“Right,” I agreed. “About time you learned that.”
I went off to prepare the extradition forms, without a care in the Galaxy. There was Blatch, of course, but he was only a human. And by this time, having gotten involved in all kinds of questionable dealings myself, I was determined to make quick work of him. After all, one might as well get blasted for a skreek as a launt!
But when I returned to escort the Gtetan to his fellow-ameboids, I almost fell through the surface of Pluto. Where there had been one L’payr, there were now two! Smaller L’payrs, of course—half the size of the original, to be exact—but L’payrs unmistakably.
In the interval, he had reproduced!
How? That gargle the Earthman had demanded, Hoy. It had been L’payr’s idea all along, his last bit of insurance. Once the Earthman had received the gargle, he had smuggled it to L’payr, who had hidden it in his cell, intending to use it as a last resort.
That gargle, Hoy, was salt water!
So there I was. The Gtetans informed me that their laws covered such possibilities, but much help their laws were to me.
“A crime has been committed, pornography has been sold,” the spokesman reiterated. “We demand our prisoner. Both of him!”
“Pursuant to Galactic Statutes 6,009,371 through 6,106,514,” Osborne Blatch insisted, “I demand immediate release, restitution to the extent of two billion Galactic Megawhars, a complete and written—”
And …
“It’s probably true that our ancester, L’payr, committed all sorts of indiscretions,” lisped one of the two young ameboids in the cell next to Osborne Blatch, “but what does that have to do with us? L’payr paid for his crimes by dying in childbirth. We are young and innocent. Don’t tell us the big, powerful Galaxy believes in punishing little children for the sins of their parents!”
What would you have done?
I shipped the whole mess off to Patrol Headquarters—the Gtetan extradition party and their mess of judicial citations, Osborne Blatch and his umbrella, the biology textbook, the original bundle of pornographic pictures, and last but not at all least, two—count ’em, two—dewy young ameboids. Call them L’payr sub-one and L’payr sub-two. Do anything you like with them when they get there, but please don’t tell me what it is!
And if you can figure out a solution with the aid of some of the more ancient and wiser heads at headquarters, and figure it out before the Old One ruptures a gloccistomorph, Pah-Chi-Luh and I will be pathetically, eternally grateful.
If not—well, we’re standing by here at Outlying Patrol Office 1001625 with bags packed. There’s something to be said for the Black Hole in Cygnus—invaluable experience for a Patrolman.
Personally, Hoy, I’d say that the whole trouble is caused by creatures who insist on odd and colorful methods of continuing their race, instead of doing it sanely and decently by means of spore-pod explosion!