Part 2

The eighty-fourth planet colonized from Earth, she told him, was Fishdollar One, so named for Andrew Fishdollar, who founded the settlement and brought along many kinsmen. The settlement prospered but the planet had a strong Rho effect. Did he understand?

"Yes, Madame President. An excess of female over male births until a certain population density is reached."

"It may take _centuries_. It's terrible. Stevie, I've actually heard the Patrol sometimes sends ships...." She blushed prettily and looked down at the teacup on her rounded knee.

"Yes. Yes, Wendrew. There is a special clause--oh, most delicately worded--in the standard Patrol treaty with Rho effect planets. Spacers call them good liberty planets." He felt warm, tugged at his tight collar and kept his gaze on the president's teacup.

She took up her story. Genetic strains varied in susceptibility to the Rho effect, of course he knew, and it was terribly severe on Fishdollars. The clan became immensely wealthy through pioneer land holdings, but the name was dying out. Male Fishdollars were recruited from Earth and the other planets until the name was extinct elsewhere, but it was no use. Sex control was no good--bad psychic effects in the resultant males. Finally, in the fourth century, the Fishdollars settled a new planet, seeking a reduced Rho effect.

"But Wendy, why not adopt boys, change names and so on?"

"Against the laws, Stevie. People with low-Rho names believed the effect worked through the name and not the gene pattern. Silly superstition of course, but they had the votes."

It was the same story on Planets Fishdollar Two and Three. Fishdollar wealth grew and Fishdollar males dwindled in inverse ratio. On Fishdollar Four, in the Sigma-3 Velorum system, they vanished altogether. A few hundred women still bore the name.

"It's pitiful, Stevie, when a name dies after thousands of years," she said softly. She put down her teacup and smoothed nervously at her brief skirt.

"I can imagine. Ten generations of Welnickis have served the Patrol."

"We tried hard to keep the name alive," she went on, vainly tugging the pleated skirt lower on the smooth white legs. "Stevie, some of us here are haploid and some are illegitimate."

Her head drooped. Wordless, he watched her hands. She raised a rosy face to him impulsively.

"You mustn't think I'm one," she said rapidly. "My father was the last Andrew Fishdollar, the last man. He died two years ago."

The younger Fishdollars, she continued, planned one last effort to settle a new planet, to be named Fishdollar Five. They recruited a group meeting Patrol standards and got sponsorship. It cost them a great deal of money. Their constitution and legal codes were those of the parent system, with minor changes correcting the unfair laws against high-Rho names.

"And then--oh Stevie, those superstitious, ungrateful, low-Rho settlers! While we were still in subspace they began amending the laws and the constitution. They even changed our planet's name to Rewbobbin, the ugliest, lowest-Rho name among them!"

"Rewbobbin!" He shuddered.

"We were just frantic, Stevie. We wanted to scratch their eyes out and we wanted to die. Then we thought about seceding. We learned that _Rubberjack's_ tender was preloaded to care for an advance party of two hundred. We talked to General Cobb--you know the rest."

"Yes, Wendy. How imaginative ... a random inspacing into unexplored vastness.... Wendy, I salute your courage!"

"We weren't really so brave. The tender was a last resort, to force Captain Kravitz to settle us on another Carina planet. But when he reacted so violently--oh, Stevie, you should have _heard_ the language he used to me--we knew we must go. We really had no choice, now did we?"

The ambassador coughed and licked his lips. "No, I suppose not, Wendy. Captain Kravitz is unimaginative ... aging...."

"Stevie, did we do wrong? Do you think we did?"

"No, Wendy. Not you, whoever else may have. You were magnificent. I will use all my influence to see that your settlement lives."

"I'm so happy, Stevie. I feel safe now. Tomorrow Linda can work out a treaty with you. Shall we join the others?"

The smooth white legs stood up.

* * * * *

The ambassador could not sleep. His own copy of Patrol Regulations was lost, but providentially he found a copy in the Fishdollar National Library beside his bed. He thumbed it.

He was, indeed, still captain and therefore ambassador while his crew was intact. But that other article ... here it was:

"In exceptional circumstances involving galactic security the commander of a ship or squadron may assume plenipotentiary status and execute finally rather than provisionally binding agreements ... as soon thereafter as practicable he shall report to Prime Reference for plenary court martial."

So. If he dared.... He remembered old Borthwick's lectures in Patrol Jurisprudence at the academy. Only two men, both squadron commanders, had ever used that article. One had been shot, one cashiered.... The ambassador slept.

* * * * *

Over coffee next morning the foreign minister produced copies of the Patrol treaty with Sigma-3 Velorum, with appropriate name changes, and proposed they sign them.

"These won't do, Madame Minister," he protested.

"Why not, Stephen? We have almost the same constitution."

"Your planet, Lindrew. Almost four thousand parsecs beyond the sphere of settlement. Do you know why we _have_ a frontier?"

"Oh, Patrol policy ... no, why?"

"Other intelligent beings may be settling the galaxy just like we are. We're afraid to meet them too soon."

"Why?"

"Maybe hostile. Lindrew, just because the Patrol prevents inter-planetary wars, it's the only deep space fighting force humanity has. But with no wars, and support of the Patrol voluntary, it isn't very big. Not big enough for galactic war."

"Will it ever be?"

"We hope so. We add a new ship for each new planet. We increase as the cube of the radius and our frontier only as the square, as long as we enforce the sphere of settlement concept."

"The Patrol enforces it?"

"Yes, by denying sponsorship and protection to non-treaty settlements. We can't actually use force against a sovereign planet, except blockade under certain conditions."

"Do settlements ever defy you?"

"Not for long. They give up and we move them to a settled planet that wants them, wiping out all traces of their stay."

"Oh. Stephen, do you approve of that policy?"

"No, Lindrew, I never have. It's--it's unimaginative. But they'll tear their beards at Prime Reference about your planet."

"But you'll help us, won't you Stephen? How must we change the standard treaty?"

"This is an outpost planet and the aliens, if they exist, will surely find it first. We'll need a Class I base. You must in time support extra-planetary defenses."

"You make the changes, Stephen. Whatever you say. Then we'll sign."

He shuffled his feet. "I'm afraid I can only initial it, Madame Minister. Prime Reference must ratify. I will urge most strongly--"

"Oh Stephen," she interrupted, pretty face stricken, "might we lose our treaty after all?"

"There's a chance, I can't deny it."

"Oh dear! I haven't the heart to tell Wendy."

"I need to think," the ambassador said. He excused himself unhappily.

* * * * *

Days passed and the settlement grew. The ambassador put away his blue and gold and worked with his hands. The native strap-leaf vegetation flowered riotously through long, warm days, and so did Earth plants in the test plots. The shapely Fishdollars became golden-tan and more charming than ever.

The Patrolers worked like fiends erecting buildings and plants, striving to outdo the merchant spacers. The girls helped where they could and bubbled admiringly at the prodigies of labor. The minister of public works told Chong privately that one marine equalled two merchant spacers. The latter, as if unaware of their lesser worth, worked like fiends too.

Kihara and his two petty officers were the engineers. Corporal Crespi, with a gang of marines and Fishdollars, milled fragrant lumber from native hardwoods. Houses went up and were filled with furniture rough-styled by General Cobb. The ambassador worked on the power plant, the materials converter, and then the air conditioning. The men became hard, deeply bronzed, strongly alive as the native trees.

With his aides, the ambassador worked out treaty revisions.

"PR will never ratify," Rutledge said.

"Look. Maybe the aliens don't exist," the ambassador argued. "If they do exist, they may respect boundaries. Then Fishdollar Five stakes a huge claim for humanity. If it's war, we make our fight around an outpost planet, far from settled regions."

"We ain't Prime Reference," Chong growled. "Who you trying to convince?"

* * * * *

Fishdollar Five ratified the treaty. Ambassador Welnicki looked unhappily at his initials and told the foreign minister, "I'm sorry, Linda."

"We understand, Stephen. We know you're doing all you dare for us."

* * * * *

Resting one day from pipefitting, the ambassador asked Kihara, "You know math, chief. Isn't it true this damned, sacred 'sphere of settlement' really takes in the whole galaxy in subspace?"

"Yes, in a way."

"It's fossilized, Einsteinian thinking. Damn the admirals!"

"The admirals think Einstein is God. You better think the admirals are God," Kihara warned.

The ambassador thought. The outpost planet ... last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart ... one man with imagination ... serve humanity and be damned for it now, canonized later....

* * * * *

One afternoon he walked with Wendy to their favorite spot on a headland above the sea. She climbed before him up the steep, narrow way, and the sea wind fluttered her skirt. The outpost planet ... democracy ... daughter planets teeming with pretty girls like Wendy and stalwart young men like ... really imaginative galactic ecology....

Sunset neared and half the sky, as usual, flamed gorgeously. The sea sent back the color and beat hypnotically against the cliff base. Wendy stood on tiptoe, arms raised, skirt wind-molded, sweetly rounded form outlined against the sky.

"Stevie, Stevie," she whispered, "isn't our planet beautiful? I would rather die than leave it. I feel ... fulfilled, somehow."

"Wendy, I haven't told you, but--"

She came to him in quick concern, her hand on his arm. Then it came out of him in a rush.

"Regulations permit me to assume plenipotentiary status. If I do and then sign that treaty, it will bind the Patrol absolutely. Wendy, I'm going to do it!"

"Can you really, Stephen? Won't they find a way...." Her face was grave.

"I can, for sure. I'll undergo court martial after. But the treaty will stand. The pledged word of the Galactic Patrol is sacred. Only the Patrol binds humanity into any kind of unity, and its very existence depends upon planetary trust in Patrol good faith."

"It's so much power for one man."

"Not every man is made a Patrol captain. Believe me, Wendy, your planet will live. And I'm glad."

Then she was in his arms and they were kissing, and Captain-Ambassador Welnicki trod on air back to the settlement feeling that the game was worth the candle if they took his head for it. He signed with a flourish, Stephen Welnicki, Captain, GP, subscribed Ambassador Plenipotentiary. Then he called his aides into council and assumed the status formally, just for the record.

* * * * *

Days passed, shorter and warmer, fruits forming on the native plants. Basic installations were complete. Exploring and mapping teams brought in mineral and biotic specimens for testing. It was midsummer of the four-hundred-two-day year. President Fishdollar brought up a delicate subject with the ambassador plenipotentiary.

Four of her citizens were, well, you know, and they wanted to marry four of his marines. Could he authorize it?

"Of course, Wendy. Enlisted men may marry on any treaty planet."

He spoke to Chong.

"I told 'em hell no," the sergeant said. "Us marines depend on higher authority to protect us from that. You're gonna back me up, ain't you, captain?"

"No I'm not! What's so terrible about marriage?"

"Ask Corporal Hodges that, captain. He's married and the Fishdollars _know_ it."

* * * * *

Chief Justice Sandrew married the four couples in a mass ceremony. President Fishdollar wept and the ambassador plenipotentiary comforted her.

She was distrait and melancholy in the days that followed, and the ambassador plenipotentiary was himself obscurely troubled. Eight more couples married. Then one evening they were again on the headland in a flaming sunset and she began crying softly. She didn't know why, unless it was because the sunset was so beautiful.

So he held her and they talked in low voices until, as the sun's red disk touched the sea rim, he had to tell her that no Galactic Patrol officer could marry until he reached the rank of commander.

"But you're a captain already, Stevie."

"Only in a special, temporary way--"

"But your heroism, finding us, losing your ship--surely they'll make it permanent."

"Wendy, they'll want my head for all that. I ... I've tried to think that way myself, but I can't. I do believe, in the far future the name Welnicki will be honored by what I have done, but now--when Captain Kravitz comes--I have no right--"

"Every man has a right to happiness, Stevie. What if you married anyway?"

"Cashiered, automatically. Ten generations of Welnickis have given their lives to the Patrol with not one dishonorable action--"

"Stevie, you make me furious! How can marriage be dishonorable? We'll keep it secret and you can command the base here until you make commander. It's all so simple, really."

"I need to think," he said sadly. She laid her dark head on his shoulder and cried.

He thought: make her happy ... secret ... impassioned speech before the admirals ... galaxy to fill ... creative imagination confirms me now, gentlemen, time will vindicate me ... so tearfully anxious ... in for a copper, in for a solar ... make her happy....

"Wendy," he said in a low, halting voice, "let's do get married."

"Oh _yes_, Stevie! Yes, yes, yes!" She melted into his arms.

The crimson sun dropped below the sea rim and the sky faded to somber red. They walked back hand in hand, the president chattering gaily, the ambassador plenipotentiary oppressed under the cumulative enormity of his command decisions.

The wedding was beautiful. The bride wore her chlamys of state and the groom stood very erect in blue and gold. Chief Justice Sandrew wept but managed to get the words out clearly enough through tears and sniffs. All the Fishdollars wept. Even hard, unsentimental Sgt. Chong snorted nervously.

Married life was wonderful. The president melted with affection and the ambassador plenipotentiary loved it. Never had diplomatic relations between the Patrol and any planetary government been so cordial.

Even the weather reflected it. The days, cold and rainy as winter came on, turned clear and warm again. The native trees were deciduous and their long strap-leaves became a blaze of color carrying the dawn glory through softly bright days, carpeting the ground with sunset. Thinking and worry were fantastically unnecessary.

Then one beautiful morning after an intimate breakfast, the ambassador plenipotentiary learned that maybe, just maybe now, darling, he was going to be a father. A few tearful moments later an excited quartermaster called him to his door. G.P.S. _Carlyle_ was in orbit and would ground next day. Captain Kravitz instructed Ensign Welnicki to report aboard as soon as grounding was secured.

* * * * *

All along her six-hundred-foot length, ground shores probed out to equalize tensions as G.P.S. _Carlyle_ eased her lift. The shriek died with the slowing generators, and the starboard personnel port swung open. Beyond the zone markers Ensign Welnicki looked into his wife's face, then marched toward the ship. He wore his blue and gold.

_Carlyle's_ passageways seemed more cramped than he remembered. He felt foolish in his dress uniform, exchanging greetings with coverall-clad shipmates. He ducked past the saluting orderly into the captain's office almost with relief.

Captain Kravitz, behind his gray desk, had never looked more austerely forbidding. As the ensign made his report, the grizzled eyebrows raised, then two fingers stroked the gray mustache. When the ensign reported his binding signature of the treaty, the captain raised his hand.

"Very well, Ensign Welnicki. Remain in your room incommunicado until further notice."

Ensign Welnicki stood very erect and raised his chin. Then he walked directly to his stateroom in the bow, ignoring greetings from former shipmates. He clanged the door shut, and never before had the tiny room seemed so microscopic.

* * * * *

A long week's pacing, three steps each way. Thoughts ... defense at Prime Reference ... first the grave statement of facts, for the record and for unborn historians ... for some future Welnicki burning to vindicate his triple-great grandfather ... then the exhortation to courage and imagination, powerfully restrained emotion almost breaking through ... deep, ringing sincerity ... then the gray courtyard and the firing squad ... I die without resentment ... my short life justified, its meaning found in action....

Thoughts about his planet ... _his_ planet?... Wendy, the child ... a boy, of course, the Welnickis were quite low-Rho ... never to see his son ... knowing that in the gray courtyard.... He wanted to cry.

* * * * *

Ensign Sotero, armed and brassarded, came to conduct him to the captain on the eighth day.

"Damn orders, Steve," Sotero said, standing in the door. "We know most of the story and we're all for you. Your wife and the skipper have been going round and round for days, beating each other over the head with that treaty, Patrol Regulations and the constitution of Sigma-3 Velorum. Somebody heard him say she's the smartest space lawyer this side of Earth. Don't let him stampede you, Steve!"

"Thanks, Juan, I won't." Ensign Welnicki's own voice sounded strange to him after the silence.

The captain was disconcertingly un-fierce. He looked tired and sad behind the gray desk.

"Sit down, Stephen," he said dully. "Let's talk about this mess we're in."

Ensign Welnicki sat down gingerly, his back stiff.

"My head falls too, of course," the captain went on. "You're too little a goat. They may even chop down Sector Admiral Carruthers."

He sighed and looked at the overhead. The ensign opened his mouth.

"I see my error now," the captain forestalled him. "You are not mature enough for command. But I was ensign under your grandfather Welnicki in the old _Ashburton_ before you were born. I thought I sensed in you the same intangible that made him great. Well, spilt milk, Stephen. What can we do?"

Ensign Welnicki suggested unsteadily that the Fishdollars might consent to removal to an approved planet.

"First offer I made, Stephen. They voted it down unanimously. Bluster was no good, pleading no good. With that treaty they've got us cold and they know it."

Ensign Welnicki wished he were dead but did not see how that would help. After a long silence the captain spoke again.

"I have one last hope, Stephen. Something you've overlooked. I got it from Rutledge."

The ensign looked his question.

"You didn't formally assume plenipotentiary status until _after_ you signed, so technically your signature is not binding. Now if it was a forced subterfuge to counter logistic pressure, your ship being lost and all, we can repudiate the treaty without breaching faith. Only you can really know."

Ensign Welnicki breathed deeply. "The Fishdollars with no treaty, how they can survive, I don't know, captain...."

"We'll leave message capsules. When they call for help we'll dump 'em on Rewbobbin."

"I ... I don't know, captain."

"We can fix everything else, save your career."

"No, sir. The treaty stands."

"You signed falsely and you know it."

"I can say--I hereby do say that I signed second copies afterward. The treaty stands, sir!"

Ensign Welnicki stood up, suddenly feeling good.

Captain Kravitz stood up too, face tautly impersonal.

"All right," he said, shuffling papers on his desk. "I want to lift out as soon as possible." He pulled out a paper and looked coldly at the ensign.

"As you may or may not know, your marriage makes you a citizen of Fishdollar Five," he went on. "As you may or may not know, your precious treaty forbids removal of a citizen to another planet without governmental consent. I doubt the admirals at Prime Reference would choose to come all the way out here just to court-martial one small ensign. But as you _certainly_ know, your marriage means the automatic revocation of your commission. You will save me trouble and delay by signing this resignation."

He shoved the paper across the desk. Ensign Welnicki looked at it stupidly. His inner song was muted.

"Sgt. Chong will stay to command the temporary base force," the captain was saying. "Within a year you may expect a Patrol construction fleet to open your communications and start work on the base. Your pay accounts can be settled then. There! Sign it!"

Ensign Welnicki bent and signed. The captain looked at the paper and handed it back.

"Use your right name," he said.

Ensign Welnicki looked blank.

"Stephen _Fishdollar_!" the captain roared.

The ensign looked blanker still.

"Ensign Fishdollar, some day you really must read through the legal codes of your adopted planet," the captain said mock-earnestly. "One of the changes made by the Fishdollars in the Sigma-3 Velorum codes was to make marriage and descent matrilineal. That way their name escapes Rho-death."

Ensign Fishdollar sagged. His inner song faded to a whisper.

"Very, very clever of the Fishdollars," the captain said musingly. "To link their name with the X-chromosome rather than with the Y. So it becomes as low-Rho as it was high before. Very clever indeed.

"Ensign Fishdollar, you utter lamb, did you honestly not _know_ that?" he finished with a roar.

Ensign Fishdollar swung his head dumbly.

"You know, Ensign Fishdollar, that the Patrol regards as null any marriage with a citizen of a non-treaty planet," the captain said softly.

The savage self-biting of his autonomic nervous system almost made him grimace as he bent wordlessly to the paper and signed "Stephen Fishdollar." The inner song was dead.

"You may go home now, Mr. Fishdollar," the captain said. "I will send your personal effects, less uniforms, ashore before I lift out."

Mr. Fishdollar turned away. Captain Kravitz came around the desk and laid an arm across his shoulders.

"Sit down again, Stephen," he said soberly. "I had to play it out to the end, but I don't want you leaving on that note, lad."

They sat down, on the same side of the desk.

"Stephen," the captain said gently, "all youngsters worth their salt chafe at the policy of restricted settlement and exploration. I did and I still do, but I never had the courage to act directly."

He paused and closed his eyes, then continued.

"Graybeards in conclave never make the important decisions for our species. They are always afraid. The decisions well up from the four-dimensional life-continuum that _is_ our species, and the graybeards accept, with what grace they can muster." He tilted back his head, eyes still closed.