I made a sound of disgust. I did it very well. ‘I warned you,’ I said, low, and made my face sad and stern. ‘I told you that there was a danger that the bourgeois-capitalists would interfere. Why did you not listen? Why did you permit their spies to steal the weapon I gave you?’
Tadjensevitch whispered agedly: ‘That weapon is still here.’
I cried: ‘But this report-’
‘There must be another weapon, Arakelian. And do you see? That means the Americans are also in contact with the Aldebaratniki.’
It was time for chagrin. I admitted: ‘You are right.’
He sighed: ‘Comrades, the Marshal will be here in a moment. Let us settle this.’ I composed my face and looked at him. ‘Arakelian, answer this question straight out. Do you know how this American could have got in touch with the Aldebaratniki now?’
‘How could I, gospodin?’
‘That,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘is not a straight answer but it is answer enough. How could you? You have not left the Metropole. And in any case the Marshal is now coming, I hear his guard.’
We all stood up, very formal, it was a question of socialist discipline.
In came this man, the Marshal, who ruled two hundred million humans, smoking a cigarette in a paper holder, his small pig’s eyes looking here and there and at me. Five very large men were with him, but they never said anything at all. He sat down grunting; it was not necessary for him to speak loud or to speak clearly, but it was necessary that those around him should hear anyhow. It was not deafness that caused Tadjensevitch to wear a hearing aid.
The old man jumped up. ‘Comrade Party Secretary,’ he said, not now whispering, no, ‘this man is P.P. Arakelian.’
Grunt from the Marshal.
‘Yes, Comrade Party Secretary, he has come to us with the suggestion that we sign a treaty with a race of creatures inhabiting a planet of the star Aldebaran. Our astronomers say they cannot dispute any part of his story. And the M.V.D. has assuredly verified his reliability in certain documents signed by the late - (cough) - Comrade Beria.’ That too had not been easy and would have been less so if Beria had not been dead.
Grunt from the Marshal. Old Tadjensevitch looked expectantly at me.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.
Old Tadjensevitch said without patience: The Marshal asked about terms.’
‘Oh,’ I bowed, ‘there are no terms. These are unworldly creatures, excellent comrade.’ I thought to mention it as a joke, but none laughed. ‘Unworldly, you see. They wish only to be friends - with you, with the Americans ... they do not know the difference; it is all in whom they first see.’
Grunt. ‘Will they sign a treaty?’ Tadjensevitch translated.
‘Of course.’
Grunt. Translation. ‘Have they enemies? There is talk in the American document of creatures that destroy them. We must know what enemies our new friends may have.’
‘Only animals, excellent comrade. Like your wolves of Siberia, but huge, as the great blue whale.’
Grunt. Tadjensevitch said: ‘The Marshal asks if you can guarantee that the creatures will come first to us.’
‘No. I can only suggest. I cannot guarantee there will be no error.’
‘But if-’
‘If,’ I cried loudly, ‘if there is error, you have Red Army to correct it!’
They looked at me, strange. They did not expect that. But they did not understand.
I gave them no time. I said quickly: ‘Now, excellency, one thing more. I have a present for you.’
Grunt. I hastily said: ‘I saved it, comrade. Excuse me. In my pocket.’ I reached, most gently, those five men all looked at me now with much care. For the first demonstration I had produced an Aldebaranian hand weapon, three inches long, capable of destroying a bull at five hundred yards, but now for this Russian I had more. ‘See,’ I said, and took it out to hand him, a small glittering thing, carved of a single solid diamond, an esthetic statue four inches long. Oh, I did not like to think of it wasted: But it was important that this man should be off guard, so I handed it to one of the tall silent men, who thumbed it over and then passed it on with a scowl to the Marshal. I was sorry, yes. It was a favourite thing, a clever carving that they had made in the water under Aldebaran’s rays; it was almost greater than I could have made myself. No, I will not begrudge it them, it was greater; I could not have done so well!
Unfortunate that so great a race should have needed attention; unfortunate that I must now give this memento away; but I needed to make an effect and, yes, I did!
Oh, diamond is great to humans; the Marshal looked surprised, and grunted, and one of the silent, tall five reached in his pocket, and took out something that glittered on silken ribbon. He looped it around my neck. ‘Hero of Soviet Labour,’ he said, ‘First Class - With emeralds. For you.’
‘Thank you, Marshal,’ I said.
Grunt. ‘The Marshal,’ said Tadjensevitch in a thin, thin voice, ‘thanks you. Certain investigations must be made. He will see you again tomorrow morning.’
This was wrong, but I did not wish to make him right. I said again: ‘Thank you.’
A grunt from the Marshal; he stopped and looked at me, and then he spoke loud so that, though he grunted, I understood. ‘Tell,’ he said, ‘the Aldebaratniki, tell them they must come to us - if their ship should land in the wrong country...’
He stopped at the door and looked at me powerfully.
‘I hope,’ he said, That it will not,’ and he left, and they escorted me back in the Zis sedan to the room at the Hotel Metro-pole.
3
So that was that and z-z-z-z-zit, I was gone again, leaving an empty and heavily guarded room in the old hotel.
In Paris it was midday, I had spent a long time in Moscow. In Paris it was also hot and, as the grey-haired small man with the rosette of the Legion in his buttonhole escorted me along the Champs Elysees, slim-legged girls in bright short skirts smiled at us. No matter. I did not care one pin for all those bright slim girls.
But it was necessary to look, the man expected it of me, and he was the man I had chosen. In America I worked through a committee of their Senate, in Russia the Comrade Party Secretary; here my man was a M. Duplessin, a small straw but the one to wreck a dromedary. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, elected as a Christian Socialist Radical Democrat, a party which stood between the Non-Clerical Catholic Workers’ Movement on one side and the F.C.M., or Movement for Christian Brotherhood, on the other. His party had three deputies in the Chamber, and the other two hated each other. Thus M. Duplessin held the balance of power in his party, which held the balance of power in the Right Centrist Coalition, which held the balance through the entire Anti-Communist Democratic Front, which supported the Premier. Yes. M. Duplessin was the man I needed.
I had slipped a folder into the locked files of a Senate committee and forged credentials into the records of Russian’s M.V.D., but both together were easier than the finding of this right man. But I had him now, and he was taking me to see certain persons who also knew his importance, persons who would do as he told them. ‘Monsieur,’ he said gravely, ‘It lacks a small half-hour of the appointed time. Might one not enjoy an aperitif?’
‘One might,’ I said fluently, and permitted him to find us a table under the trees, for I knew that he was unsure of me; it was necessary to cause him to become sure.
‘Ah,’ said Duplessin, sighing and placed hat, cane and gloves on a filigree metal chair. He ordered drinks and when they came sipped slightly, looking away. ‘My friend,’ he said at last, ‘Tell me of les aldebaragnards. We French have traditions - liberty, equality, fraternity - we made Arabs into citizens of the Republic - always has France been mankind’s spiritual home. But, monsieur. Nevertheless. Three eyes?’