“No?” Carter said. “Then why don’t you two sit quietly while I explain what happened to my young friend here? Now, then, Probationary Intern to the second assistant undersecretary Oscar Gordon, let’s pretend. Say you’re a species in toward the core of the universe, and you’re engaged in an all-planets donnybrook with another species in your neck of the stars. Let’s call you, oh, I don’t know, Lambchops, and your opponents Mutts.”
“You and your opponents are pretty evenly matched, and each of you is always looking for an advantage. That includes sending out long-range teams, searching for new military technologies.
“Within a few years of each other, you both encounter the Federation of Planets. They won’t sell you weapons, but you figure if you get to know your way around, you’ll find some member species that will. So you send out spies disguised as diplomats, traders, what have you.
“Then you get word from your spies that there’s going to be a big meeting. You hear your opponents will be there, too. One of the items on the agenda will be the little tiff you’re having. You know it will take some time to make arrangements for the meeting that are satisfactory to diplomats representing more than five hundred species. And it’s taken, what, forty years to make the arrangements and get everybody together?
“So you could use two things. Allies. And, in case things don’t go your way, weapons. You know the Federation forces won’t let you bring weapons to the conference, at least not anything they recognize as weapons.
“But you’ve got an edge. You use mechanical weapons in your fight with the Mutts, but you also use biological weapons. And you figure that you might be able to get some of those weapons past by having them posing as diplomats from a new species.”
“How am I doing so far?” Carter asked the Lambchop.
“Eat dirt, you bald ape,” the Lambchop replied.
“I must be pretty close,” Carter said. “So you need something a little more sophisticated, and, just as important, something your opponents have never seen before. So you modify some plant life you found somewhere and, voilà, you have the Unknown Origin 37s, also known as the Huskers.”
With a snarl, the Lambchop leaped toward Carter. It hit the intervening stasis field and was knocked to the floor.
“You mean, Clickclickwhistle wasn’t an alien diplomat, it was a weapons system?” the young diplomat asked. “How did you figure that out?”
“I’ve had occasion to see military hardware once or twice,” Carter said, “and I didn’t like the look of those fronds the minute I saw them. But what convinced me was the explosion. Giving his biological material back to the planet, my eye. I know a fragmentation bomb when I see one.”
“Bahhhd, bahhhd species,” the border collie taunted. “We’ll have to report these miscreants to the proper authorities.”
“Not so fast,” Carter said. “I’m not finished. You see, one of the reasons you and your opponents have been at war so long is that you are pretty evenly matched. So it’s no surprise when they have exactly the same idea as you do.”
“What?” said the Lambchop, which had shaken off the effects of its collision with the stasis field and climbed back into its chair. “They brought weapons, too?”
“That’s right,” Carter said, “the Gaspassers. I suspect that when we check, we’ll find that their first contact was within months of the Huskers’. So when you sent Clickclickwhistle out on whatever errand it was on, it ran into one of the Gaspassers. Was it out doing some snooping, too?”
“I’m not saying anything,” the border collie whined.
“No matter,” Carter said to Gordon. He gestured to the aliens in stasis. “This little display here shows me everything I need to know. Maybe the Gaspasser couldn’t control its flight too well in the different gravity. The one we saw was certainly having trouble. Maybe Clickclickwhistle did something that led it to attack. Whatever happened, it struck the Husker in some vital spot with something, its beak or one of those saw-blade appendages. And Clickclickwhistle est mort.”
“But what happened to the Gaspasser?” Gordon asked.
“I’m guessing the Huskers are bred so that when they take a fatal hit, they fold up immediately to form a fragmentation bomb,” the ship’s officer said. “The Gaspasser couldn’t free itself in time, and ended up inside the bomb. And remember, it was full of methane.”
“So when Clickclickwhistle exploded, the Gaspasser did, too?” the young diplomat asked.
“Precisely, my dear Watson,” Carter said.
“Who’s Watson?” Gordon asked.
“Never mind,” Carter said.
Nobody said anything for a minute.
“Interesting theory,” the border collie yapped, “but how are you going to prove it?”
“Well, I’ve got some proof already,” Carter said. “The computer monitored shortwave communications between the Lambchops and the Huskers, and between you and the Gaspassers. Probably the Lambchops telling the Huskers what to say to us humans, and you ordering the Gaspassers to this meeting. And then there’s the fact that few species but you Mutts could put up with a weapons system that smells like that.”
“Hardly conclusive,” the Lambchop said.
“I know,” Carter said. “That’s why you two are going to confess.”
That set them both to protesting, but Carter waved a power arm at them. “The jig’s up, fellas,” he said. “If you don’t confess, we’ll have Federation cruisers in your systems within a month. You won’t be able to warn your governments, because I’ll just have the computer put you back in stasis. Then Probationary Intern to the second assistant undersecretary Oscar Gordon and I will depart. We’ll block off this room, drop the stasis fields, and deal with whoever survives.”
“Personally, I hope its a Lambchop or two. The crew hasn’t had fresh meat in a while.”
That brought a gasp from the Lambchop.
“But I don’t want to be speciesist about it. The Mutts aren’t really dogs, so they might taste just fine, too.”
A snarl from the border collie.
After their confessions had been recorded, the weapons systems moved to a safer place, and Marine guards stationed in the diplomatic area, Carter and Gordon went to visit the two subengineers in the infirmary. Harper and Scott, who were mostly encased in healing gel, had some pretty wicked-looking wounds, but didn’t seem to have learned much from their brush with death.
“It’s like I told him,” Harper said, “we just needed slightly lower voltage and everything would have been fine.”
Gordon and Carter left the infirmary, the former walking gingerly and the latter propelling himself along the hallway from gripfast to gripfast.
“I guess I’d better be getting back to the diplomats,” Gordon said.
“Yes,” said Carter, “I don’t think the destruction of a couple of alien weapons systems is going to mar your record. Particularly since my report is going to play up your role in preventing the introduction of dangerous weapons into the all-creatures conference. You might even get the ‘probationary’ taken off your title.”
“That’d be nice,” Gordon said. He was silent for a moment, then said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how does someone so young have so much knowledge and authority?”
The ship’s officer laughed. “The whole idea behind the Mutts’ and Lambchops’ plans was that everyone would take things at face value,” he said. “You’re still doing that. I’ve spent much of my life in zero gee. No gravity, no wrinkles. I might look sixteen, but I’m old enough to be your father. Maybe your grandfather.”
“And you’re not really fourth officer of the Chuck Yeager are you?” Gordon said.
“Yes, I am,” said Carter, “but only for this trip. I’ve been fourth officer on several ships, as well as other things. But I imagine you can guess my real occupation.”