by David Weber
Just as well not to mention little things like “vampires” at this point, Dave, he thought dryly as he paused once again to let that sink in. Always time for that later, if we need it. And I agree with Rob and Abu. Longbow was right when he suggested we keep their capabilities in reserve.
“Our people had developed advanced versions of the ‘analyzers’ with which Sarth has been experimenting,” he went on after a moment. “We call them ‘computers,’ instead, but they evolved in much the same way your analyzers have. Indeed, much of the original impetus for them came from our military, just as it has from yours, as we developed fire control systems for our warships. Ours, however, had advanced beyond the point of simply performing numerical operations to systems which also used and stored data and information. Like a wire recording, but in much greater detail and with text and visual images, as well.
“Just as our pre-invasion computers were more advanced than your present analyzers, however, the Shongairi’s computers were far more advanced than ours. In fact, they contained not simply the scientific and technological database of a vast, interstellar civilization which calls itself the ‘Galactic Hegemony,’ but its entire history, as well. And it also contained the documentation of how and why the Hegemony had authorized the Shongair Empire to conquer and enslave us. It was because it deemed us dangerous primitives who would perhaps upset the status quo the Hegemony has maintained for over half a million of your years. Because it feared—rightly—that humans would never stop asking ‘why’ or seeking answers to the endless questions the universe itself represents. Because anything—and anyone—the Hegemony believes might pose a threat to that sacred stability, that stasis, must be crushed, and its ruling Council fully intended for the Shongairi to crush us.”
He paused once again, turning his head to make eye contact with as many of the delegates as possible, and wished they’d taken his offer of translator earbuds so that the software could have translated his tone into its Sarthian equivalent for all of them and not just the Nonogon translators. Although, now that he thought about it, the software was certainly adding that tone when it translated his English into Desqwerian. Anyone out there who spoke that language needed no translators … and all of them were probably hearing the emotional overtones the software was inserting into it.
“I tell you this in part because the reason we’ve come to Sarth is that we found your planet and your star system in the Hegemony’s records.” Another, sharper stir ran through his audience, and the overlay was far more yellow than orange this time. “They have been observing you, at widespread intervals, for a quarter million of your years, and just as they evaluated us, they’ve evaluated you.
“Honesty compels me to admit that they don’t seem to find your people quite as … unsettling as they found mine. From their files, they do find Sarthians disturbingly violent, prone to bloodshed, and generally less than desirable as interstellar neighbors, but not to nearly the extent they applied that same judgment to my own species. And at the moment, your civilization falls into a category which enjoys at least limited protection under their law—as, indeed, ours ought to have been protected when the Shongairi arrived in our star system. The Shongairi chose to ignore the protections written into the Hegemony’s fundamental law, however, and they did so because they were confident that was precisely what the rest of the Hegemony wanted them to do.”
He paused once again for the translators.
“I believe they were correct about what the rest of the Hegemony wanted from them,” he said then. “The Hegemony’s rulers felt far more strongly about the Shongairi than they currently feel about Sarth, but the Shongairi attained interstellar flight out of their own resources, at which point the Hegemony’s Constitution required the other member races to grant them at least provisional Hegemony membership. As you, we hadn’t yet achieved that, although we were much closer than you presently are. Yet they felt even more repugnance and fear in our case than in the Shongairi’s, and so they chose to use the Shongairi to neutralize the threat to their peace of mind that we represented. And if neutralizing that ‘threat’ required the extermination of our entire species, that would have been quite acceptable from their perspective. Especially since they could have blamed it upon the ‘bloodthirsty’ Shongairi, rather than their own highly moral races.”
He hoped the software—and the Sarthian translators—had communicated the savage irony of his last sentence.
“As I say, at this moment, you would be classified by the Hegemony’s surveyors as a Level Four civilization, which enjoys certain protections, but not those which apply—or are supposed to apply, at any rate—to a Level Three or Level Two civilization, such as ours was when the Shongairi arrived. You would still be considered in or on the very fringe of primitivism by their evaluators, because you have not yet achieved what we call fission, fusion, advanced electronics, an orbit-based communications system, or the other technologies which form the necessary steps to independently attaining interstellar flight. As such, the Hegemony Council could still decide to authorize your conquest or destruction.
“In honesty, it’s unlikely they would do that in your case. Indeed, it was unusual for it to happen in our case. Generally speaking, the Hegemony operates on the theory that truly bellicose species will probably destroy themselves once they acquire sufficiently advanced weapons, which means the Hegemony doesn’t have to step in and do it for them. And again, in fairness, that’s generally been what’s happened.
“Earth’s experience, however, demonstrates the Hegemony’s willingness to give self-destruction a little help whenever that seems best to its member species. From my own study of their historical record, I believe they’ve done that rather more often than even the Shongairi realized. And I’m afraid there’s no guarantee they won’t come to the same decision in your case, the next time one of their survey ships orbits tracelessly beyond your atmosphere and discovers just how much more technologically capable you’ve become since their last visit.
“The people of my planet are just as rambunctious, truculent, and determined to forge our own destiny as the Hegemony feared we were, and their actions have pushed us even farther in that direction, at least where they themselves are concerned. They killed three quarters of our entire species. We don’t intend for them to kill any more of us. Nor do we think, having reviewed the Hegemony’s records of its previous visits here and our own study of your world over the space of one of your years, that Sarthians would take kindly to the role of domesticated animals, forced to renounce innovation, change, and freedom of thought lest you disturb the sacred interstellar status quo. And that’s why we’ve come to you. To warn you, and to tell you our story. To show you our story in visual records of the Shongair invasion and what it cost us. To show you what we’ve achieved already, the ways in which we have not simply acquired the Hegemony’s technology but significantly improved upon it. And to offer you friendship, alliance, and access to that same technology if, after hearing what we have to tell you, you freely choose to join us in our stand against an interstellar tyranny so absolute that it considers the eradication of entire intelligent species acceptable collateral damage if it preserves the stasis it has embraced.”
The vast Hall of Nations was silent as he paused, letting that sink fully home. Then he straightened his spine and raised his head.
“You don’t have to listen to us. We won’t attempt to compel you in any way. And it’s likely—far from certain, but likely—that rather than their destroying you, Sarth would simply be absorbed, willingly or unwillingly, into the Hegemony on the day you achieve independent interstellar flight. The choice is yours, but we’ve come to offer you that choice. To give you the option to be something other than one more cog in the Hegemony’s enormous machine. To remain Sarthians, with your identity and your institutions, your hopes and your aspirations—your entire way of life—still intact. Still yours, to do with as you choose. Those are your possible futures. We’ve come to tell you that, and to
offer you our aid if you, too, choose to remain who you are.
“But I warn you, and you must understand, that that choice is not the choice of safety. The Hegemony is enormous, far vaster than you could even conceive without viewing its own records, and so far, we’re a single star system and a single planet whose population will need at least three of your centuries to recover from the billions of deaths we’ve suffered. We’re like a buzzing insect around a starth’s ears, in many ways. But this insect has a dangerous sting already, and we intend to become far more dangerous still before we meet the Hegemony again at a time and a place of our choosing. They’ve tried to destroy us once. It’s entirely possible they’ll try again when they discover they failed … and this time, succeed. But I tell all of Sarth this: should they make that attempt, it will be the most terrible—and the bloodiest—mistake they have ever made.”
* * *
“SO, WHAT DO you make of all this, Yerdaz?”
The charioteer consort looked up from the cup of hot terahk the server had just refreshed and quirked a sardonic nasal flap.
“And what, pray tell, makes you think that my opinion is going to be based on anything solider than everyone else’s, Feltik?”
Feltik JohrShym shorak Weyrsol, the head of the Chayzarian delegation to the Nonagon snorted.
“I could say it’s because you’re so brilliant and insightful that I anticipate learning a great deal from your always pithy observations,” he replied. “Or I could be more honest and say that it’s because you have a lot more military background than I do, which means you’re probably in a better position to assess what these Earthians have told us—so far—about the ‘Shongairi’ and the Hegemony bogeyman they’re here to find help against. Or I could be even more honest than that and say that because you’re Clan Ruler Juzhyr’s personal representative, whatever judgments you do form—however brilliant and insightful they may or may not be—are going to carry a lot of weight, not just here at the Nonagon, but back home in Chayzar.”
One thing about the Deltaran male, Yerdaz reflected. He didn’t beat around the bush very much, and he did have a point. Several of them, in fact.
“Well,” she sat back, nursing her terahk in both hands and opening her nasal flaps wide to inhale its rich, strong aroma, “I’d have to say that this … David—” she took her time to come as close to pronouncing the bizarre name correctly as she could “—is an impressive male, if only for his size.”
“Size isn’t everything,” Kwysar HalSyn shorak Andryth put in from the chair beside Feltik’s. Kwysar was the head of the Andrythian delegation, and he and Feltik were old friends and cronies. The two males had invited Yerdaz to an “informal” late dinner, and she’d accepted the invitation for several reasons. Partly because she’d known this conversation was going to happen and because Andryth and Chayzar were among the Empire’s staunchest (if poorest) allies. And very reliable ones, too.
The Qwern Empire floated on a vast sea of oil, with the most extensive proven reserves on Sarth. In fact, the Empire sat on almost half of all known oilfields and, over the years, Clan Ruler Juzhyr and ous bearer had sought to use that bounty as a diplomatic tool against Dianto and its allies. Results had been mixed, especially where the Republic itself was concerned. The eastern half of Sanda was as petrochemical-poor as the western half was rich, which had always struck Yerdaz as a sign of divine favor, especially when the Republican Navy took the high-risk step of converting its entire battle fleet from coal—of which it had immense quantities in the Krelk Mountains—to oil—of which it had virtually none. By rights, that ought to have made Dianto more receptive to policy proposals from the Qwernians, who controlled so much of the oil its navy and its merchant marine required. Unfortunately, New Dianto, the huge island in the middle of the Surifar Ocean, between Sanda and Deltar, was almost as oil-rich as the Empire. In absolute terms, its reserves were much lower; proportionate to its size, they were even greater, however, and its actual output was within a few percent of the Empire’s.
And New Dianto was a member in good standing of the Diantian Commonwealth, Dwomo damn it.
Still, Qwernian oil remained a potent diplomatic weapon, especially with nations like Andryth and Chayzar which either had no substantial reserves of their own or lacked the ability to get at whatever petroleum they possessed. Oil purchases by those nations were heavily subsidized by the clan ruler, which bought a lot of political support when it was needed.
Feltik and Kwysar were as well aware of those realities as Yerdaz, but if they resented their Qwernian collars they’d always hidden it well. Mostly, she suspected, because they were diplomats and that was what diplomats did. But that wasn’t the only factor. She’d known both males for a long time now, and they were personal friends, not just diplomatic allies. Of course, the diplomatic allies’ part of their relationship trumped personal friendship, and all three of them knew it.
“No, size isn’t everything,” she agreed now, with a slight, teasing twitch of her nasal flaps. She was no dwarf, but Kwysar was a couple of kyrans taller than she was. That made him a virtual giant for Chayzar, yet the Earthian male was at least two and a half seqrans taller than him. Of course, whether or not the Earthian truly was a male was a debatable point. The notion of a species which possessed only two sexes made Yerdaz feel … uncomfortable. There was something almost perverted about it, although she kept reminding herself that the word she really wanted was “alien,” not perverted.
“On the other hand,” she went on with a more serious expression, “David is impressive for more than just his size or even how … bizarre all Earthians look. I listened to his speech directly, not through the Nonagon translators, and assuming that whatever magical technology was translating his words into Desqwerian did a decent job of reflecting his actual tone, he was a lot less nervous than I would’ve been in his place.”
“Probably a little easier to be calm when you have a technology advantage as great as the Earthians’,” Feltik said just a bit sourly.
“Assuming they’re telling the truth about it, at least,” Kwysar qualified.
“I think we can assume they’ve been fairly truthful in what they’ve told us so far.” Yerdaz’ tone was dry. “Just for starters, they’ve crossed interstellar space to reach us, and we still haven’t gotten beyond our own atmosphere. And despite how hard we’ve looked, neither our radar nor visual observation has seen a single sign of their ships yet, either. Not unless they want us to, anyway. I’d say that’s a pretty fair indication they can do all kinds of things we can’t. Yet, at least.”
“That’s definitely a valid point,” Kwysar replied. “But we still don’t know how accurate those images they showed us are, or how truthful they are about sharing all the information they ‘captured’ from their adversaries.”
“Oh, be reasonable, Kwy!” Feltik said. “They’ve only been on the planet for a single day-half or so. That hasn’t given them a lot of time to go into detail.”
“I know. But something about their story just strikes me as … odd.” Kwysar’s nasal flaps were taut, and Yerdaz cocked her head at him.
“What do you mean, odd? I mean, beside the fact that we couldn’t possibly have produced those images the way they did!”
“That was impressive,” Kwysar conceded with generous understatement. “In fact, it may have been even more impressive than you two realize! Believe me, I know.”
The other two shook their heads in agreement. It had been readily apparent even to them that the Earthians’ ability to re-create moving, three-dimensional images put the best Sarthian cameras and talkies to shame. But Kwysar had relatives in the talkie business. In fact, he’d been involved as a producer on at least a half-sixteen of feature-length talkies, and he knew firsthand what Sarthian special-effects editors were capable of. It wasn’t just the images, either; good as the sound effects specialists were, they would never have been able to match the fidelity of the Earthians’ “tridee’s” sound quality. And they’d be
en able to display an apparently infinitely scalable image, floating in mid-air, using a single unit no bigger than a Sarthian’s head.
“To be honest,” he continued, “the fact that they could show us what they showed us in the way they showed it is a pretty fair indicator that their technical capabilities, however they got them, are one hell of a lot better than anything we’ve got. But you’re the ex-soldier around here, Yerdaz. What did you think about the way the Earthians’ pre-invasion weapons stacked up against their opponents’?”
“Please!” Yerdaz fluttered her nasal flaps in mock horror. “Soldiers spend their time down in the mud. I was an aviator. We’re much more sophisticated people.”
“I understand, but my question stands. What did you think about it?”
Kwysar’s expression was serious, and Yerdaz sipped terahk while she considered the male’s question.
“I was impressed,” she said finally, recalling the images of the sleek, propeller-less aircraft—the “Raptors,” David had called them—and their unbelievable speed and maneuverability. Assuming those images hadn’t been doctored, she suspected that an Earthian pilot could handle much tighter, faster turns than a Sarthian before passing out. And their weapons! No Sarthian air force had yet contemplated using rockets in air-to-air combat. Certainly no one had ever dreamed of a weapon which could launch, then track its target and maneuver to strike it.