Dana Stabenow - Powers of Detection

That caused a flap among the Gaspassers, who chirped and whistled at one another, then at Carter.

“Missing? No one is missing from our delegation,” one of the Gaspassers said.

“Now, now,” Carter said. “Do you take us for chumps? Computer, how many of this species came aboard?”

“Twelve, just like all the other delegations,” the computer drawled.

“And how many do you count now?”

“Eleven.”

The heads of the Gaspassers all bobbed as they tried to count each other. The other delegates seemed to be trying to count them, too.

“Do you mean to say,” Clicksquawksqueal said, “that one of that species was involved in the decommissioning of Clickclickwhistle?”

“What sort of a charge is that, you overgrown bush?” the border collie howled.

“Who are you calling names, bitch?” the head Lambchop bleated.

In the next instant, all of the Lambchops and Mutts were standing in their chairs snarling and snapping. The Huskers were standing and shaking their fronds at the Gaspassers, who in unison emitted loud noises and rose into the air. Clicksquawksqueal slammed a frond down on the table.

And it cut right through the tabletop.

“George W. Bush!” Gordon shouted, “that tabletop is high-density alloy.”

The Gaspassers shot across the table at the Huskers. One pair of their appendages was moving so fast they looked like circular saws.

“Tanglefoot!” yelled Carter, and every alien froze in place.

“That’s a neat trick,” the young diplomat said. “How’d you do that?

The ship’s officer smiled. “Oh, just a precaution,” he said. “When I went to get this exoskeleton, I took the opportunity to ask engineering to modify a couple of stasis fields so they’d work on the Xtees. Later, I got on the communicator concealed in here”-he waved his left power arm-“and ordered the stasis projectors installed in the floor of the deck above us. The computer is controlling them.”

“Well, I hope you know that subjecting diplomats to stasis without their consent is a violation of several all-creature protocols,” Gordon said. “Not that it matters to me. I’ve lost not one but two alien diplomats. My career is over.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Carter said. “Computer, why don’t you release oh, say, the border collie-looking Mutt and the Lambchop with the biggest mouth.”

The aliens came out of stasis yelling at one another, but when they saw what had happened to their colleagues, they stopped.

“You can’t do this to us,” the Lambchop said. “When we report this to your Corps Diplomatique, both of you will regret it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the ship’s officer said. “I just thawed you two to see if you want to come clean.”

The Mutt and the Lambchop looked at one another, then back at Carter. Neither made a sound.

“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.”