Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

by Jack L. Chalker

  “We do,” Luge’s voice came to them after a momentary delay caused not by interstellar communications but by the lag from the subspace relay they were using on the picket ship. “In fact, the offer was approved twenty-one to four by the full Council and thus is binding upon us if accepted.”

  Morah nodded and turned to the impassive Altavar. “Manager Soog, are you prepared at this time to answer the offer?”

  “We are,” the eerie synthesized voice responded. “We would very much like to accept the offer, which answers our basic needs and our objections to the current arrangement. However, we feel we cannot do so. The history of the human race argues against you, Confederacy. It is a most consistent record, no matter the technological or social levels. From the very beginnings of your history you have shown yourselves to be totally intolerant of those who are different. The record is a clear record of repression. Treaties are signed and sworn to and systematically violated at the first opportunity. You persecuted your own for a mild difference in skin color or bone structure, or because some worshiped a different god, or even the same god by different names. Treaties between nations held only so long as both nations felt so strong that they could destroy the other. Not once do we see social or political agreements made and held by mutual respect, only by mutual fear—and then with all the efforts of both sides devoted to destroying even that balance.

  “You took these attitudes with you into space,” the creature went on, “and continued them for a while, until the years and the practicalities of distance and the advance of technology merged you racially and culturally. Still, the fact of this merger only caused redirection of this trait. Fully a dozen nonhuman races were discovered in your outward expansion. None equaled your power or emulated your culture. Five you utterly destroyed simply because you could not understand them. The other seven you conquered ruthlessly, and imposed your culture and your system upon them by force. With two of those you first concluded treaties of peace and friendship and the exchange of ambassadors and technical skills, because they were spacefar-ing races. But as soon as you decided that they could be no threat to you, you ruthlessly rushed in upon them and crushed them, ignoring your treaties. Understand that we do not necessarily condemn this trait, nor condone it, for it is natural to an expanding spacefaring culture and we have seen it before. We were even guilty of it ourselves, once. But you see where this leaves us in the current situation.

  “Your treaties are worthless, until you know our strength and power, knowledge those treaties buy you because they buy you whatever time is needed. Sovereignty so easily given away may be more easily taken back. Nor can your military and government leaders rest easy as long as we are hidden behind a shield of their ignorance. Unless we show you all, you will try all the more by any means to learn and thus interfere. If we did show you, either you would determine us too weak and thus rush in to crush us, or we would be too strong, in which case you would spare no effort to catch up, then surpass us technologically and militarily. Your proposal, then, simply buys you the time you need to gain advantage, or it puts off the war, allowing you to build up and improve your forces. It offers us nothing of substance, and we must reject it.”

  The three Councillors looked extremely distressed and uncomfortable at this assessment, and Dumonia leaned over and whispered to the agent, “Take ‘em off the hook, son. They’re outclassed.”

  He nodded. “Then do the Altavar have a counterproposal to avoid war?”

  The creature did not hesitate. “We see only one possible guarantee of our own security and safety. The Confederacy will turn over to us control of all spacecraft of whatever size or type capable of interstellar travel, and will build no more. All interstellar travel and communications between human worlds and all forces capable of harming us will be entirely under-our control and supervision for a period of three hundred and fifty years from the date of commencement of the agreement. We will guarantee to maintain all existing passenger and freight routes and establish whatever added schedules are needed for the maintenance of the economy and the well-being of the people. We will not interfere in the internal political affairs of the Confederacy in any way. Expansion or the possession or control of any spacial weapons for the interdicted period will not be permitted.”

  The Councillors gasped, and all Four Lords smiled knowingly. “But—that would leave the entire human race totally and completely at the mercy of a race and culture of which we know nothing, having to trust all your promises at face valuel” Senator Luge exclaimed. “Surely you can’t be serious!”

  “You proposed to cut loose unilaterally fifty million plus people who are Confederacy citizens under law and put them under these people, you know,” Talant Ypsir snapped. “If it’s good enough for us, it should be good enough for you!”

  Morah let the outburst pass, and the Councillors ignored it. “These are negotiations in progress,” he reminded them all. “Let us keep our decorum. Manager Soog?”

  “Can the Senator or his advisors suggest any other way we can guarantee our security?” the alien asked.

  “Our word is—” the Senator started, but the alien cut him off.

  “Your word is valueless. Even you know this. Even as these proceedings begin, a vast and powerful war fleet is within range of the Warden system. On the very eve of negotiations it launched four military probes of advanced design against us. We know what your word is worth, Senator.”

  There was consternation and frantic whispering on the Council’s side. Finally Luge seemed to calm everyone down and turned back to the camera. “May we have a recess to discuss a counteroffer?”

  Morah looked around. “Is there any objection? No? For how long, then, Senator?”

  “One—uh, sorry, two hours.”

  “Agents? Manager? Lords? No objection?”

  “Let them have their meeting,” Laroo snarled. “It’ll probably be hilarious.”

  “Very well, then. This meeting is in recess for two hours and will reconvene at twelve thirty standard.”

  Both screens winked out, and everybody seemed to relax. Both Ypsir and Laroo seemed extremely pleased by the way things had gone; Kobe was as impassive as Morah, who looked over at the two opposite him and asked, “Well? Do you think it’s still possible to reach any sort of agreement?”

  “I doubt it. Not until we’ve gone through the bloody motions. How about it, Morah? Will they understand a show of force and resistance, or will they simply go all-out?”

  “They understand the game, if that’s what you mean. How they will play is anybody’s guess and is certainly beyond my ability to predict. However, they have gone along with it this far, and that is an achievement.”

  The agent rose from the table. “I have to call my people.”

  He gave it to them straight, but they didn’t really believe him. Not all of it. He was surprised at the start that they had accepted most of his report as gospel—certainly the computer had backed him up, and their own analysis of the same data seemed to have reinforced it. What they could not accept was the concept that the Altavar were in any sense militarily superior to the Confederacy. In weaponry, yes, but not in total weapons systems or firepower.

  “But what kind of a solution can you have?” he asked, frustrated. “Nothing less than their offer will give them the security they want, and we can’t possibly accept it.”

  “We think we were more than fair in our initial offer,” Luge replied, “and it is still the only offer we can live with. Ypsir certainly has a nerve suggesting we can’t turn over the Diamond to the Altavar—by their own admission now they are in a state of open rebellion. But these squishy, tentacled things give me the creeps. We all wish we had something other than the Diamond to hold over them, but we don’t. We don’t know their power or their forces. In one respect, old squirmy had us pegged. Power and fear of power is the only thing that really counts in situations like this. I know you think they can beat us, but we can’t see any way that’s possible. The only way to get us
the information we need, and to learn the true situation once and for all, the Council feels, is a demonstration attack.”

  He sighed. “I thought as much, but I’m against it. I don’t know what it is, but I have this crazy feeling that the Altavar, and Morah, are laughing at us.”

  “Bluff. They have no place to even hide a fleet, and even if the Diamond is extremely well defended, as we think, they are entirely on the defensive there. Any fleet of theirs capable of menacing the Diamond would be weeks, perhaps months away. Since the Diamond is all-important to them, we must put it in jeopardy. This will force their fleet, if in fact they have one, out into the open to counter us, or it will reveal their bluff. Either way, we’ll know what we’re facing.”

  “But if you attack the Diamond you lose the only card we have,” he pointed out.

  “Not the Diamond. Not entirely. Just one. One of the four worlds. A demonstration of power—for both sides. If they can keep us from doing it, then we’ll know something. If they cannot, they risk losing the other three, one at a time, unless they agree to our original terms. This way we destroy a quarter of their eggs or whatever, but leave them three quarters. Unless they choose not to call us, in which case the bluff is revealed and we are in complete control. We still feel that if they could have destroyed us, they would have done so at the outset The fact that they are talking at all indicates our original hypothesis is correct.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I was afraid it would come to this, but I hoped not. You will have to give the ultimatum yourself—I simply cannot bring myself to do it.” He hesitated a moment. “You intend to target Medusa, is that correct?”

  Luge looked slightly surprised, then nodded. “Yes. It has the smallest population, is the system’s industrial base, and is also, in fact, the only world where hard evidence of an Altavar colony exists. Eliminate Medusa and you eliminate the technological base of the Diamond. None of the others could support the needed factories.”

  “I’ll need details,” he said softly.

  “What you suggest will cost you far more than it will cost us,” the Altavar told the Council. “Perhaps it was destined to be this way. But there will be no limited, demonstration wars. If a Diamond world is destroyed, then we will take appropriate action to bring this matter to a conclusion.”

  “You ask us to take your word for your honesty and trustworthiness with nothing whatever to support it,” the agent interjected, trying to avoid what he Was beginning to believe could not be avoided. “You say that our racial histories are not as different as they are similar. You surely must appreciate, then, that a civilization with over nine hundred worlds cannot totally capitulate on the word, the promise, the threat of one opponent whose entire race and history are a blank to us.”

  “We know,” Soog responded, and there seemed genuine sadness and regret in that electronic voice. “We have known that all along. That is why generally we simply make an all-out comprehensive attack. It is far less costly to our side, yet comes down to the same thing.”

  “But if you felt this way all along, why didn’t you do it here?” Luge responded sharply, thinking he had scored a point.

  “If you were faced with this prospect, and there was but a five-percent chance this could all be avoided, would you not try?” the Altavar asked him. “We saw that one chance, and allowed ourselves to be convinced of it. It was a mistake, and many more will die because of that mistake, yet we are not sorry we made it. To have not taken the opportunity would have always left the question begging—did we wipe out so many countless intelligent beings for nothing?”

  “I’m sorry,” Senator Luge said, not sounding very sorry at all, “but we simply cannot accept your unsupported threats. If you can stop us from destroying one of the worlds, then do so. If you can not, then you better call all this off and accept our terms before we do.”

  Morah, sounding very nervous, broke into the proceedings. “How long before you strike? The Altavar must have time to deliberate this matter and take it up in full.”

  The Council could understand that. They would have had the same problems, and the Altavar probably had greater distances to figure in, and, perhaps, a slower communications system. “Beginning at 2400 this night, we will allow exactly seven standard days for deliberation,” Luge told them. “Then we will either have a settlement, or we will commence offensive operations—unless the Altavar can come up with a counteroffer we can accept in the meantime. This channel will be kept open, and our agent will remain on the scene, in case anything must get through to us.”

  “Seven days!” Morah thundered, rising to his feet. “But we can not possibly evacuate a world in seven days! Using the entire Warden fleet, with pressurized freight containers, we couldn’t hope to evacuate a tenth of the population of the smallest worldl”

  Luge nodded. “This is a demonstration, not an intentional bloodbath. We have many grievances against the Four Lords, but have no wish to destroy the innocent. We are operating on contingency plans made up when the task force was dispatched, and thus, we have provided for some of this. Sixteen transports, capable of moving twenty thousand people each, with drives capable of making interplanetary trips in one to two hours, are available. If you move only the people, at the most rapid rate, you ought to be able to make four trips a day even with loading and unloading. All ships are automated and computer-driven, but will be commanded by anyone you designate to obey voice orders. The ships will be on station in orbit off Medusa within hours—if the Altavar defenses don’t shoot them down. If you start as soon as they arrive, and mobilize the rest of the Diamond fleet, and cram them in as best you can, you can evacuate the planet. Or you can settle this now.”

  Talant Ypsir was up and screaming as he heard the target. “You can’tl You bastards! You swine! You hellish spawn of animals! That is my world you are talking about! Mine! Not the Altavarl It is mine and I will not let you rob me of it!” The combined effect of his inner nature and the Medusan peculiarities of the Warden organism started to change his appearance. He became, in that instant, something terrible, horrible, loathsome to behold, a monstrous, ever-changing vision of evil itself. The creature turned to the agent who sat, impassive, across the table, while next to him Dumonia watched the change with horrid fascination. “You!” Ypsir screamed, pointing a rotting, crawling finger at the agent. “You put them up to this! I will kill you, kill you, kill—” He made to launch himself across the table.

  Yatek Morah turned in the same instant, a laser pistol in his hand, and pointed it at Ypsir. “Oh, shut up, Talant,” he sighed wearily, and pulled the trigger. Ypsir collapsed instantly into unconsciousness and slid beneath the table. They all looked down at the crumpled heap and saw it slowly changing back to the familiar face they knew, the expression alone soon becoming the only measure of the hate that was inside him.

  Kunser entered the room from the back dorm in an instant, but they all saw immediately that he was not threatening. “Let me get a couple of people in here and get him back upstairs,” he pleaded. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Morah nodded and bolstered the weapon. “We will move everyone we can to the southern continent of Charon at the start,” he told the Medusan assistant. “If time becomes short, we’ll start putting them down wherever we can on Lilith. Cerberus simply can’t handle any such loads. Tell Ypsir when he wakes up that he can settle scores in eight days. If he does anything else than exactly what this meeting decides, or in any way makes trouble before that point, he will meet the fate of his predecessor instantly. Remind him that we do not need to know where he is or what he is doing, that the Altavar can and will simply order his Wardens to consume him if any of the rest of us say so. Is that clear?”

  Everyone else in the room was just getting over their stunned and shocked feelings at the proceedings when Ypsir was finally carried out and away. Even Luge remained frozen on the screen, horrified and shocked by his first direct look at what the Warden organism could do.

  Only Morah r
emained completely in control. “These proceedings are now in indefinite recess. All parties agree that commencing seven days from 2400 this night a state of war will exist between the Altavar on the one hand and the Confederacy on the other.”

  Luge seemed to snap out of it. “Any move against us prior to that point will result in even more dire consequences,” he warned. “We are allowing this period not only in hopes of a diplomatic solution but also out of common decency and mercy. If any attempt is made during this period, or is perceived by us to be made, we- will abandon our plans and instead all modules will be directed by the task force with the intent of inducing the sun to nova.”

  The others on both sides looked particularly shocked by the threat, but the Altavar seemed to take it in stride. “That would be most interesting,” it noted coldly. “However, it would cause quite a lot more problems than we are currently prepared to handle. We will, therefore, uphold the waiting period. But make no mistake on this, Senators. Neither you nor the Confederacy will survive many hours after you know just what you have done.”

  The agent who called himself Mr. Carroll frowned and looked nervously at the Altavar on the screen. What an odd way to put it, he couldn’t help thinking. What a very odd way to put it….

  7

  Talant Ypsir spent most of his time brooding on his palatial orbiting satellite, but he did not interfere with the evacuation nor prevent his aides and infrastructure from doing what had to be done. For himself, though, he spent almost all of his time in his pleasure garden accompanied only by Ass, emerging only briefly to make certain that the station itself would be moved from orbit by tug.

  The transports, too, were built on the modular concept, so it was relatively easy for the great ships to break into small compartments and move down to various collection points on the surface. These were troop transports, designed to hold half of what they were being asked to hold; but in a war without troops they could be spared by the Confederacy, which was, according to Commander Rrega, still confident that the Altavar bluff would break at the last minute.