AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The same thought has occurred to me,” Atvar said. “I would be lying if I said it filled my liver with delight.”
“Immediate war might still be our best course,” Risson said. “I do not want it. I do not think our chances are good. But if they only grow worse, perhaps we should send that message, no matter how many years it takes to arrive.”
Atvar made the negative gesture. “No, your Majesty,” he said, and used an emphatic cough. “This same thought occurred to me, but it would be a disaster. Consider: the Big Uglies must see this is one of our options. If they put one of their ships in line between our solar system and the star Tosev, they can intercept our signal, return to Tosev 3, and be ready to attack or defend against whatever we send from here, whichever suits them better, years before the colonists have any idea they are supposed to help us go to war.”
Risson did consider, for some little while. At last, with obvious reluctance, he made the affirmative gesture. “Well, Fleetlord, that is a truth. It is not a palatable truth, but a truth it is.”
“I can see one way around it,” Atvar said. “If we were to have a passenger on their starship, that male or female could deliver a message to Fleetlord Reffet and Fleetlord Kirel. That way, the delay would be overcome.”
“You are clever, Fleetlord. Unfortunately, the Big Uglies have thought of the same thing,” Risson said. “They will let us have passengers, but they will not let them communicate with members of the Race on Tosev 3 in any way, citing exactly the danger you named.”
With an unhappy hiss, Atvar said, “That cursed Straha told me the same thing. I had forgotten-my apologies, your Majesty. We have been too naive for too long; deceit does not come naturally to us any more.”
“Instead of what we call diplomats, maybe we should have sent a shipload of azwaca-hide dealers to Tosev 3,” the Emperor said. “They always have an eye turret on the main chance, and might have done better at getting what we need out of the Big Uglies.”
“You should tell that one to your diplomatic aides, your Majesty. It holds much truth,” Atvar said. Until the conquest fleet faltered on Tosev 3, Emperors had not needed diplomatic aides since Home was unified. The very word ambassador was obsolete in the Empire, preserved only in historical fiction. On Tosev 3, it had hatched out of the eggshell of dormancy once more.
“I would not wish to make them unhappy,” Risson said. “They try their best. We have all tried our best. Sometimes… Sometimes things do not fall out as we wish they would. I have no idea what is to be done about this, except to go on doing the best we can.”
“If we do not do that, we will fail,” Atvar said. “Of course, even if we do, we may well fail anyhow.”
“This thought has also crossed my mind,” Risson said. “It is one of the reasons I have not slept well since this new starship came here. Having the other one in orbit above me, knowing some missile was bound to be aimed at this palace, was bad enough. But this one, this one we cannot imitate, let alone surpass-this is very bad. And do you know what else?”
“No, your Majesty. What else?” Atvar asked.
The 37th Emperor Risson let out an indignant hiss. “You will not be surprised to learn we have Tosevite encyclopedias here on Home,” he said. “What better way to learn about the Big Uglies than through their own words? Some of our scholars who read English have investigated the American Tosevites after whom these two starships were named.” He hissed again, even more irately than before.
“And?” Atvar asked, as the Emperor surely meant him to do.
“And the first ship, the Admiral Peary, is named for the Big Ugly who first reached the North Pole on Tosev 3,” Risson said. “That was surely a Big Ugly who went into the unknown, and so his is a good name to give an early starship. But the Commodore Perry… ” He hissed one more time. “This Commodore Perry traveled by sea from the United States to the islands of Nippon, where he forced the Nipponese into concluding trade agreements with him because of the strength of his warships. Is this a deliberate insult to us? Do the Americans reckon us similar barbarians to exploit as they please?”
“Today, your Majesty, the Nipponese are no more-and no less-barbarous than any other wild Big Uglies,” Atvar replied. “And-” He broke off.
Not soon enough. “Yes?” Risson prodded.
Atvar wished he’d kept quiet. Now he had to go on with his thought, such as it was: “I was going to say, your Majesty, that I understand the analogy the Big Uglies may have been drawing. Commodore Perry could travel by sea to the Nipponese. They could not travel by sea on their own to the land he came from. We are in a like situation in regard to that second starship.”
Risson stiffened. Atvar wondered if he would be sent away, never to see his sovereign again. Then, to his vast relief, the Emperor laughed. “Well, Fleetlord, you have made your point, I must say. That analogy has more teeth than I wish it did. Until we can match the Tosevites’ prowess, maybe we are in truth no better than semibarbarians.”
“For many millennia, we have believed ourselves to stand at the pinnacle of biological and social evolution,” Atvar said. “And why not? Our society was successful and stable. We easily overcame the other intelligent species we met and remolded their cultures and their worlds in the image of ours. Who could oppose us? Who could show us there were other ways of doing things?” He laughed, too, bitterly. “Well, now we know the answer to that.”
“Yes. Now we know.” Risson’s voice was heavy with worry. “But thinking we were superior to all around us helped make us that way in fact… for a long time. Now that we see we are not at the pinnacle, as you said, will we begin to view ourselves as permanently inferior to the Big Uglies? That could also become a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know.”
The fleetlord didn’t answer right away. He’d had more experience worrying about Big Uglies than perhaps any other member of the Race. What worried him more than anything else was that they needed to be worried about. When the conquest fleet first landed, the Tosevites had used numbers and appalling heroism and even more appalling deceit to make up for their technological deficit. More appalling still was how fast that deficit had shrunk. And now… Yes. And now, Atvar thought.
“As you said, your Majesty, we have to do the best we can,” he said at last. “They learned from us. For a while now, we will have to learn from them. And then, with a little luck, we can learn from each other. One thing this breakthrough will do: it will mean both the Tosevites and we can colonize much more widely than ever before. Both sides are vulnerable now because we are so concentrated. If we have colonies on hundreds of worlds rather than a handful, the situation changes.”
It was Risson’s turn to stop and think. “The Empire would not be the same. It would not, it could not, hope to hold together.”
“Probably not, your Majesty,” Atvar said. “But the Race would survive. In the end, is that not the most important thing?” Risson thought again, then used the affirmative gesture.
Now that Kassquit knew what Ttomalss had not wanted to tell her about, she also understood why her mentor and the Emperor had been so unwilling. Nothing would ever be the same again for th
e Empire. The Race, convinced faster-than-light travel was impossible, hadn’t seriously looked for it. For the Big Uglies, impossible seemed nothing but a word to get around. And now they’d got around it. If the Race couldn’t, it would find itself in deadly peril.
She’d wondered if she would have mixed feelings about what the American Tosevites had done. They were, after all, her own kin, far more than any members of the Race could have been. She might have shared some of the pride at their achievement. She had before, over smaller things.
But she didn’t, not because of this. This terrified her. She could see the danger it represented to the Empire. As long as the Big Uglies had this technology and the Race didn’t, the planets of the Empire lived on Tosevite sufferance.
“Do not worry, not on account of this,” Frank Coffey told her after she poured out her alarm to him in her room one afternoon. “Remember, this is the United States that has this technology. My not-empire will not do anything to touch off a war against the Race.”
“No?” Kassquit said. “I am sure the millions your not-empire killed in the attack on the colonization fleet would be ever so relieved to hear that.”
Coffey did have the grace to wince. He spread his hands, palms up. The paler skin there and on the soles of his feet, so different from the rest of his body, never failed to fascinate Kassquit. He said, “That was a long time ago. We would not do such a thing now.”
“Oh? Are you certain? If your not-emperor gave the order, would your soldiers disobey it?” Kassquit asked. “Or would they do as they were told?”
“Our not-emperor would not give such an order,” Coffey said, though he didn’t tell her how he knew such a thing. “And if he-or she-did give it, not all soldiers would obey. Remember, Sam Yeager is our ambassador to the Race. He was a soldier who disobeyed.”
“Yes, and was sent into exile because of it,” Kassquit said. “He would not be ambassador if the Doctor had lived, and he will not stay ambassador now that the new ship is here. Nor will the newcomers allow him to go back to Tosev 3. So much for the respect he won for disobeying orders.”
