L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 by Nagasaki Vector Page B

glass halfway with tomato juice, and upended a plastic can of beer into it. It fizzed.
    I looked at Koko, wondering how much she’d told him. “Don’t mind if I do, Your Presidency. I see m’friends’re taken care of; if introductions’re still in order, say hello t’Color, Charm, an’ Spin.” The aliens bobbed their eyes politely.
    “I suppose,” the President observed, “that we all have our little quarks."
    The Yamaguchians perched on a divan upholstered with an Indian blanket an’ pulled up to the table. Coffee an’ salad were the order of the day for the essentially vegetarian critters. I followed their example, adding a square foot of sirloin, thought about the beer—got vetoed by my stomach—an’ settled back.
    “And this grim- visaged fellow”—my host nodded toward a figure standing by the floor-to-ceiling picture-window— “is Austin Clintwood, my foreman. Koko leads me to understand his services may be of some use to you.”
    Clintwood was tall for his height, dressed in faded blue-jeans, leather chaps an’ vest, a brightly colored shirt that clashed with his bandanna, and the ubiquitous broad gun-belt, well-used. His feet were bare. At his hip an age-grayed automatic hung, and from a pocket of his vest, the tag-end of a Bull-Durham sack. Hat and spurs he held politely in one hand, but he seemed impatient t’be out an’ doin’ whatever cowboys go out an’ do. A shame, ’cause he was the first Confederate I’d met who wasn’t a gorilla.
    He was a chimpanzee.
    His William S. Hart get-up was spoiled just a mite by the banana he was munchin’ on, but the voice slipped outa his wrist-talker low an’ steady, almost a whisper. “Howdy.” He was an ape of few words, strong and silent.
    “Howdy yerself,” I answered. “Seen any spaceships lately? ’Bout twenty-five meters, round an’ shiny?” I gestured with my hands.
    Clintwood gave his boss a sour look, as if t’say this is what you dragged me in here for?
    “I assure you, Austin, the gentleman’s quite serious.” Olongo gestured toward the Freenies. “And truthful, if these little fellows are any—great Albert’s ghost, how very condescending! For all I know, the three of you could be... sincerest apologies, dear friends, I—”
    “My fault, Mr. President,” I cut in when Olongo finished arguin’ with himself. I nodded toward the chimpanzee. “Don’t blame your ramrod none, either, for bein’ skeptical.” I fought down the depressing mental image of Ochskahrt’s pylon. “Guess I’m gonna hafta tell the whole blamed story over again. How much do they know, Koko?”
    I stretched for one of the Havanas on the table.
    She sipped her coffee delicately. “Only that I found you wandering around out there, looking for your ‘flying saucer’.” She winked. “And that the Freenies are from Ganymede.”
    “You didn’t mention I’m a—”
    “Gosh, Bernie, I didn’t think you wanted me to!” “Discretion. If I weighed another three hundred kilos”— I looked down, grinning at my skinny frame—“think I’d askya t’marry me, Miss Featherstone-Haugh. Olongo, Austin, Grandma Goldilocks, you’re lookin’ at a Man-from-the-Future...”
    Never trust a Gruenblum t’make a long story short. Every scrap of food vanished from the coffee table, bite by bite; we clear-cut Olongo’s grove of cigars; he had t’send out for liquid reinforcements.
    Mumbling indistinct obscenities about the past week’s constant drizzle, Clintwood had his pistol disassembled, parts scattered all over the tabletop, an’ was cleanin’ it. Fella never left off workin’. Only when the thing was dry, spotless, an’ back together in his holster did he obey his boss’s direct order to relax, aided by a brace of double bourbons.
    Somethin’ labeled Old Lysander. Smelled just like the solvent he’d used t’clean his autopistol, t’me.
    I had a tough time gettin’ the story past Nagasaki.
    “Did I hear you correctly, young man?”