The Star Beast Read Online Free PDF Page A

Council will emphasize safety precautions and will not include an estimate of deaths—which, after all, is a guess.”
    “Mmm, ‘a guess.’ Yes, of course.” The Secretary put the report down, seemed to lose interest.
    “Anything else, sir?”
    “Oh, yes! Henry, old man, you know that Rargyllian dignitary I am supposed to receive today? Dr. What’s-his-name?”
    “Dr. Ftaeml.” Mr. Kiku glanced at his desk control panel. “Your appointment is, uh, an hour and seven minutes from now.”
    “That’s just it. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to substitute. Apologies to him and so forth. Tell him I’m tied up with affairs of state.”
    “Sir? I wouldn’t advise that. He will expect to be received by an official of your rank…and the Rargyllians are extremely meticulous about protocol.”
    “Oh, come now, this native won’t know the difference.”
    “But he will, sir.”
    “Well, let him think that you’re me… I don’t care. But I won’t be here and that’s that The Secretary General has invited me to go to the ball game with him—and an invitation from the S. G. is a ‘must,’ y’know.”
    Mr. Kiku knew that it was nothing of the sort, had the commitment been explained. But he shut up. “Very well, sir.”
    “Thanks, old chap.” The Secretary left, again whistling.
    When the door closed, Mr. Kiku with an angry gesture slapped a row of switches on the desk panel He was locked in now and could not be reached by phone, video, tube, autowriter, or any other means, save by an alarm button which his own secretary had used only once in twelve years. He leaned elbows on his desk, covered his head with his hands and rubbed his fingers through his woolly pate.
    This trouble, that trouble, the other trouble…and always some moron to jiggle his elbow! Why had he ever left Africa? Where came this itch for public service? An itch that had long, since turned into mere habit…
    He sat up and opened his middle drawer. It was bulging with real estate prospectuses from Kenya; he took out a handful and soon was comparing relative merits of farms. Now here was a little honey, if a man had the price—better than eight hundred acres, half of it in cultivation, and seven proved wells on the property. He looked at map and photographs and presently felt better. After a while he put them away and closed the drawer.
    He was forced to admit that, while what he had told the chief was true, his own nervous reaction came mostly from his life-long fear of snakes. If Dr. Ftaeml were anything but a Rargyllian…or if the Rargyllians had not been medusa humanoids, he wouldn’t have minded. Of course, he knew that those tentacles growing out of a Rargyllian’s head were not snakes—but his stomach didn’t know it. He would have to find time for a hypnotic treatment before—no, there wasn’t time; he’d have to take a pill instead.
    Sighing, he flipped the switches back on. His incoming basket started to fill up at once and all the communication instruments showed lights. But the lights were amber rather than blinking red; he ignored them and glanced through the stuff falling into his basket. Most of the items were for his information only: under doctrine his subordinates or their subordinates had taken action. Occasionally he would check a name and a suggested action and drop the sheet in the gaping mouth of the outgoing basket.
    A radiotype came in that was not routine, in that it concerned a creature alleged to be extra-terrestrial but unclassified as to type and origin. The incident involved seemed unimportant—some nonsense in one of the native villages in the western part of the continent. But the factor of an extra-terrestrial creature automatically required the local police to report it to Spatial Affairs, and the lack of classification of the e.-t. prevented action under doctrine and resulted in the report being kicked upstairs.
    Mr. Kiku had never seen Lummox and would have had no special interest if he had. But