The story of a junior diplomat and his first posting to a planet of Texans whose dinosaur-sized cattle have to be herded with tanks, and whose system of government derives its character from Mencken's 1924 essay "The Malevolent Jobholder," -- a system under which the killing of a practicing politician is considered justifiable homicide!
killed trouble."
So he was a bodyguard ... and I wondered what else he was. One thing, it would take him forty-two years to send a radio message back to Luna, and I could keep track of any other messages he sent, in letters or on tape, by ships. In the end, I transcribed my own tape, and settled down to laying out my three weeks' study-course on my new post.
I found, however, that the whole thing could be learned in a few hours. The rest of what I had was duplication, some of it contradictory, and it all boiled down to this:
Capella IV had been settled during the first wave of extrasolar colonization, after the Fourth World--or First Interplanetary--War. Some time around 2100. The settlers had come from a place in North America called Texas, one of the old United States. They had a lengthy history--independent republic, admission to the United States, secession from the United States, reconquest by the United States, and general intransigence under the United States, the United Nations a
Yeeee haw! OK, it's an entire planet run by Texans, using frontier law. Once you can suspend your disbelief over that one it's a pretty entertaining bit of space opera.
