blew my top at him." He shook his head. "Poddy, I'm a poor excuse for a diplomat."
"You aren't the only one who got sore," I said, and told him about slapping Dexter.
He smiled for the first time. "Oh, Poddy, Poddy, we'll never make a lady out of you. You're as bad as I am."
So I grinned back at him and started picking my teeth with a fingernail. This is an even ruder gesture than you might think-and utterly private between Uncle Tom and myself. We Maori have a very bloodthirsty history .and I won't even- hint at what it is we are supposed to be picking out of our teeth. Uncle Tom used to use this vulgar pantomime on me when I was a little girl, to tell me I wasn't being lady-like.
Whereupon he really smiled and mussed my hair. "You're the blondest blue-eyed savage I ever saw. But you're a savage, all right. And me, too. Better tell him you're sorry, hon, because, much as I appreciate your gallant defense of me, Dexter was perfectly right. I
was an 'old fOol.' I'll apologize to his father, doing the last hundred meters on my belly if he wants it that way; a man should admit it in full when he's wrong, and make amends. And you kiss and make up with Dexter- Dexter is a fine boy."
"I'll say I'm sony and make up-but I don't think I'll kiss him. I haven't yet."