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“You have seen that we are going to be a power in the land for a long time to come,” Liu Han said. “Give us a share in ruling China. It is possible that you might control foreign affairs. But we can share in administering the land.”
But Relhost said, “No,” again. He said it with as little hesitation as he’d used before. He went on, “You want us to admit you have some legitimate right to be part of the government of China. We will never do that. This land is ours, and we intend to keep it.”
“Then the fight will go on,” Liu Han warned.
“Truth,” Relhost said. “The fight will go on. It will go on, and we will win it. You would do better to accept that now, and to live within the Empire. You could become valued partners in it.”
“Partners?” Liu Han asked sardonically. “Partners are equals. You have just said we cannot be equals.”
“Valued subjects, then.” Relhost sounded cross that she had pointed out the contradiction.
“We should not be subjects in our own land,” Liu Han said. “We will not be subjects in our own land. That is why the fight goes on. That is why it will go on.”
“We shall win it,” the little scaly devil said.
Maybe he was right. Liu Han still had faith in the historical dialectic, but less than she’d had when she was younger. And the scaly devils had their own ideology of historical inevitability to sustain them. They believed in what they were doing every bit as much as the People’s Liberation Army believed in its mission.
“I will send you back to your own side under safe-conduct,” said the little scaly devil who was a general. “The war will continue. We will never agree to your independence. We will never agree to your autonomy.”
“You will never defeat us.” Liu Han wondered, not for the first time, whether she would live long enough to find out if she was right.
Queek, the Race’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, was in a worse temper than usual. “Here, Comrade General Secretary,” he said to Vyacheslav Molotov through his Polish interpreter, who as usual seemed to be enjoying himself. “I insist that you examine these photographs.”
Molotov put on his reading glasses and looked at them. “I see a number of explosions,” he said. “So what?”
“This caravan was intercepted from the air just on the Chinese side of the border with the USSR,” Queek said. “These explosions you are generous enough to notice prove that it was carrying munitions-very large quantities of munitions.”
“So what?” Molotov repeated. “The Chinese are in rebellion against you. Why is it surprising that they should use large quantities of munitions?”
“By everything we have seen, the Chinese are incapable of manufacturing many of these munitions for themselves,” Queek said. “This leads us to the conclusion that the Soviet Union is supplying them.”
“You have no proof of that whatever,” Molotov said. “I deny it, as I have denied it whenever you have made that accusation.”
“These photographs prove-” the Lizard began.
“Nothing,” Molotov broke in. “If they were taken on the Chinese side-your side-of the border, they prove nothing about what my country is doing.”
“Where else would the bandits and rebels in China have come up with such advanced weapons?” the Lizards’ ambassador said. “They cannot make these weapons for themselves. The caravan carrying the weapons was intercepted near the USSR’s border. Do you seriously expect the Race to believe even for a moment that the Soviet Union had nothing to do with them?”
“Were any of these weapons of Soviet manufacture?” Molotov asked-a little apprehensively, because there was always the chance that the Red Army, in its zeal to arm the People’s Liberation Army, might have ignored his orders against such a blunder and added Soviet weapons to those obtained from the Reich.
But Queek said, “No. They were made by the Germans and Americans.”
Molotov was confident his relief didn’t show. Nothing showed unless he wanted it to, and he never wanted it to. And, as a matter of fact, the USSR hadn’t supplied the Chinese with many American weapons lately. Nice to know we really are innocent of something, he thought. It makes my protestations all the more convincing.
He said, “In that case, you would do better to talk with the Germans and Americans, don’t you think, instead of making these outrageous false charges against the peace-loving workers and peasants of the Soviet Union.”
“We do not necessarily view them as false,” Queek said. “The Race understands that it is far from impossible to obtain weapons from the nation that manufactured them, and then to pass them on to bandits who support your ideology.”
“On the basis of this presumption, you have made these provocative charges against the Soviet Union,” Molotov said. “In view of the unsettled state of the world this past year, do you not think you would be wise to avoid provocation?”
“Do you not think you would be wiser to keep from provoking us?” the Lizard returned.
“As I have repeatedly told you, I deny that we have done any such thing, and it is plain that you have no proof whatever of any guilt on our part,” Molotov said. Had the Race had any such proof, life would have grown more interesting than he really cared to deal with. He went on, “You might also inquire of the Japanese, who had their own imperialist ambitions in China before the Race came to Earth.”
“We are doing so,” Queek answered. “But they deny any part in supporting these bandits, who, as they accurately point out, are ideologically aligned with the USSR, not with Japan.”
“They might well support them anyhow, merely for the sake of giving you trouble,” Molotov answered. “Has this concept never occurred to you?”
“Before we came to Tosev 3, it probably would not have,” Queek said. “You Tosevites have taught us several interesting lessons on the uses of duplicity. If we are less trusting now than we were just after we arrived, you have only yourselves to blame.”
That, no doubt, held a lot of truth. But it had nothing to do with the business at hand. “You had proof against the Germans,” Molotov said, “the best proof of all: they attacked you. You had proof against the Americans, because of the defector. With proof, war becomes justified. To threaten war without proof is foolhardy. I insist that you convey my strongest possible protest to the fleetlord. I demand a formal apology from the Race for making these unfounded and unwarranted accusations against the Soviet Union. We have done nothing to deserve them.”
He sounded vehement, even passionate. Queek spoke in the Lizards’ language. The interpreter sounded downcast as he translated: “I shall convey your insistence and your demand to the fleetlord. I cannot predict how he will respond.”
An apology, of course, would cost Atvar nothing but pride. Sometimes that mattered very much to the Lizards. Sometimes it seemed not to matter at all. They were less predictable than people that way.
But then Queek went on, “It may be that we have no proof of the kind you describe, Comrade General Secretary. Regardless of your protests and your bluster, however, you must never forget that we do have a great deal of circumstantial evidence linking the USSR to these weapons. If the evidence ever becomes more than circumstantial, the Soviet Unio
n will pay a heavy price-and it will be all the heavier to punish you for your deceit.”
“As you must know, the peace-loving workers and peasants of the Soviet Union are prepared to defend themselves against imperialist aggression from any enemies,” Molotov answered, once more suppressing a nasty stab of fear. “We taught both the Nazis and the Race as much a generation ago. Our means of defense now are more formidable than they were then. And, just as we were prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, you may reasonably expect that the USA will also stand shoulder to shoulder with us.”
He had no idea whether the Lizards could reasonably expect any such thing. Harold Stassen would act in what he reckoned his nation’s self-interest, and Molotov had no good grip on that. He also had no notion whether Stassen would be reelected in 1968; political writers in the United States seemed dubious about his prospects. But Queek couldn’t readily disprove his claim.
And it seemed to rock the Lizard. It rocked him, in fact, a good deal more than Molotov had thought it would. Queek said, “You have told us to mind our own business in our dealings with you. Now I tell you to mind your own business in respect to our dealings with the United States. You would be wise to heed and obey.”
Well, well, Molotov thought. Yes, that was a more interesting response than he’d looked for. He wondered what had happened between the Lizards and the Americans to prompt it. No new crisis had come to the notice of the GRU or the NKVD. The NKVD, of course, was not what it had been. Damn Beria anyhow, Molotov thought, as he did whenever that unpalatable truth forced itself to his attention.
Aloud, he said, “I was not speaking of your dealings with the United States, but of my own country’s. I have no control over how you and the Americans deal between yourselves, any more than you have control over how we and the Americans deal between ourselves.” He yielded a little ground there, or seemed to, without committing himself to anything.
Queek said, “I have told you everything the fleetlord instructed me to convey. For your benefit, I shall repeat the gist: do not meddle in China, or you will regret it.”
