"Of course not, sir."
Malloy watched her go out the door without actually seeing her. The war was over—at least for a while. He looked down at the papers again.
The Karna, slowly being beaten back on every front, were suing for peace. They wanted an armistice conference—immediately.
Earth was willing. Interstellar war is too costly to allow it to continue any longer than necessary, and this one had been going on for more than thirteen years now. Peace was necessary. But not peace at any price.
The trouble was that the Karna had a reputation for losing wars and winning at the peace table. They were clever, persuasive talkers. They could twist a disadvantage to an advantage, and make their own strengths look like weaknesses. If they won the armistice, they'd be able to retrench and rearm, and the war would break out again within a few years.
Now—at this point in time—they could be beaten. They could be forced to allow supervision of the production potential, forced to disarm, rendered impotent. But if the armistice went to their own advantage ...
Already, they had taken the offensive in the matter of the peace talks. They had sent a full delegation to Saarkkad V, the next planet out from the Saarkkad sun, a chilly world inhabited only by low-intelligence animals. The Karna considered this to be fully neutral territory, and Earth couldn't argue the point very well. In addition, they demanded that the conference begin in three days, Terrestrial time.
The trouble was that interstellar communication beams travel a devil of a lot faster than ships. It would take more than a week for the Earth government to get a vessel to Saarkkad V. Earth had been caught unprepared for an armistice. They objected.
The Karna pointed out that the Saarkkad sun was just as far from Karn as it was from Earth, that it was only a few million miles from a planet which was allied with Earth, and that it was unfair for Earth to take so much time in preparing for an armistice. Why hadn't Earth been prepared? Did they intend to fight to the utter destruction of Karn?
It wouldn't have been a problem at all if Earth and Karn had fostered the only two intelligent races in the galaxy. The sort of grandstanding the Karna were putting on had to be played to an audience. But there were other intelligent races throughout the galaxy, most of whom had remained as neutral as possible during the Earth-Karn war. They had no intention of sticking their figurative noses into a battle between the two most powerful races in the galaxy.
But whoever won the armistice would find that some of the now-neutral races would come in on their side if war broke out again. If the Karna played their cards right, their side would be strong enough next time to win.
So Earth had to get a delegation to meet with the Karna representatives within the three-day limit or lose what might be a vital point in the negotiations.
And that was where Bertrand Malloy came in.
He had been appointed Minister and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to the Earth-Karn peace conference.
He looked up at the ceiling again. "What can I do?" he said softly.
On the second day after the arrival of the communique, Malloy made his decision. He flipped on his intercom and said: "Miss Drayson, get hold of James Nordon and Kylen Braynek. I want to see them both immediately. Send Nordon in first, and tell Braynek to wait."
"Yes, sir."
"And keep the recorder on. You can file the tape later."
"Yes, sir."
Malloy knew the woman would listen in on the intercom anyway, and it was better to give her permission to do so.
James Nordon was tall, broad-shouldered, and thirty-eight. His hair was graying at the temples, and his handsome face looked cool and efficient.
Malloy waved him to a seat.
"Nordon, I have a job for you. It's probably one of the most important jobs you'll ever have in your life. It can mean big things for you—promotion and prestige if you do it well."
Nordon nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."
Malloy explained the problem of the Karna peace talks.
"We need a man who can outthink them," Malloy finished, "and judging from your record, I think you're that man. It involves risk, of course. If you make the wrong decisions, your name will be mud back on Earth. But I don't think there's much chance of that, really. Do you want to handle small-time operations all your life? Of course not.
"You'll be leaving within an hour for Saarkkad V."
Nordon nodded again. "Yes, sir; certainly. Am I to go alone?"
"No," said Malloy, "I'm sending an assistant with you—a man named Kylen Braynek. Ever heard of him?"
Nordon shook his head. "Not that I recall, Mr. Malloy. Should I have?"
"Not necessarily. He's a pretty shrewd operator, though. He knows a lot about interstellar law, and he's capable of spotting a trap a mile away. You'll be in charge, of course, but I want you to pay special attention to his advice."
"I will, sir," Nordon said gratefully. "A man like that can be useful."
"Right. Now, you go into the anteroom over there. I've prepared a summary of the situation, and you'll have to study it and get it into your head before the ship leaves. That isn't much time, but it's the Karna who are doing the pushing, not us."
As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy said softly: "Send in Braynek, Miss Drayson."
Kylen Braynek was a smallish man with mouse-brown hair that lay flat against his skull, and hard, penetrating, dark eyes that were shadowed by heavy, protruding brows. Malloy asked him to sit down.
Again Malloy went through the explanation of the peace conference.
"Naturally, they'll be trying to trick you every step of the way," Malloy went on. "They're shrewd and underhanded; we'll simply have to be more shrewd and more underhanded. Nordon's job is to sit quietly and evaluate the data; yours will be to find the loopholes they're laying out for themselves and plug them. Don't antagonize them, but don't baby them, either. If you see anything underhanded going on, let Nordon know immediately."
"They won't get anything by me, Mr. Malloy."
By the time the ship from Earth got there, the peace conference had been going on for four days. Bertrand Malloy had full reports on the whole parley, as relayed to him through the ship that had taken Nordon and Braynek to Saarkkad V.
Secretary of State Blendwell stopped off at Saarkkad IV before going on to V to take charge of the conference. He was a tallish, lean man with a few strands of gray hair on the top of his otherwise bald scalp, and he wore a hearty, professional smile that didn't quite make it to his calculating eyes.
He took Malloy's hand and shook it warmly. "How are you, Mr. Ambassador?"
"Fine, Mr. Secretary. How's everything on Earth?"
"Tense. They're waiting to see what is going to happen on Five. So am I, for that matter." His eyes were curious. "You decided not to go yourself, eh?"
"I thought it better not to. I sent a good team, instead. Would you like to see the reports?"
"I certainly would."
Malloy handed them to the secretary, and as he read, Malloy watched him. Blendwell was a political appointee—a good man, Malloy had to admit, but he didn't know all the ins and outs of the Diplomatic Corps.
When Blendwell looked up from the reports at last, he said: "Amazing! They've held off the Karna at every point! They've beaten them back! They've managed to cope with and outdo the finest team of negotiators the Karna could send."
"I thought they would," said Malloy, trying to appear modest.
The secretary's eyes narrowed.