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not believe it will be easy, either. We are more sensible than they are, but without a doubt they are more nimble.”
“I was hoping you would tell me something else,” Risson said with a sigh of his own. “Your view closely matches those of my other advisers. This being so, our view of negotiations with the American Big Uglies necessarily changes, too, would you not agree?”
“I would,” Atvar said. “I have begun to take a less compromising line with Sam Yeager. We are likely to be stronger now than in the future. Any bargains we make should reflect our current strength.”
“Good. Very good. Again, I agree,” Risson said. “I also wonder how much the Big Uglies here know about the research back on their own planet. Our monitoring has not picked up much in the way of information on it coming from the wild Tosevites on their home planet. Speculation is that Tosevite leaders know we are listening to their transmissions and do not wish to give us any data they do not have to.”
“That strikes me as reasonable,” Atvar said. “I wish it did not, but it does. The Tosevites are more accustomed to secrecy than we are. They have internal rivalries the likes of which we have not known since before Home was unified.”
“So I am given to understand.” The 37th Emperor Risson sighed again. “You know I want peace with the Big Uglies. Who could not, when war would prove so destructive?” He waited. As far as Atvar was concerned, agreement there was automatic. The Emperor went on, “But if war should become necessary, better war when we are stronger than when we are weaker.”
“Just so, your Majesty-thus the harder line,” Atvar replied. “I do not relish it. Who could? But better on our terms than on the Tosevites’ terms. So far, Sam Yeager has been intransigent when it comes to the Americans’ demands. If we cannot get what we require by other means, shall we proceed to whatever forceful steps prove necessary?”
“War is only a last resort,” Risson said. “Always, war is only a last resort. But if it becomes necessary…”
“They will have some warning,” Atvar warned. “When the signals from their own ship fall silent, they will know something has gone wrong.”
“Why should those signals fall silent?” the Emperor asked. “We can continue with negotiations here as always. If the Big Uglies in our solar system fail to detect the outgoing signals, then we have many years before any come back here from Tosev 3 to alert them. Is that not a truth?”
Before answering, Atvar had to stop and think that over. Once he had, he bent not into the special posture of respect that applied to the Emperor alone but into the more general posture one gave not only to superiors but also to anyone who said something extraordinarily clever. “I do believe that would serve, your Majesty… provided the Big Uglies do not learn about the scheme ahead of time.”
“How likely are they to do so?” Risson asked.
“I am not certain. No one is quite certain,” Atvar replied. “I would suggest, though, that you do not mention this any more when calling me here. Tosevite electronics are good enough to keep us from monitoring their conversations in their rooms and most of their conversations with their starship. How well they can monitor ours is unknown, but we should exercise caution.”
“What they have here can defeat our electronics?” Risson said. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. The Emperor went on with his own thought: “What they have on Tosev 3 will be more advanced than what they have here?”
“That is also bound to be a truth, your Majesty,” Atvar agreed. “Our technology is stable. Theirs advances by leaps and bounds. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons why they have the arrogance to believe themselves our equals.”
“Indeed,” Risson said. “And it is one of the reasons we should strike first, if we must strike. If they get too far ahead of us, we have no hope of fighting them successfully. Again, you know I would rather have peace.”
“I do, your Majesty.” Atvar’s emphatic cough showed how well he knew it.
“And yet my first duty is to preserve the Empire and the Race,” Risson continued. “If the only way I can do that is through a preventive war, then I must consider one, no matter how distasteful I find it. If we ever reach a position where the wild Big Uglies can dictate the terms of engagement to us, we are lost.”
“Another truth,” Atvar said. “When I administered our lands on Tosev 3, I often contemplated preventive war against the Tosevites. I always held off on launching it, both in the hope that we would be able to live peacefully alongside them and out of fear for the damage such a war would have caused even then. Perhaps I was wrong to hold back.”
“Perhaps you were, Fleetlord,” Risson said. “But it is too late to dwell on that now. We have to make the best of the present situation, and to make sure the future is not worse than the present.”
“Just so, your Majesty,” Atvar said.
“If these physicists prove to know what they are talking about, we have less time to make up our minds than I wish we did,” the Emperor said. “I will do everything in my power to drive our research efforts forward. I am not a scientist, though. All I can offer is moral suasion.”
Atvar made the negative gesture. “No, your Majesty, there is one thing more, and something much more important.”
“Oh? And that is?”
“Funding.”
Risson laughed, though Atvar hadn’t been joking. “Yes, Fleetlord, that is bound to be a truth, and an important one, as you say. Believe me, the appropriate ministries will hear that this is a project of the highest priority. It will go forward.”
“I am glad to hear it, your Majesty,” Atvar said. Risson said a few polite good-byes, then broke the connection. Atvar stared thoughtfully at the monitor. The Emperor was worrying about the new developments, which was good. Atvar still wondered how much difference it would make. The Big Uglies had a lead, and they moved faster than the Race. How likely was it that the Race could catch up? Not very, Atvar feared. Which meant…
“Which means trouble,” the fleetlord muttered. Like the 37th Emperor Risson, he vastly preferred peace. Unlike his sovereign, he’d seen war and its aftermath at first hand, not just as signals sent across the light-years. More war now would be dreadful-but more war later might be worse.
One of his eye turrets swung toward the ceiling. Somewhere up there, out past all the stories above him, the Tosevite starship spun through space. When the conquest fleet first came to Tosev 3, the Big Uglies hadn’t been able to fly out of their stratosphere. Two generations before that, they’d had no powered flight at all. And now they were here.
Their nuclear weapons were here, too. If it was possible to keep the wild Big Uglies on that ship from finding out the Race had gone to war against the United States, that might save Home some nasty punishment. Or, on the other hand, it might not. Something might go wrong, in which case the starship would strike the Race’s home planet. The Big Uglies might launch other starships, too. For that matter, they might already have launched them. There was one of Atvar’s nightmares.
Signals flew faster than ships between the stars. That had been true ever since the Race first sent a probe to the Rabotevs’ system, and remained true today. Atvar hoped he would have heard if more Tosevite ships were on the way. He hoped, but he wasn’t sure. The Race could keep the American starship here from knowing an attack order had gone out. Back in the Tosevite system, the Big Uglies might be able to keep the Race from learning they’d launched ships. Because they’d been cheating one another for as long as they’d been more or less civilized, they were more practiced at all forms of trickery than the Race was.
And what was going on in their physics laboratories? How long before abstract experiments turned into routine engineering? Could the Big Uglies turn these experiments into engineering at all? Could anyone?
We’ll find out, Atvar thought. He laughed. Before leaving for Tosev 3, he’d been used to knowing how things worked, what everything’s place was-and everyone‘s, too. It wasn’t like that any more. It never would be again, not till the
last Big Uglies had been firmly incorporated into the Empire-and maybe not even then.
Atvar made the negative gesture. One other possibility could also bring back order. It might return when the last Big Uglies died. It might-if the Tosevites didn’t take the Race (to say nothing of the Rabotevs and Hallessi) down with them.
They would do their best. The fleetlord was sure of that. How good their best might be… As Atvar did so often in his dealings with the Big Uglies, he trembled between hope and fear. More often than not, the Race’s hopes about Tosev 3 had proved unjustified. The Race’s fears…
He wished that hadn’t occurred to him.
Karen Yeager wondered why Major Coffey had called all the Americans on the surface of Home to his room. He’d never done that before. He was the expert here on matters military. If he had something to say, he usually said it to Karen’s father-in-law. What was so important that everyone needed to hear it?
At least Kassquit wasn’t here. Karen had half wondered if she would be. In that case, Frank Coffey wouldn’t have been talking about military affairs, but about his own. Could he have been foolish enough to ask Kassquit to marry him? People far from home did strange things, and no one had ever been farther from home than the people who’d flown on the Admiral Peary. Even so-
“People, we have a problem.” Coffey’s words cut across Karen’s thoughts. The major paused to check the antibugging gadgets, then nodded to himself. He went on, “The Lizards have come up with something sneaky.” He went on to explain how the Race could order war to start back on Earth without leaving the humans on and orbiting Home any the wiser.
Though the room was warm-what rooms on Home weren’t warm, except the ones that were downright hot? — ice walked up Karen’s back. “They can’t do that!” she exclaimed. She felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth. The Lizards damn well could do that, which was exactly the problem.
