Secretary MacClure’s mouth was as wide as his eyes. “Heavenly days, Henry! Are you trying to set off riots?”
“Sir? I have taken countermeasures to prevent riots. . . xenophobia is always ready to flare up and that. . .” He gestured at the newspaper. “. . . will have an inflammatory effect on some. But you must not be deterred. We bureaucrats become paternalistic; it is so much simpler to do what seems best and let the people know it afterwards. . . negotiate, or blast a ship out of the sky, or whatever. Mr. Secretary, you have kept in mind, of course, that this Secretariat of which you are a member is responsible not to the North American Union, nor even to the peoples of Earth, but to all sovereignties of the Federation, both on Terra and elsewhere?”
“What’s that got to do with it? We’re the leading power.”
“Whom do you mean by ‘we’? Not my little country certainly. No, I was thinking that this will now be settled by vote of the Council and I was wondering whether the Council might possibly vote to surrender one unimportant citizen of North America rather than risk an interstellar war? I wonder how Mars will vote?”
The Secretary got up and strode up and down his office. It was a large room, much larger than Mr. Kiku’s. He stopped at the far end and stared out at the Tower of Three Planets and the Hall of Civilizations, while Kiku sat quietly. Wes Robbins slumped in a chair, his bony legs stretched in front of him. He was trimming his nails with a. pocket knife; they were long and black and needed the attention.
MacClure turned suddenly to Kiku. “See here, Henry, you confounded word splitter, I won’t be bullied.”
“Bullied, Mr. Secretary?”
“Yes, bullied. Oh, you dressed it up in your usual double-talk, but I wasn’t born yesterday. You know perfectly well that if we give the press these unnecessary details. . . that nonsense this Dr. Fatima or whatever his name is, this Rargyllian monster, filled you with. . . yes, and you threatening to tell the press that I got cold feet about an attack. . . that’s a threat if I ever heard one!. . . you give ’em all that junk and we’d have a row in the Council that would be heard from here to Pluto! With the home governments sending special instructions to their delegates and maybe the Terran bloc getting outvoted. Right on top of this ticklish Triangular Conference it could be disastrous. Yes, that’s the word. . . disastrous.” MacClure stopped and struggled for breath. “Well, you won’t get away with it. You’re fired!. . . understand me? Fired! I’ll take care of having you removed for cause, or transferring you to the retired list, or whatever the red tape calls for, but you are done, right now. I’m relieving you. You can go home.”
“Very well, Mr. Secretary,” Mr. Kiku said evenly and started for the door to his office.
In the silence Wes Robbins knife clicked shut loudly. He stood up. “Hold it, Henry! Mac. . .”
Mr. MacClure looked around. “Huh? What’s the matter with you? And don’t call me ‘Mac’; this is official business. I’m still Secretary around here, as I just told Kiku.”
“Yes, you are still Secretary-for about two hours, maybe.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous! Wes, you will force me to fire you too if you talk that way. Mr. Kiku, you are excused.”
“Don’t go away, Henry. And quit shoving that stuff, Mac. You can’t fire me, I quit ten minutes ago. Mac, are you a complete stuffed shirt? Remember, I knew you when you were a shorthorned Senator, anxious to get a two-inch squib in a gossip column. I liked you then. You seemed to have horse sense, which is scarce in this business. Now you are ready to dump me and I don’t like you either. But tell me, for old times’ sake: why are you anxious to cut your own throat?”
“What? Not my throat. I’m not the Charlie to let a subordinate cut my throat. I’ve seen it done. . . but Kiku picked the wrong man.”