Zach Hughes - For Texas and Zed

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"Hold your horses," Murichon said. "Hear it all."

"We've had our lawyers working over Empire law-books," the President said. "It seems that they've got more laws than they know what to do with. The penalty for kidnapping is a severe one, but it hasn't been enforced for a hundred or so years, because in spite of the war they've got so many people that when they lose one or two they don't even notice, unless the victim is someone of importance. There's not been a kidnapping prosecution on Earth for 2 hundred years and there are no penalties for rape—at least they're not enforced. So we're not sure just what they'd do to you. There's an old law on the books calling for life under supervision, working the mining planets, for kidnapping, so that seems to be the worst that could happen. On the other hand, we've told them and we're waiting for an answer, that you're the son of a rather important man who'd take a dim view of his son being sentenced to labor for life. We told them flat out that one Texican is worth all the metals they could dig in a thousand years, and we're hoping that they'll make an offer. Here's what we're thinking. If they'll offer a light punishment, and if you're willing to go out there for Texas, then we'll think it over. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough," Lex said. "I was the one done it. I ought to pay for it. Texas is more important than one man."

"Texas is one man," Andy Gar said. "One man repeated. Each individual as important as the whole." He drank. "So we're not going to pressure you, boy. The choice is yours."

Chapter Three

When Billy Bob heard about it, he came over from New Galveston on the Clean Machine , suspended her on nul-grav just over where Lex was lying on the sun deck in his skivvies, and poured a cold brew down Lex's bare chest, causing him to leap almost as high as the Machine and come down, waked from a nightmare about being holed up in a mining shaft for eternity, with his hand chopping the air with a force which would have decapitated a man had it struck home. Billy Bob almost fell off his airors laughing and Lex had to chuckle along, after the anger faded.

They were waiting for the word from the communications ship out in the galaxy. It was taking a helluva long time and the wait was getting on Lex's nerves. It was a nice day, just before a rain with the coolness moving in from the big weathermaking ice country to the north. Lex flew Zelda out of the garage, after making feeble excuses against showing the Lady Gwyn to Billy Bob. Actually, the Lady stayed close to her room and Lex wasn't about to disturb that sleeping farl. He told Billy Bob that Gwyn was so shook about being shipped back to the Empire, losing the chance to be the wife of Lex Burns, that she was moody and her eyes were red from crying. So they went out into the desert and shot sonic booms at mountainsides and then went sanrab hunting.

Sanrab hunting was trickier than herding winglings, for the little rodent-like things were capable of turning three-sixty on a dime and it was hot, sweaty and not undangerous work to zoom low enough to lean down and make a grab with the bare hand for a sanrab's long tail while guiding the airors inches off the uneven surface with thought and knees and intuition. They caught two each and released the females and took the bucks home to the cook robot and then ate one each while in the front of the Burns house the official vehicles came and went and the air of something imminent, something bad, got thicker and thicker.

When Lex was called to the conference room he left Billy Bob behind and joined his father, the President and the same Ranger General, plus a few odd and assorted government officials and the Admiral of Texas' fleet. As a past President, it was not unusual for Murichon to have such notables in his house, and Andy Gar was a frequent caller, not only for business. Old Andy drove his own arc, saying that the Republic needed all able-bodied men in good jobs, not driving a President's car. He sat there among the others, a little older, a bit more weathered, dressed as they were dressed, in range clothes, and chewed some good Bojack tobacco,

"I reckon it's time, huh?" Lex asked, when he saw his father's grim face.

"We heard from His Majesty, or whatever he calls himself," Murichon said. He looked helplessly toward Andy Gar.

"Son," Gar said, "that gal must be something in bed."

Lex flushed and shifted his feet.

"His Bigness sets great store in her. He's rejected the deal we made with the First Leader on Polaris."

"Damn," Lex said, feeling lower than a belly-crawling reptile.

"He's put up some new terms," Gar said. "He said that we were unreasonable to refuse to agree to the Empire law which says Empire hulls have to be used in interplanetary trade with any outsiders."

"You're not going to let them come to Texas," Lex said. It wasn't a question.

"No, he suggested a compromise. Meet us halfway, he said. Out in the rim somewhere the cargoes would be lifted from Texas hulls to Empire hulls. We pick the place. We told him we didn't trust the Empire as far as we could sling a farl by the tail and the transfer would be on our terms and he said he'd agree to all that as long as we let Empire hulls carry the meat into Empire center to save him from the displeasure of the Guilds. We said, OK, fine. We'll do it, but we don't turn over the man you want under those conditions. He said, well, the deal is off."

The Ranger General cleared his throat and started to speak. Gar motioned him into silence. "Then we talked about your potential punishment and the best we could do is this. They'll try you in a regular court, but instead of going to the work planets, you'll serve a hitch, whatever the sentence is, in the Empire battle fleet. That's the best we could do."

"I guess it'll have to do," Lex said. "When do I leave?"

"The meat fleet won't be ready for a couple of weeks," Murichon said. "But the choice is still yours.

Make up your mind and keep it solid, because once we start slaughtering and freezing meacrs it'll be too late to change your mind."

"I won't change it," Lex said.

"Boy," Andy Gar said, "we don't know all about it, because we've discouraged any contact with the Empire, but what we know isn't good. The Empire's fighting fleets impress their men and since no one really wants to fight, except the leaders, maybe, the discipline is rough. There's not much real danger, apparently, because this war between the Empire and the Cassiopeians has been going on so long that it's become a sort of ritual. The last time a real clash came was about twenty years ago, at a place called Wolfs Star. That's good and it's bad. That means that service is mainly patrol along the frontiers, day after day, week after week, making little bows now and then in the direction of the enemy just to remind him that you're there. You might wish, before it's over, that they'd put you on a work planet."

"There's just one thing," Lex said, standing tall, his face set grimly. "On the way out I wanta be on the ship with her ."

"I reckon we can arrange that," Gar said, grinning broadly.

So there were two weeks left. He spent the first night in Dallas City with Billy Bob doing something he rarely did, drinking the hard stuff, the straight cactus juice which had the kick of a Darlene space rifle. He started hard and continued hard and then he and Billy Bob woke up, with two Rangers looking at them through the bars, after wrecking a joint and wasting a few out-of-town herders who had made some remark about kids being up too late. Murichon bailed them out and shook his head, but he didn't bad-mouth them, just told them to take it easy, that he wanted part of Texas left whole when Lex went off into the Empire, so the second time out they used Lex's savings, money he'd been putting aside for when he went courting in future years, and bought reservations at Miss Toni's from a couple of drunk herders and discovered that Miss Pitty, who had looked so good to them a couple of years before, had aged somewhat and now was a plush, over-fifty woman with big, sympathetic eyes and a voice which sounded sorta tired. But she'd heard. Everyone on Texas had heard, and she said she thought Lex was a very brave boy for doing what he was doing and that a brave boy deserved a good send-off.

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