There was murmuring below at that, though whether in approval or disapproval, I could not tell. The idea of evolution had its obstinate resistors back home on Vespucci. That may have been the problem here, too.
“I have heard it argued,” Mav said, “that unanimous consent, which is a positive expression of this Non-Aggression Principle, engenders inaction at best or a bland mediocrity. I assert this can only occur in the opposite circumstance, where no individual may act without the group’s consent. This is the threadbare ‘reform’ that brought us from a state of absolute monarchy to absolute majoritarianism. It is no improvement.”
More mutters. I wondered why it all sounded better coming from an alien.
Mav went on. “Unanimous consent does not require that everyone be constrained to a mindless uniformity, or that nothing ever may be accomplished, simply that no individual be forced against his will to participate. No more natural, decent, lamviinitarian system may be devised.”
“In history, his system’s first expression was economic, the free market that made Great Foddu the mighty empire it became. But there are parallel social forms whose absence point us all, even now, toward disaster. Social order and cooperation arise neither from politicians nor princes, nor from advances in the technology of communication, but out of the whole aggregate of voluntary exchanges, whose driving-force consists of a no more than desire to better oneself. Elementary greed, dear listeners. There exists no ”invisible hand“—that was always an unfortunate turn of phrase—but billions of highly visible fingers, doing, purely for personal gain, what others will freely barter for, with the sole object of improving their lives and those of their children.”
The soldiers below were silent now, looking at one another.
“We defy the ordinances of nature at our peril. Taxation, no less than conscription, as both are in contravention to the Non-Aggression Principle, are the very fuel of war. It is obvious in the case of conscription, perhaps less so in the case of taxation. However, no one who favors taxation, whatever intent he claims, can help to end the tragic institution of war, however pious his claims to a desire for peace.”
Taxation is the fuel of war. It had a certain ring to it, I thought.
“Are we become so uncertain of our prowess that we must steal, or force what we create upon others at swordpoint? Yet that is the nature of law, which I depart now to combat. I beg you, release me, refrain from injury to others, from bringing injury on yourselves. Destructive engines are about to be employed which will end life upon our little planet.”
He paused, then: “In the name of decency, pray help me to prevent that.”
Lucille wept openly, as did Couper, to my astonishment. Mymy’s fur drooped, a lamviin equivalent, perhaps, of tears. Without opposition, the Onwodetsa lowered rher guide-ropes, was pulled down to a mooring on the island by the Fodduans. Somebody thought to throw a bucket of sand over the still-smoldering fuse of the phony bomb. Rhe disgorged rher passengers who began mingling indiscriminately with their former enemies.
Mav turned to us: “I think that we should be about our business, friends. There is a war to stop. Tell me, does this broach contrivance hurt?”
the prime directive
Lieutenant Enson Sermander relaxed on the bed in his stateroom, sipping nutrient fluid through a plastic tube from a small-waisted green-tinted glass bottle he held in his free hand. His other hand was busy. The disgusting-looking dark brown liquid fizzed as it was shaken.
A very good month, the waiter had said, what seemed like years ago.
“Whitey!” Sermander shouted at me as I entered, “Come in, come in!”
“Lieutenant,” I said. “Doctor.”
My own minor injuries had just had time to stiffen. Back aboard Tom Paine Maru, I was attending to a pair errands at once, visiting a sick friend, seeing the doctor myself, while he was handy. There was not much time: things were shaping up “downstairs” for a final, deadly battle.
Sermander’s voice jiggled in time as he rhythmically squeezed the resilient plastic ball the doctor had given him. “Corporal, it is my understanding that I have you to thank for my rapidly-returning health!”
At the moment, he wore the bottom half of a smartsuit. The rest of the garment lay draped neatly across the foot of the bed. A small round bandage—more of a sticking-plaster, really—was visible at his left temple. Giving my gunbelt’s heavy wire buckle a half-twist, I swung it, with its double burden, from around my waist, tossed it into a chair, sagged wearily into another at the Lieutenant’s one-handed gesture.
The Healer Francis Pololo released Sermander’s other wrist—how strange it was to see a physician taking someone’s pulse with his eyes closed—folded up a plastic kit of more sophisticated instruments that he apparently did not trust as much as his own native talents, then turned to his patient. He his wiped broad hands down his pale green tunic. There was a circled red cross embroidered on its left shoulder.
“Your bad shoulder’s bad no longer, Enson. It’ll take several days to get used to your new implant, and several weeks more to master it completely.”
The gorilla removed his wire-rimmed glasses, thoughtfully polished them on his tunic skirt, then arranged them atop his flat black muzzle again.
“In the meantime, take it easy. Don’t overdo things. Get lots of rest.”
“Ha! You medical people are all alike,” the Lieutenant laughed heartily. “Are they not, Corporal? Very well, sir, I shall give your good advice the conscientious attention it merits. Now, will you not see to my loyal associate before you go? He appears a bit out of sorts.”
The gorilla examined the indicators on my suit-sleeve, unzipped the seam to finger the painful, slowly spreading bruise across my chest.
“Blue today, black tonight,” he muttered as if delivering an incantation. “Green tomorrow, yellow the day after that. You’ll live, Whitey. But please have your suit looked at—it absorbed a lot of punishment.
“Gee, thanks a trillion, doc, I will try taking better care of it.”
“Don’t mention it, I’ll bill you. Have a nice day.” He gave us a big-fanged gorilla smile. “And next time someone shoots at you—duck! I’ve already had a report from Howell, he says you saved his little girl’s life a couple of times. Are you a hero, or just accident prone?—don’t answer, we need all the help we can collect on Sodde Lydfe.”
Lighting one of his small brown cigars, Pololo left the apartment.
The occasion appeared to call for a change of subject: “How are you feeling, sir?” He certainly did not look like somebody who had just come out of surgery. His color was excellent, his movements were energetic. There was a light in his eyes that I had never seen there before.
“Much better—almost by the passing minute.” He frowned briefly, then smiled. “There are no words for how I feel, Whitey. This is just amazing! It’s virtually a religious experience. I wish I had realized before ... look, if I want to know what time it is, almost before I consciously wonder about it, I see a display in my mind, superimposed over the visual field, that tells me. Likewise, if I wish to know where the bathroom is, I feel a sort of tug in that direction, or a voice whispers in my ear, or words appear, scrolling across the bottom of—”
He tossed the little plastic ball through the doorway, striking the bathroom sink precisely, then laughed again. “I do not know how to say it properly, but you get my meaning, do you not?” He was ecstatic—feverishly so—exactly like somebody full of drugs. All of my earlier misgivings flared to full life. What had I let them do to my Lieutenant?
“Yes, sir, I believe so. Sir?”
“Yes, Whitey?” He rose from the bed, put his feet on the floor, picked up the smartsuit top to shove his arms into the sleeves. His voice was benevolent, even friendly. This was not the Lieutenant I knew!
“Sir, I have to ask you a question ... ”
Sealing the suitseam, he replied, “Well, in Alexander Hamilton’s blessed name, ask away! If I can possibly answer
it, my dear boy, I will.”
I needed to know: “Uh, how do you feel about the Confederacy now, sir? I mean, about the fact that it is likely to attempt influencing Vespucci the same way that we have seen it influence the other planets we’ve—”
He burst into deep-throated laughter. “There is nothing to worry about, Whitey, I know these people now. They will do no mischief on Vespucci.”
He stood.
“Sir?” It was exactly what I had been afraid of. The Lieutenant had been taken over by the implant they had placed on his brain—with my consent. I was all alone, now, against a mighty interstellar empire.
“That is right, Corporal, because we will not permit them to.” He took a few paces, bent his knees, flexed his arms, his fists. “They have made a serious mistake, giving me this device. Every secret of this starship is open to me, every facet of their history.” He looked straight at me: “I now know enough to stop them, whatever they have in mind.”
“Sir?” Confusion, embarrassment, dawning hope, where despair had been.
He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “Has anyone ever told you, Corporal O’Thraight, that you are an extremely monotonous conversationalist?”
“Uh, no sir—I mean, yes sir—that is, I—”
“Nor a particularly intelligible one, it would appear. I fear that your little—how shall I put this?—that little convenience of yours has already had a distressing effect upon the workings of your mind.”
Red heat rushed into my face. “Sir, I—”
“Do not look at me like that, Corporal! It is perfectly natural and normal. That is why the Navy gives hygiene lectures, after all.” The pistol belt lying in the other chair caught his eye. “By the way, I believe I will have one of those pistols now—no, do not bother with the holster. I will just carry the thing in a pocket of my own devising.”
I got up from my chair, unsnapped the flap of one of the holsters, handed him the weapon, which he tucked away somewhere under his arm. I started to ask him if he wanted a spare cartridge loader, but he spoke first:
“At that, she looks like a palatable little receptacle. Is she any good? Never fear, I do not begrudge you. We shall simply acquire one like her for me, before we leave the ship. Do keep an eye out for a likely one, will you? Dear me, look at the time. Sixteen hundred hours already. We must get moving, Whitey, or you could be compelled to perform an enlisted-man’s unpleasant duty. It must be the implant. I am feeling the first animal stirrings I have had for a long, long time.”
-2-
Imagine the sound of three hands clapping—multiplied by half a dozen octaries. Such a roar enveloped Mav now as he stood atop a large tree stump, attempting to introduce Captain Koko Featherstone-Haugh to the group of lamviin refugees that he steadfastly refused to call his followers.
A thing with poison-dripping spines had tried to kill me on that very stump not too many days before. Now I hoped that the rattlesnakes and various other nasty creatures could take care of themselves. To lamviin, this artificial desert was an overly humid, purely temporary billet—the only place they were even moderately comfortable aboard ship.
“It isn’t our custom,” Koko was telling them, “to welcome anybody in the name of the Confederacy or any other collective. But I think you’re nice, those I’ve met of you, and I’m very happy that you’re here.”
For some idiotic reason, I had been asked to stand beside the oddly-assorted pair. I was happy that Lucille was there with me, smiling, holding my hand. The ugly things that Sermander had clearly enjoyed saying about her still rankled, but I had not told her about them.
Mymy was off being fitted for a nine-legged smartsuit so rhe could see the rest of the ship without drowning in an attempt to breathe. I looked forward to seeing rher dressed in the height of Confederate fashion.
-3-
Somebody shouted, “Showtime!”
The great ship hesitated, then tipped into the atmosphere. Twelve kilometers in diameter, seven and a half miles across, a world unto herself, with her own mountains, deserts, prairie, ocean, she had never been constructed for such a mission. Inertialess, suspended only by the glare of tachyons from her underside, she skipped, skidded, her leading edge glowing until she was a starship no longer, but a highly improbable gigantic flying thing, high above the scarlet Sodde Lydfan seas.
In an otherwise comfortable living-room recliner, Captain Koko Featherstone-Haugh gripped the arms in grim concentration. I wondered whether, under their fur, gorillas could sweat. Tom Paine Maru had no control room—rather, her control-room was inside the captain’s head, wherever that happened to be at the moment. I suddenly heard the structure of the chair-arms fracture with the stress which she put on them, in counterpoint to a constant low moaning in the ship’s tortured structure.
I sat in the crude, upright wooden chair that had served me so well as a weapon, in the fight in that sailor’s bar on Afdiar. My considerate friends had saved it for me, bloodstains and all, as a souvenir.
From the ceiling overhead, strangely enough, came music: some hoarse-voiced woman shouting something about “The Wrecking Ball”. I certainly hoped not. Far beneath us, visible through a floor that had become a window, pink-orange foam frothed over the shallow seas of a dry planet. The broad wakes of two mighty warfleets pointed straight at one another, steaming full speed to keep an appointment with racial death.
We were trying not to be late for the occasion, ourselves.
“There she is!” shouted Couper, pointing a finger like an excited child at the gigantic flagship in the center of the great Podfettian fleet.
“Rhe,” corrected Mav, “the Wemafe. It means ‘bird of peace’. Rhe is the largest warship ever constructed in the history of civilization.”
He looked out through a real window—at least I think it was a real window—at a bright blue ocean where I had been sailing with the captain not very long ago. “Our civilization, that is, Lamviin civilization. I am still having difficulties absorbing the magnitude of—”
“Tom Paine Maru is not a warship,” insisted Pololo.
For the first time, Koko opened her eyes. She looked up fiercely at all of us. “Why yes she is, dear. We go now to make war on war itself!”
“The Awe-Inspiring Refulgence!” Mymy’s voice was louder than Couper’s. Rhe had grown up in a thinner atmosphere than rhe was breathing now. Also, rhe had six orifices to speak through. Rhe pointed to the middle of the Fodduan fleet. “Mav, we’ve got to stop this!”
“I am afraid, my dear surhusband,” Vyssu replied, reflecting her husband’s calm demeanor, “that it is in the hands, as few as they may be per individual, of our new friends. May I have some more tea, Francis?”
“Yes, certainly.” The gorilla poured a few drops onto a silvery rubber pad lying on the floor beside the alien. It would transmit the proper sensations to Vyssu without necessitating the ingestion of fluids.
The giant ship soared lower.
“I’ll be a politician’s nephew,” Couper observed professionally. “It’s the battle of Midway all over again, only with helicopters and dirigibles.” Having only Elsie’s whirlybirds as an example, the aliens had never invented fixed-wing aircraft. I made a note to ask someone about the battle Couper that had mentioned. “Why, this would almost be interesting, if they were playing with anything but atomic bombs down there.”
“Nasty ones,” Rogers grimaced. “With cobalt jackets.”
“I do not believe that the designers were malicious,” offered the Fodduan detective. “Please understand that cobalt is a commonly employed metal in our civilization. I, myself, did not realize what effect—”
“Even so, it was a mighty near thing.” Lucille toyed with a kood stick, “We have a specific mission out here, Mav, to clean up our own trash. There was a lot of debate over interfering with a totally different species. If those had been plain, old-fashioned low-yield nukes ... ”
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