President Wolff and President Razar had a meeting for tea and go fish.

President Wolff had a spiny gray beard that scooped up his doughy face so it wouldn’t slip down his collar, and a fleet of spaceships with guns that he sometimes ordered off to go settle some far away planets.

President Razar was actually a woman in disguise, but that is hardly the point. He forgot he was a woman, anyway, since if he remembered he might have let it slip to President Wolff, and then where would he be> So he wore a false beard and a stiff suit so that he would be allowed to have a fleet of spaceships with guns that he could sometimes order off to settle some far away planets whenever he felt like it.

The presidents Wolff and Razar weren’t exactly sure which countries they were each the president of. They knew that they had to be from different countries, since they couldn’t have been the president at the same time, but they just didn’t know which. President Wolff knew he lived in a palace. And President Razar knew he lived in a bigger palace. So when they thought about it like that, it didn’t really matter what countries they lived in, anyway.

They were generally sure, however, that they did live on the same planet, since President Wolff could meet President Razar for tea and go fish without getting on a spaceship. He was the commander in chief of some sort of intergalactic air force, he had been told, and had never once been in the air.

“Have you got any nines?” said President Razar, sipping his tea.

“Go fish.” said President Wolff, stirring in a cube of sugar. “Do you take cream in your tea?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any sixes?”

“Go fish.”

President Wolff went fish, and caught nothing but a three.

“Dammit.” he hissed.

“Pardon me, sirs?” a voice came from the door. It was Beverly, the secretary, who filed reports of which planets President Wolff owned and which planets President Razar owned and which planets were still owned by people who had ever set foot on them. Beverly was actually a man disguised as a woman, but that is hardly the point, either. She, too, had forgotten she was a man, and if she had let that slip it would have meant an end to her career. A man couldn’t know all the intimate details of who owned which far-away planets, because he could use that information to get them for himself. As had been proved in the case of President Razar, a woman could do nothing with a fleet of spaceships and guns. It wouldn’t matter if a woman filed and typed up all the galaxy’s secrets, because she couldn’t have done anything with them anyway.

Both presidents ignored her.

“Language!” President Razar scolded President Wolff. “Have you got any sixes?”

“Pardon me, sirs!” Beverly said again.

“We don’t need any more tea!” President Razar snapped.

“It’s not that.” said Beverly timidly. “There’s been a call from the intergalactic general. President Wolff, one of your planets have been--repossessed.”

“Oh, phooey!” President Wolff spat. “Repossessed by whom?”

“A fleet of ships.”

“Oh, well.”

“A fleet of President Razar’s ships.”

“Oh, hell!” cried President Wolff. ‘How dare you! How did you dare recapture...recapture...er...Bev, sweetheart?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Which planet was it again?”

“The general didn’t say.”

“How dare you!” President Wolff went back to exploding. “You colonized my planet; I thought we were friends!”

President Razar rubbed his neck. “Gee. This is a tad embarrassing. i...er...I rather forgot I sent those ships out. Oh,. well. It’s not like I can do anything about it, can I?” he chuckled and sipped his tea. Say, have you got any sixes?”

“No.” President Wolff pouted. “No, I have not got any sixes. Nor have I got planet...whatever it was.”

“Come now, friend, I know you’ve got sixes. You just asked me for sixes before you went fish.”

“Well, you should go fish again!”

“Come on, now.”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you the sixes if you can name the planet you stole.”

President Razar frowned for a moment. “I’ll tell you what.” he said finally. “I’ll stop asking if you can name the planet I stole.”

Because neither could, they restarted the game and poured more tea.

“Do you take--”

“Yes, I take cream in my tea!” President Razar snapped.

Beverly scurried back in. “Pardon me, sirs.”

“What.” barked President Wolff.

“The general called back,” said Beverly meekly, “And he wants me to tell you President Wolff’s ships just wied out all of President Razar’s ships and the planet’s natives, no the planet now belongs to President Wolff.”

“Oh, goody!” chortled President Wolff, pleasantly surprised.

“When exactly did this happen?”

“Not one minute ago, sir.” Beverly beamed. “A spot of top notch military command on your part, if I do say so myself.”

“Yes.” agreed President Wolff. “Yes, I really was, wasn’t it? Bring us more cream, will you? That is, if President Razar likes--”

“Yes, I like cream in my tea!” snarled a sulking President Razar.

“Yes, sir.” Beverly tiptoed out.

“You know what?” President Wolff smirked, “”I’m feeling generous today. I think I will let you have some sixes! After all, you are the less fortunate.” He rifled through the entire deck and placed every six he found face-up across the table. “There, buddy. How do you feel now?”

President Razar pushed the pile of sixes onto the ground with one swift flick of his wrist, and that was all it took for the both of them to pretend that there had never been a number between five and seven there at all. “Have. You. Got. Any. Twos?” punctuated the president.

“You got me there!” President Wolff chuckled. “I have got some twos. Two of them, in fact. Here--” he laid them out in front of President Razar with a fanfare. “Would you look at that? Now could you please pass the sugar?”

President Razar chucked the sugar dish as the wall, and it exploded into a sweet, sweet mess.

“Oops.”

“Now, really!” President Wolff cried. “Beverly! Beverly, get in here!”

Beverly sauntered in, holding the cream that had been asked for.

“Bev, sweetheart, would you look at that,” said President Wolff with three clicks of his tongue, “President Raxar has let his temper get the best of him. Why don’t you clean that up for us?”

“Yes, sir.” said Beverly. “Let me just pour in the cream. Do you like cream in your tea, President Razar?”

President Razar said nothing and ripped an ace of hearts in two.

“Since I’m in here,” said Beverly, stooped over the mountain of sugar, “There was another call from the general.”

“Oh good!” president Razar perked up. “What did he say?”

“He said some more of President Razar’s ships overcame President Wolff’s”

“Drat!” spat President Wolff.

“But then those pilots were all killed by President Wolff’s Pilots.”

“Oh, goody, goody!” President Wolff clapped his hands in delight.

“But then,” Beverly continued, “President Razar had a stroke of military genius not one minute ago and ordered more ships. And now...well…”

“Well what?” demanded President Razar, on the edge of his seat.

“It probably took em years to come up with a brilliant command like that, did it pay off or not?”

“I don’t think I should say.” Beverly blushed. “I wouldn’t want to ruin such a good game of go fish.”

President Wolff swept the whole table clean with one strike of his arm. Cards fluttered down like overly ambitious baby birds trying to fly, and died on the ground much like a hatchling would.

“Here, now there’s nothing to ruin.”

“Well, alright. I’ll tell you what.” Beverly said coyly, “I’ll tap the shoulder of the man whose ships are occupying the planet. But only if you promise not to say a word of it afterwards.”

“We promise!” chimed the presidents Wolff and Razar.

Beverly bent down so that her chest of brushing the card table and put one perfectly manicured hard around each president’s neck. “Alright.” she whispered. “I’m going to tap the winning man’s shoulder right--now!”

The deed was done. Beverly, giggling, scurried from the room with a dustpan full of shattered sugar dish.

“Say, friend,” said a considerably more pleasant President Razar, "Why don’t you keep those sixes? You deserve them!”

“Oh no, oh no!” cried President Wolff, who was in remarkably better spirits. “You can have my sixes. Take some threes, too!”

Meanwhile, Beverly was typing commands into a computer rapidfire. Obviously, she has tapped both presidential shoulders. And obviously, it had been she who was so brilliantly commanding both fleets of ships the whole time. Neither President Wolff nor President Razar had control over the planet. It was Beverly who killed the natives, Beverly who let the fleets destroy each other, and Beverly who had exploited the information she received in disguise to settle planets for whatever her own country was.  But for the life of her, she could not remember that priceless planet’s name.