Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [115]
“Go ahead and register,” Herringale told him. Something was rising within the career diplomat, and he fought hard to suppress it. Professional self-control was a major reason, after all, why he had been chosen for this morning’s work. “It is possible your complaint will arrive before my government’s formal declaration of war.”
The ambassador finally showed some emotion, though it was as subdued as all such Pitarian reactions. “What kind of joke are you making? You can’t mean that your people would begin a war based on a single recording purportedly made by a lone human?”
“The recording has been validated. Mr. Mallory’s reminiscences have been validated. The decision of the world council was unanimous. The colonies have been informed, and their respective individual councils wholeheartedly concur. In effect, the war has already begun. It will be interesting to observe the consequences. There are those pundits who insist that interstellar war is an oxymoron. We are about to find out.” Despite efforts to control himself, his tone darkened somewhat. “Your people are about to find out.”
“Is there no stopping this travesty?”
Herringale gazed up at the much taller alien. He found that he was not intimidated. “Beginning at six o’clock tonight, Greenwich mean time, the recording made by Mr. Mallory will be broadcast across the planet and on all the colonies. It will be flanked by detailed information explaining the nature of the recording and how it came to be. The program will be followed by the official announcement of mobilization. Reservists are already reporting to their positions and their ships. I have been asked to conclude this meeting, Ambassador Suin, by informing you that you and your entire staff are under arrest, and heretofore should regard yourselves as prisoners of war.” This time it was the sallow-faced human who smiled.
“You cannot reciprocate, of course, since you have never allowed us to establish a formal mission on either of the Twin Worlds. In the light of what we now know, such puzzling decisions on your part strike us as ever more suspicious.”
“Are there to be no ends to these insults?” Suin drew himself up to his full, impressive height. “By your own laws, my staff and I have diplomatic immunity.”
“I’m sorry, but after viewing that recording there is little inclination among any of my people, be they members of the diplomatic corps or the local janitorial staff or the general populace, to grant any kind of immunity to any Pitar. In fact, I can honestly say that if the privilege were bestowed upon me, I would take great pleasure in cutting you into smaller and smaller pieces of raw meat right here in this room, even at the risk of permanently staining a very expensive and historically important floor covering.”
Suin was striding toward the doorway. “I refuse to stand here and be subjected to continued insult and innuendo.”
“You don’t have to,” Herringale called after him. “You can keep going and be subject to continued insult and innuendo later.”
Herringale was not quite finished with the ambassador. Confronted beyond the doorway by a quartet of heavily armed and armored security personnel, the Pitar surprised them by drawing a weapon of unknown type from a hidden compartment within his left pants leg. It must have been a well-shielded compartment in order for the diplomat to have successfully blinded the security scanners that monitored all comings and goings to the inner chancellery. There was no need for a diplomat to carry a weapon, Herringale mused as he ducked down behind one of the chairs, unless the possessor had something to fear—or was particularly paranoid.
They never found out in Suin’s case because, after wounding two of the guards, the Pitarian ambassador died in a blaze of gunfire as he attempted to flee the building. An offer to remand the remainder of his colleagues into protective custody was declined with disdain. Following the general broadcast of the Mallory record, as it came to be known, a mob stormed the building housing the Pitarian