Zach Hughes - For Texas and Zed

Lex tried to get into the conversation at table but every time he spoke she cut him dead and ignored his comments. She even turned down an offer to be taught airors riding and that was his hole card.

While he sat outside atmosphere, buttoned up in the hood of the Zelda , cold space empty around him, he called and used voice to say, "I'm home, Dad," hit the button and blinked into the garage. There was warmed-over soup and wingling stew and he ate alone, in the kitchen. He was feeling so lonely he had the cook robot go over menus just to hear a voice. Then he went to his room over the garage and turned on the circular music station from Dallas central and let the twangy sound of strings soak into his hide, killing a brew before going in for a shower.

Hell, he was going to marry the girl. What more did she expect?

"I am an appointed representative of the Emperor himself," she'd told President Gar. "I shall report my ill treatment to the Emperor personally."

"Well," President Gar said, "give the old boy my regards."

He was dressed and ready for—what? Dressed up and no place to go. Early evening. Just across the courtyard was—heaven in scents and feels and softness and long hair and supple legs and clinging arms. How could she change so quickly? She'd loved him there on Polaris Two. How could she have done the things she did with him without love? She wasn't like Miss Toni's girls, who had chosen to even the inbalance of the sexes on Texas by being all things to all men. Hell, she wasn't like that. So she had to have loved him and then, when he did what any man would do, steal away the girl he loved, she'd turned into a spitting, scratching female farl, half-tiger and half-shrew.

He was feeling quite sorry for himself when the communicator came to life and his father's voice requested his body in the house. A request from Murichon was not merely an order, it was the law, and, besides, it was something to do. He walked across and noted that there were a couple of strange airorses outside and an official arc with the great seal on the side. He went into the living room looking around for her . She wasn't there, but old Andy Gar was, along with the head man of the Meat Growers Association, a couple of Ranger officers of high rank and his father.

"Sit down, boy," Murichon said. He was dead serious, grim as being stranded in the middle of the great desert without water. Lex sat. He glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the Ranger General with his tan and gold braid and wondered how he'd look in uniform.

"I'm gonna give it to you straight and slow, son," Murichon said. "First off, it appears that you've snatched a red-hot coal right out of the Emperor's own fire and it might burn your fingers. Your little gal with the spitfire temper is the Emperor's own cousin, and, in all probability, one of his favorite bedmates, judging from the fuss they're making about the Lady Gwyn."

"The Empire demands," began the Ranger General, but Murichon held up his hand and the General lapsed into silence.

"He's just a boy and he's got a decision to make," Andy Gar said. "Let's make sure he understands the situation."

"You know we've been in blinkstat communication with the First Leader on Polaris," Murichon said. Lex nodded. He knew the setup. At random times a Texican ship, blinking random patterns within range of an Empire blink relay, would contact and wait just long enough to receive a message in return. The details of the meat shipment were being worked out that way, after the Empire had swallowed its pride in order to be able to swallow good, juicy Texas steak. "Well, the first message about your gal was just a polite inquiry about her, wondering if we had any idea where she was. That was a couple of days ago. The next one wasn't so polite. They told us flatly that you'd been seen carrying a suspicious-looking sack onto the Texas Queen . Now I suppose we should have just flat out lied about it at that point, but you know I don't cotton to lying without reason, and I was looking on this Lady Gwyn as just another Empire gal, a little more advanced in position than most, but just another gal in a system which has billions of girls. I was wrong. I admitted that one of the crewmen had taken a fancy to her and had lifted her to be his wife. I was lying just a little, because I guess that was your intention."

"It was," Lex said.

"Well," Murichon said, "I should have lied more." He tilted his glass and drained it. He looked at his son and there was a deep wrinkle between his eyes he was looking so hard. "Son, they say either we turn over the kidnapper and the Lady in good condition or the meat deal is off."

Lex's face did not change, but he felt cold winds blow inside. He had an instant flashback to the day, the wild ride over the desert, the wide plains, the sun over Texas. "Well then, I reckon I'll have to go," he said.

Andy Gar cleared his throat. "Son, do you remember when that prospector, got picked up in Cassiopeian space back in '65?" Lex nodded. He remembered it well from hearing the stories, but he'd been born too late to volunteer for the rescue force. "And how the whole nation turns out when a man is missing in the desert or somewhere?"

"Yes, but this is different," Lex said.

"Only in degree," Andy Gar said, while the Ranger General fidgeted. "You're still a Texican and we Texicans stick together. There ain't no one here gonna try to force you to go into the Empire and turn yourself in to a pack of faggots. Under ordinary circumstances, our answer to the Empire ultimatum would have been something like what old Jack Bridges told his wife when he was determined on going out into the outback prospecting for iron." Lex chuckled. Jack Bridges, an almost legendary figure, had reputedly told his wife, who protested his leaving her and her two children, to perform an anatomical impossibility involving basic breeding functions. "But," Gar went on, "we got us a problem, son. We're all alone out here and there ain't too many of us and we'd like to have enough people on this world to fix it up right, not too many, but just enough. Because we're short on a lot of things we have to limit the population so that there's just about one Texican for every thousand square miles of land. We need metals. You know from your schooling that Texas is a light planet. That's good in a way, because if she had a metal core like some she'd have a gravity which would be so strong it would be all we could do to crawl. Now we've got a couple of ways to get metals. We can sneak into the worlds on the periphery and poach them from Empire or Cassiopeian territory. We've done it in the past and so far we've not lost a man. But sooner or later we're going to get caught. Some prospector is going to be careless and he'll come home with an Empire or a Cassiopeian Vandy on his tail and then we'll be in it when we don't want to be. All the Republic of Texas wants is to be left alone to do things the way our fathers did them, maybe just a bit better. We want no part of the war inside the galaxy. But we've got some things that each of the warring sides would risk ten battle fleets for. Meat, for example. They're eating manufactured protein on the ships of the line and the home front doesn't even get that most of the time. Let an Empireite or a Cassiopeian see Texas and we'll be calling out the Guard and I don't have to tell you that even a Texican can be outgunned and outmanned when the odds are a million to one and the other side has unlimited metals and arms. The other way we can get metals is to trade, and we're right on the verge of making a successful deal for enough metals to keep Texas going for fifty years. We've spent ten years working out the details, breeding a surplus of meacrs, so you can see why some folks are a little upset about the turn of events."

"I'll go," Lex said.