The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century

by Harry Turtledove

  A wind sighed over the slow thunder on the beach. A line of sea birds crossed the sky, thin and black against glowing bronze.

  “I know,” said Ingra. “I know the history, and I know what you’re leading up to. Kolresh will furnish transportation and naval escort; Norstad-Ostarik will furnish men. Between us, we may be able to take Earth.”

  “We will,” said Rusch flatly. “Earth has grown plump and lazy. She can’t possibly rearm enough in a few months to stop such a combination.”

  “And all the galaxy will spit on our name.”

  “All the galaxy will lie open to conquest, once Earth has fallen.”

  “How long do you think we would last, riding the Kolresh tiger?”

  “I have no illusions about them, my dear. But neither can I see any way to break this eternal deadlock. In a fluid situation, such as the collapse of Earth would produce, we might be able to create a navy as good as theirs. They’ve never yet given us a chance to build one, but perhaps—”

  “Perhaps not! I doubt very much it was a meteor which wrecked my husband’s ship, five years ago. I think Kolresh knew of his hopes, of the shipyard he wanted to start, and murdered him.”

  “It’s probable,” said Rusch.

  “And you would league us with them.” Ingra turned a colorless face on him. “I’m still the queen. I forbid any further consideration of this…this obscene alliance!”

  Rusch sighed. “I was afraid of that, your highness.” For a moment he looked gray, tired. “You have a veto power, of course. But I don’t think the Ministry would continue in office a regent who used it against the best interests of—”

  She leaped to her feet. “You wouldn’t!”

  “Oh, you’d not be harmed,” said Rusch with a crooked smile. “Not even deposed. You’d be in a protective custody, shall we say. Of course, his majesty, your son, would have to be educated elsewhere, but if you wish—”

  Her palm cracked on his face. He made no motion.

  “I…won’t veto—” Ingra shook her head. Then her back grew stiff. “Your ship will be ready to take you home, my lord. I do not think we shall require your presence here again.”

  “As you will, your highness,” mumbled the dictator of the Double Kingdom.

  THOUGH HE RETURNED with a bitter word in his mouth, Unduma felt the joy, the biological rightness of being home, rise warm within him. He sat on a terrace under the mild sky of Earth, with the dear bright flow of the Zambezi River at his feet and the slim towers of Capital City rearing as far as he could see, each gracious, in its own green park. The people on the clean quiet streets wore airy blouses and colorful kilts—not the trousers for men, ankle-length skirts for women, which muffled the sad folk of Norstad. And there was educated conversation in the gentle Tierrans language, music from an open window, laughter on the verandas and children playing in the parks: freedom, law, and leisure.

  The thought that this might be rubbed out of history, that the robots of Norstad and the snake-souled monsters of Kolresh might tramp between broken spires where starved Earthmen hid, was a tearing in Unduma.

  He managed to lift his drink and lean back with the proper casual elegance. “No, sir,” he said, “they are not bluffing.”

  Ngu Chilongo, Premier of the Federation Parliament, blinked unhappy eyes. He was a small grizzled man, and a wise man, but this lay beyond everything he had known in a long lifetime and he was slow to grasp it.

  “But surely—” he began. “Surely this…this Rusch person is not insane. He cannot think that his two planets, with a population of, what is it, perhaps one billion, can overcome four billion Terrestrials!”

  “There would also be several million Kolreshites to help,” reminded Unduma. “However, they would handle the naval end of it entirely—and their navy is considerably stronger than ours. The Norron forces would be the ones which actually landed, to fight the air and ground battles. And out of those paltry one billion, Rusch can raise approximately one hundred million soldiers.”

  Chilongo’s glass crashed to the terrace. “What!”

  “It’s true, sir.” The third man present, Mustafa Lefarge, Minister of Defense, spoke in a miserable tone. “It’s a question of every able-bodied citizen, male and female, being a trained member of the armed forces. In time of war, virtually everyone not in actual combat is directly contributing to some phase of the effort—a civilian economy virtually ceases to exist. They’re used to getting along for years at a stretch with no comforts and a bare minimum of necessities.” His voice grew sardonic. “By necessities, they mean things like food and ammunition—not, say, entertainment or cultural activity, as we assume.”

  “A hundred million,” whispered Chilongo. He stared at his hands. “Why, that’s ten times our total forces!”

  “Which are ill-trained, ill-equipped, and ill-regarded by our own civilians,” pointed out Lefarge bitterly.

  “In short, sir,” said Unduma, “while we could defeat either Kolresh or Norstad-Ostarik in an all-out war—though with considerable difficulty—between them they can defeat us.”

  Chilongo shivered. Unduma felt a certain pity for him. You had to get used to it in small doses, this fact which Civilization screened from Earth: that the depths of hell are found in the human soul. That no law of nature guards the upright innocent from malice.

  “But they wouldn’t dare!” protested the Premier. “Our friends…everywhere—”

  “All the human-colonized galaxy will wring its hands and send stiff notes of protest,” said Lefarge. “Then they’ll pull the blankets back over their heads and assure themselves that now the big bad aggressor has been sated.”

  “This note—of Rusch’s.” Chilongo seemed to be grabbing out after support while the world dropped from beneath his feet. Sweat glistened on his wrinkled brown forehead. “Their terms…surely we can make some agreement?”

  “Their terms are impossible, as you’ll see for yourself when you read,” said Unduma flatly. “They want us to declare war on Kolresh, accept a joint command under Norron leadership, foot the bill and—No!”

  “But if we have to fight anyway,” began Chilongo, “it would seem better to have at least one ally—”

  “Has Earth changed that much since I was gone?” asked Unduma in astonishment. “Would our people really consent to this…this extortion…letting those hairy barbarians write our foreign policy for us—Why, jumping into war, making the first declaration ourselves, it’s unconstitutional! It’s un-Civilized!”

  Chilongo seemed to shrink a little. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t mean that. Of course it’s impossible; better to be honestly defeated in battle. I only thought, perhaps we could bargain—”

  “We can try,” said Unduma skeptically, “but I never heard of Hans Rusch yielding an angstrom without a pistol at his head.”

  Lefarge struck a cigar, inhaled deeply, and took another sip from his glass. “I hardly imagine an alliance with Kolresh would please his own people,” he mused.

  “Scarcely!” said Unduma. “But they’ll accept it if they must.”

  “Oh? No chance for us to get him overthrown—assassinated, even?”

  “Not to speak of. Let me explain. He’s only a petty aristocrat by birth, but during the last war with Kolresh he gained high rank and a personal following of fanatically loyal young officers. For the past few years, since the king died, he’s been the dictator. He’s filled the key posts with his men: hard, able, and unquestioning. Everyone else is either admiring or cowed. Give him credit, he’s no megalomaniac—he shuns publicity—but that simply divorces his power all the more from responsibility. You can measure it by pointing out that everyone knows he will probably ally with Kolresh, and everyone has a nearly physical loathing of the idea—but there is not a word of criticism for Rusch himself, and when he orders it they will embark on Kolreshite ships to ruin the Earth they love.”

  “It could almost make you believe in the old myths,” whispered Chilongo. “About the Devil incarnate.”


  “Well,” said Unduma, “this sort of thing has happened before, you know.”

  “Hm-m-m?” Lefarge sat up.

  Unduma smiled sadly. “Historical examples,” he said. “They’re of no practical value today, except for giving the cold consolation that we’re not uniquely betrayed.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Chilongo.

  “Well,” said Unduma, “consider the astropolitics of the situation. Around Polaris and beyond lies Kolresh territory, where for a long time they sharpened their teeth preying on backward autochthones. At last they started expanding toward the richer human-settled planets. Norstad happened to lie directly on their path, so Norstad took the first blow—and stopped them.

  “Since then, it’s been seven hundred years of stalemated war. Oh, naturally Kolresh outflanks Norstad from time to time, seizes this planet in the galactic west and raids that one to the north, fights a war with one to the south and makes an alliance with one to the east. But it has never amounted to anything important. It can’t, with Norstad astride the most direct line between the heart of Kolresh and the heart of Civilization. If Kolresh made a serious effort to by-pass Norstad, the Norrons could—and would—disrupt everything with an attack in the rear.

  “In short, despite the fact that interstellar space is three-dimensional and enormous, Norstad guards the northern marches of Civilization.”

  He paused for another sip. It was cool and subtle on his tongue, a benediction after the outworld rotgut.

  “Hm-m-m, I never thought of it just that way,” said Lefarge. “I assumed it was just a matter of barbarians fighting each other for the usual barbarian reasons.”

  “Oh, it is, I imagine,” said Unduma, “but the result is that Norstad acts as the shield of Earth.

  “Now if you examine early Terrestrial history—and Rusch, who has a remarkable knowledge of it, stimulated me to do so—you’ll find that this is a common thing. A small semicivilized state, out on the marches, holds off the enemy while the true civilization prospers behind it. Assyria warded Mesopotamia, Rome defended Greece, the Welsh border lords kept England safe, the Transoxanian Tartars were the shield of Persia, Prussia blocked the approaches to western Europe…oh, I could add a good many examples. In every instance, a somewhat backward people on the distant frontier of a civilization receive the worst hammer-blows of the really alien races beyond, the wild men who would leave nothing standing if they could get at the protected cities of the inner society.”

  He paused for breath. “And so?” asked Chilongo.

  “Well, of course, suffering isn’t good for people,” shrugged Unduma. “It tends to make them rather nasty. The marchmen react to incessant war by becoming a warrior race, uncouth peasants with an absolute government of ruthless militarists. Nobody loves them, neither the outer savages nor the inner polite nations.

  “And in the end, they’re all too apt to turn inward. Their military skill and vigor need a more promising outlet than this grim business of always fighting off an enemy who always comes back and who has even less to steal than the sentry culture.

  “So Assyria sacks Babylon; Rome conquers Greece; Percy rises against King Henry; Tamerlane overthrows Bajazet; Prussia clanks into France—”

  “And Norstad-Ostarik falls on Earth,” finished Lefarge.

  “Exactly,” said Unduma. “It’s not even unprecedented for the border state to join hands with the very tribes it fought so long. Percy and Owen Glendower, for instance…though in that case, I imagine both parties were considerably more attractive than Hans Rusch or Klerak Belug.”

  “What are we going to do?” Chilongo whispered it toward the blue sky of Earth, from which no bombs had fallen for a thousand years.

  Then he shook himself, jumped to his feet, and faced the other two. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. This has taken me rather by surprise, and I’ll naturally require time to look at this Norron protocol and evaluate the other data. But if it turns out you’re right”—he bowed urbanely—“as I’m sure it will—”

  “Yes?” said Unduma in a tautening voice.

  “Why, then, we appear to have some months, at least, before anything drastic happens. We can try to gain more time by negotiation. We do have the largest industrial complex in the known universe, and four billion people who have surely not had courage bred out of them. We’ll build up our armed forces, and if those barbarians attack we’ll whip them back into their own kennels and kick them through the rear walls thereof!”

  “I hoped you’d say that,” breathed Unduma.

  “I hope we’ll be granted time,” Lefarge scowled. “I assume Rusch is not a fool. We cannot rearm in anything less than a glare of publicity. When he learns of it, what’s to prevent him from cementing the Kolresh alliance and attacking at once, before we’re ready?”

  “Their mutual suspiciousness ought to help,” said Unduma. “I’ll go back there, of course, and do what I can to stir up trouble between them.”

  He sat still for a moment, then added as if to himself: “Till we do finish preparing, we have no resources but hope.”

  THE KOLRESHITE MUTATION was a subtle thing. It did not show on the surface: physically, they were a handsome people, running to white skin and orange hair. Over the centuries, thousands of Norron spies had infiltrated them, and frequently gotten back alive; what made such work unusually difficult was not the normal hazards of impersonation, but an ingrained reluctance to practice cannibalism and worse.

  The mutation was a psychic twist, probably originating in some obscure gene related to the endocrine system. It was extraordinarily hard to describe—every categorical statement about it had the usual quota of exceptions and qualifications. But one might, to a first approximation, call it extreme xenophobia. It is normal for Homo sapiens to be somewhat wary of outsiders till he has established their bona fides; it was normal for Homo Kolreshi to hate all outsiders, from first glimpse to final destruction.

  Naturally, such an instinct produced a tendency to inbreeding, which lowered fertility, but systematic execution of the unfit had so far kept the stock vigorous. The instinct also led to strongarm rule within the nation; to nomadism, where a planet was only a base like the oasis of the ancient Bedouin, essential to life but rarely seen; to a cult of secrecy and cruelty, a religion of abominations; to an ultimate goal of conquering the accessible universe and wiping out all other races.

  Of course, it was not so simple, nor so blatant. Among themselves, the Kolreshites doubtless found a degree of tenderness and fidelity. Visiting on neutral planets—i.e., planets which it was not yet expedient to attack—they were very courteous and had an account of defending themselves against one unprovoked aggression after another, which some found plausible. Even their enemies stood in awe of their personal heroism.

  Nevertheless, few in the galaxy would have wept if the Kolreshites all died one rainy night.

  Hans von Thoma Rusch brought his speedster to the great whaleback of the battleship. It lay a light-year from his sun, hidden by cold emptiness; the co-ordinates had been given him secretly, together with an invitation which was more like a summons.

  He glided into the landing cradle, under the turrets of guns that could pound a moon apart, and let the mechanism suck him down below decks. When he stepped out into the high, coldly lit debarkation chamber, an honor guard in red presented arms and pipes twittered for him.

  He walked slowly forward, a big man in black and silver, to meet his counterpart, Klerak Belug, the Overman of Kolresh, who waited rigid in a blood-colored tunic. The cabin bristled around him with secret police and guns.

  Rusch clicked heels. “Good day, your dominance,” he said. A faint echo followed his voice. For some unknown reason, this folk liked echoes and always built walls to resonate.

  Belug, an aging giant who topped him by a head, raised shaggy brows. “Are you alone, your lordship?” he asked in atrociously accented Norron. “It was understood that you could bring a personal bodyguard.”

  Rusch s
hrugged. “I would have needed a personal dreadnought to be quite safe,” he replied in fluent Kolra, “so I decided to trust your safe conduct. I assume you realize that any harm done to me means instant war with my kingdom.”

  The broad, wrinkled lion-face before him split into a grin. “My representatives did not misjudge you, your lordship. I think we can indeed do business. Come.”

  The Overman turned and led the way down a ramp toward the guts of the ship. Rusch followed, enclosed by guards and bayonets. He kept a hand on his own sidearm—not that it would do him much good, if matters came to that.

  Events were approaching their climax, he thought in a cold layer of his brain. For more than a year now, negotiations had dragged on, hemmed in by the requirement of secrecy, weighted down by mutual suspicion. There were only two points of disagreement remaining, but discussion had been so thoroughly snagged on those that the two absolute rulers must meet to settle it personally. It was Belug who had issued the contemptuous invitation.

  And he, Rusch, had come. Tonight the old kings of Norstad wept worms in their graves.

  The party entered a small, luxuriously chaired room. There were the usual robots, for transcription and reference purposes, and there were guards, but Overman and Margrave were essentially alone.

  Belug wheezed his bulk into a seat. “Smoke? Drink?”

  “I have my own, thank you.” Rusch took out his pipe and a hip flask.

  “That is scarcely diplomatic,” rumbled Belug.

  Rusch laughed. “I’d always understood that your dominance had no use for the mannerisms of Civilization. I daresay we’d both like to finish our business as quickly as possible.”