The Second Mack Reynolds Megapack. Mack Reynolds

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Right now. They might go away and not come back. ”

      “Yes, sir.”

      There were three of them all right and they came in assorted sizes ranging from a six-footer pushing three hundred pounds to a five-footer pushing ninety pounds. The one in the middle averaged out neatly.

      Mortimer Dowling shook hands with enthusiasm. “You have no idea how pleasant it is to meet you chaps,” he said. “Our records show that the last full-blooded Indian died ten years ago. Where have you been keeping yourselves? Miss Fullbright, chairs for these gentlemen.”

      When they were seated, Mortimer Dowling looked them over happily. They were Indians all right, all right. You could see they were real Indians.

      Mortimer Dowling said, “Yes, sir, a real pleasure. Now then, what can we do for you? The Department of Indian Affairs places its full resources at your disposal, gentlemen.”

      The one in the middle said, “We’re Seminoles. We’ve come to sign a treaty.”

      Mortimer Dowling’s face went blank. “Seminoles?” he said. “A treaty?”

      They gave him one concerted nod, lapsed back into frozen-faced silence. Oh, they were Indians all right.

      Mortimer Dowling cleared his throat. “Look here, the government of the United States cleared up all its Indian difficulties over a century ago. We signed final treaties with every tribe.”

      “Except the Seminoles,” the one in the middle said. “We represent the Seminoles.” He indicated his hefty companion to the right. “This is Charlie Horse and I’m Fuller Bull, and...”

      “You’re what?”

      “Who, not what,” the Indian said strictly. “I’m Fuller Bull.”

      “Oh,” Mortimer Dowling said. “I thought you said— never mind.” He looked at the small one and tried to place the conversation back on a lighter level with a bon mot. “And I suppose this is Chicken Little.”

      “And this is Osceola the Eighteenth,” Fuller Bull said. “We call him Junior.”

      Junior spoke up for the first time. “For your information, the three of us took our LL.D.s at Harvard. We carry powers of attorney for all fifty-five of the other surviving members of the Seminole tribe.”

      “Fifty-five?” Mortimer Dowling was astounded. “You mean there are fifty-five more of you?”

      “Correct,” Charlie Horse said. “And we’ve come to sign a treaty between the Seminole Nation and the United States of America.”

      Already Mortimer Dowling was beginning to feel a bead of very cold sweat forming on his forehead. He said anxiously, “Miss Fullbright. Please. The file on the Seminole Indian Nation.”

      “Yes, sir,” Millie said. She scooted out. Came scooting back in mere moments, a thin file held in both hands. She put the file before him.

      Mortimer Dowling renewed his information on the Seminoles quickly. Scanned paper after paper. Emitted occasional grunts. Finally he looked up at them in satisfaction.

      “Now,” he said definitely, “I don’t know what your game is, but it won’t work. More than a century ago, the whole world went through a period of settling its difficulties with its minorities. World opinion grew so strong that not a major power on earth dared do otherwise. Why, even the Sino-Soviet Complex freed its satellites—of course, by that time there was nobody left in the satellites except good commies, so they immediately applied for readmission. However, that’s beside the point. The point is that the United States reviewed every dealing we had ever had with every Indian tribe. Settling all the Indian questions beggared the United States treasury, but we satisfied them all—every tribe, every member of every tribe.” He let his eyes go ceilingward for a moment. “As I recall, the hardest to please were the Delawares. There were only three hundred seventy-five of them left, and they got a million dollars apiece.”

      “Peanuts,” Charlie Horse said.

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Peanuts,” said Charlie Horse.

      Mortimer Dowling thumped the papers before him with an emphatic fingertip. “When we attempted to contact the Seminoles we found there were none to contact. They were all gone. The only ones we could find were along the Tamiami Trail and at Silver Springs selling baby alligators and souvenirs made in Japan to the tourists. It turned out they were all Armenians, making an honest living. No Seminoles left.”

      “We went underground,” Junior said.

      Mortimer Dowling gaped at him. “What?” he said.

      “We went underground,” Junior told him. “We realized that the longer we could put off our final settlement with the government, the better off we’d be. Look at history. The great powers start off by butchering the aborigines of the countries they conquer. Then, as time goes by, their conscience begins to hurt and they make wards of those that are left. More time goes by and they begin to wax really sentimental. They seek out the very last survivors and load them with honors, with privileges, sometimes with positions superior even to their own citizens. Look at the British and the Tasmanians, the New Zealanders and the Maoris, the Swiss in Switzerland.”

      Millie cleared her throat. “What happened to the Swiss?”

      “Finally there were so many more tourists in the country than Swiss that they began to thin out. Like the Chinese used to do, with invaders, only sort of in reverse. The tourist hordes interbred with the Swiss until finally you couldn’t find a full-blooded one. The last man who could yodel died in Berne, twenty years ago.”

      Mortimer Dowling said severely, “Let’s get back to the point.”

      “The point is,” Charlie Horse said, “that the United States has no treaty with the Seminole Indian Nation. We didn’t sign up when everybody else did. We realized the tribe would benefit more if we hid out, kept secret our existence, put off signing for a full century.”

      There was another bead of sweat on Mortimer Dowling’s forehead.

      He said weakly, “I assume you have proof, that you can prove that your fifty-eight Seminoles are all full-blooded Indians?”

      Junior said, “We’ve planned this, remember, for a whole century. We’ve studied every aspect. There are no loopholes by which you can escape. The United States is the only nation on earth that has not settled its problems with all its minorities. You can imagine the impact of public opinion upon you, if this hits the world’s headlines.”

      Mortimer Dowling said hoarsely, “I have before me the treaty we had prepared a hundred years ago. It offers every Seminole one hundred thousand dollars to settle all claims against the United States.”

      Fuller Bull chuckled his sarcasm. Junior and Charlie Horse didn’t even bother to do that.

      Mortimer Dowling said, “I’ll up it. I’ll promise you the same as the Delawares got. A million dollars apiece for every man, woman and child in the tribe.”

      They gave him the oatmeal look.

      Mortimer СКАЧАТЬ