"H. Beam Piper - Lone Star Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

and a couple of hats with four-inch brims.

And there was a wide leather belt, practically a leather corset.

I stared at the belt, wondering if I was really seeing what was in front of me.

Attached to the belt were a pair of pistols in right- and left-hand holsters. The pistols were seven-mm
Krupp-Tatta Ultraspeed automatics, and the holsters were the spring-ejection, quick-draw holsters
which were the secret of the State Department Special Services.

This must be a mistake, I thought. I'm an Ambassador now and Ambassadors never carry weapons.

The sanctity of an Ambassador's person not only made the carrying of weapons unnecessary, so that an
armed Ambassador was a contradiction of diplomatic terms, but it would be an outrageous insult to the
nation to which he had been accredited.

Like taking a poison-taster to a friendly dinner.

Maybe I was supposed to give the belt and the holsters to Hoddy Ringo....

So I tore the sealed band off the second notebook and read through it.

I was to wear the local costume on New Texas. That was something unusual; even in the Hooligan
Diplomats, we leaned over backward in wearing Terran costume to distinguish ourselves from the people
among whom we worked.

I was further advised to start wearing the high boots immediately, on shipboard, to accustom myself to
the heels. These, I was informed, were traditional. They had served a useful purpose, in the early days on
Terran Texas, when all travel had been on horseback. On horseless and mechanized New Texas, they
were a useless but venerated part of the cultural heritage.

There were bits of advice about the hat, and the trousers, which for some obscure reason were known as
Levis. And I was informed, as an order, that I was to wear the belt and the pistols at all times outside the
Embassy itself.

That was all of the second notebook.

The two notebooks, plus my conversation with Ghopal, Kl├╝ng and Natalenko, completed my briefing for
my new post.

I slid off my shoes and pulled on a pair of boots. They fitted perfectly. Evidently I had been tapped for
this job as soon as word of Silas Cumshaw's death had reached Luna and there must have been some
fantastic hurrying to get my outfit ready.
I didn't like that any too well, and I liked the order to carry the pistols even less. Not that I had any
objection to carrying weapons, per se: I had been born and raised on Theta Virgo IV, where the children
aren't allowed outside the house unattended until they've learned to shoot.

But I did have strenuous objections to being sent, virtually ignorant of local customs, on a mission where I
was ordered to commit deliberate provocation of the local government, immediately on the heels of my
predecessor's violent death.