by Rick Cook
“Disease?” Aubrey said. “The possibility hadn’t occurred to me, but yes, I can understand your concern.”
The Council President froze. Physical illness between species? Are these things even more fragile than they appear? Or is the translator malfunctioning? Never mind. The creatures had agreed and that was the central point.
“With your permission we will establish a station near your ship where we may meet in safety and mutual comfort to discuss and to trade physical objects. Naturally we will keep you fully informed of all movements of ships and materials near your vessel.”
“Naturally,” Aubrey agreed.
“Now,” the Council President said, “I have another proposal for communication . . .”
“The Colonists have suggested that we limit our physical contacts to the greatest extent possible,” Aubrey told the next meeting of the Ship’s Council. “They are concerned about the possibility of disease.”
“Between species?” C.D. MacNamara asked. “But surely that is exaggerated.”
Captain Peter Jenkins considered it more than exaggerated, he thought it was insane. But he wasn’t in this “working session” of the Council, sitting at the foot of the table, to voice an opinion. He was here as a half-welcome guest because Aubrey had finally realized that the captain held effective veto power over dealing with the aliens. Like it or not, he needed to know what the captain thought before the Council established a policy.
“Perhaps,” Aubrey replied to MacNamara. “Perhaps not. They have much greater experience with these things than we do, after all. However in view of certain other concerns,” Aubrey glanced significantly at DeLorenzo, “it appears a reasonable suggestion.”
“How can we learn anything if they limit contact?” someone asked.
“The Colonists have also proposed free and open communication with us.”
“Just what does that mean?” DeLorenzo growled.
“It means, Major, that any of us can talk freely to them. They will open as many channels as we desire and make available as many of their people as we wish to speak to.”
“While they pump us dry?”
“Certain subjects will not be discussed, of course,” MacNamara said. “We have already agreed upon that.”
“And did any of the people doing the agreeing stop to consider the security risks?”
“We have already agreed not to discuss the drive or anything relating to it with them,” Aubrey said firmly.
“And what about the rest of it? What about the location of Earth?”
“That too, is not a subject for discussion.”
“Aubrey, do you know what the first principle of interrogation is? Get the subject talking. Talk about anything. The weather, soccer, anything, but get him talking. You do that and you’re halfway to finding out anything you want to know.”
“I very much doubt the aliens will be subjecting any of us to the third degree,” Aubrey said stiffly.
“Third degree, third degree,” DeLorenzo mimicked nasally. “Jesus Christ man, you don’t have the faintest damn idea of how an interrogation is conducted! Let me tell you something. I’ve done plenty of interrogations, and I never resorted to force.” Well, almost never, DeLorenzo admitted to himself. “I found out what I wanted to know, too. If you follow this idiotic policy, the aliens will have the secret of the drive and the location of Earth in six weeks.”
“Absurd,” MacNamara snapped.
“Is it, Doctor?” DeLorenzo’s smile was more like a snarl. “Do you know how pitifully easy it is to trick someone into saying more than they should?”
“Major, we are talking about scientific discussions here.”
“Remember how much the Soviets got from the West by ‘scientific discussions’?”
“Now really . . .”
“You know, you’re awfully damn eager to end up as someone else’s slaves,” DeLorenzo’s voice cut through Aubrey’s smoothly modulated tones.
“I beg your pardon!”
“Slaves,” DeLorenzo repeated firmly, looking up and down the table. “The whole human race. You’ve already heard that they’re centuries ahead of us. If they show up at Earth how do we stop them?”
“Slaves went out with the industrial revolution,” Carlotti said.
“Call them ‘colonies,’ or protectorates’ then.” DeLorenzo’s smile was ugly. “It puts a better face on it. But the result’s the same. Economic and cultural domination of Earth by these aliens.”
“Oh come now, Major,” Aubrey said patiently. “We have been all through this before. What conceivable reason could an advanced culture have for trying to dominate another culture?”
“I bet the Indians couldn’t figure out what Cortez hoped to get out of them either. The only thing that stands between us and slavery is the star drive. And now you want to put yourselves in a position where the aliens are sure to get it.” He shook his head. “Talk about selling someone the rope to hang you. You people want to give them the shackles to enslave you.”
“It never ceases to amaze me,” Aubrey said coldly, “how we read our own basest motives into those we mistrust.”
“And it never ceases to amaze me how some people confuse their rosy fantasies with reality. Man, these are aliens. We know nothing about them!”
“We know the Colonists are not guilty of genocide,” Aubrey shot back.
DeLorenzo went white. A single vein in his forehead throbbed. Without speaking he pushed back his chair, rose from the table and stalked from the room.
No one said anything until the door had closed behind him.
“Now,” Aubrey murmured, “if there are no logical objections . . .”
No one said anything.
“Of course,” Aubrey went on, “since this is a matter affecting the safety of the ship, the captain has the final say in the matter.” He turned toward Jenkins.
Jenkins cleared his throat. “If we are going to learn anything from these aliens we are going to have to talk to them. The more of us there are talking to them, the faster we can learn it.” And the sooner we can get out of here.
“Subject to the provision that nothing bearing on the drive, the location of Earth or certain other sensitive matters is discussed, I’ll support open communication with the aliens.”
Aubrey paused. Obviously, he hadn’t expected the captain to do more than rubber stamp the Council’s decision. “I suppose we all agree to that,” he said smoothly.
MacNamara and the other Council members nodded.
“All right then. It’s settled,” Aubrey said briskly. “How quickly can we have the channels open?”
“That depends on how fast we can get them set up and how long it takes to draw up a list of prohibited topics. I’ll want Dr. Takiuji’s advice on that.”
“I think a committee would be more appropriate,” Dr. Aubrey said.
“If Dr. Takiuji wants help I’m sure he will ask for it,” Jenkins said. “But he knows much more about the drive and what is likely to be sensitive than any of the rest of us.”
Aubrey turned that over for a minute. “All right. But we need to do this as quickly as possible.”
After the meeting broke up, Jenkins did not return to the bridge immediately. Instead he went to the North Bubble and swam over next to the port to float alone in an ocean of stars.
The star field was familiar but not identical. At one hundred light-years, there are differences. Shift a few light-years and you lose most of the G and K suns and all the M-type dwarfs. But the big bright stars, the O, A and B suns, still shine brightly in the sky. Their positions change, sometimes radically, but by concentrating on the brightest stars you can pick out the general outlines of the sky from the Solar System. That is, the effect even stranger than if all the stars were new.
“It is different,” a voice said in the darkness behind him. He turned and there was Father Simon.
“I’m sorry, you startled me.”
“I seem to be making a habit of that,” Father
Simon said ruefully. He caught Jenkins’ puzzled look.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
“That’s all right. Please, stay if you want to.”
For a while both men looked at the stars without saying anything.
“You know, Father,” Jenkins said at last, “this is a damned unusual situation.”
“I rather imagine so,” said the priest with feeling.
“No, I don’t mean the aliens, although God knows that’s earthshaking enough. I mean the situation I’m in.”
“How is that?”
“Normally a ship captain has superiors no more than a few hours away—by radio, I mean. A captain can consult with his or her superiors on any major decision.” He sighed. “That’s a good feeling. I never realized how much I relied on that chain of command until now.”
“But surely you didn’t ask for instructions on every little problem?”
“No, of course not. Captains have a lot of freedom of action and especially in an emergency you act first and then ask permission. Still, it’s a tremendous comfort to know there’s someone out there you can call on when you’re not sure what to do.”
“I am familiar with the feeling,” Father Simon said, fingering his clerical collar.
Jenkins was staring out into space and didn’t notice. “Here we’re alone. I’m not used to it. Not with something like this.”
“But it isn’t unknown for a captain to be in this situation,” Father Simon said quietly. “Historically ship captains have usually had to make decisions without direct reference to higher authority.”
“Historically? Oh, you mean naval captains, on Earth’s seas. I suppose so, but commanding a clipper ship doesn’t have much to do with commanding the Maxwell.”
“True,” the priest agreed. “But the traditions, and I believe much of the law, relating to captains and their ships comes from that time.”
“I suppose so,” Jenkins repeated. “But I don’t see the connection.”
“Forgive me, but it occurs to me that perhaps there are lessons to be gleaned from those traditions for our present situation.”
“No one’s ever been in this situation,” Jenkins said wryly.
“Perhaps, but I venture to say that people have often been in similar situations.” He paused and Jenkins turned toward him. The ruddy light of the alien sun caught the priest’s face from below, etching the cheekbones and accentuating the hook of his nose.
“I think the reason humans value tradition is that there is so little we meet that is truly new. Oh, new facts, certainly, and new combinations of circumstances. But so much of what we must deal with is merely old wine poured into new bottles. Traditions tell us how others have coped with similar circumstances, for better or worse.”
“So you think I should do what an old-time sea captain would do?”
“No, I think you should do what you would do. But in deciding that, perhaps you should also consider the lessons embodied in the traditions that grew up when captains were truly ‘masters under God’.”
“There may be something to that,” Jenkins said noncommittally. “I wonder what an old-time sea captain would have done in a situation like this.”
“You could always look in the library,” Father Simon suggested.
Logically there was no need for a ship’s library. Screens in offices, cabins or anywhere else in the ship could call up data just as easily as ones in study carrels.
But humans are not entirely creatures of logic. They need to break their routine, to see different people and places. Hence the library. A place of quiet and rest where anyone could go to browse through the available knowledge carried on the Maxwell.
But it was not restful to everyone there.
The damn fools, Major Autro DeLorenzo fumed. The damn blind stupid fools. All they could see was the bait being dangled in front of them. And that wimp captain! Madre de Dios how did a cretin like that ever achieve command?
So they would not protect themselves, eh? Very well, it was up to him to protect all humanity from them.
The library had the complete plans of the ship and all its systems. He had the training to put it to use.
Carefully and methodically, Major Autro DeLorenzo began planning his sabotage.
In the observation bubble, Captain Peter Jenkins floated in space and watched the stars. Have I really done the right thing, he wondered. Can we trust beings we have so little in common with? DeLorenzo’s right. The risks are enormous. But so is the reward. He had taken action only after consultation and, indeed, at the urging of the Ship’s Council. However this turned out, he was sure there was no board of inquiry in the Solar System that would find fault with his actions.
But somehow the thought didn’t reassure him.
How to reach them, the Council President wondered. How to reach these peculiar creatures and wrest from them the secret of their drive.
Already the ship was under intense scrutiny. Alien instruments studied it from every colony that could bring them to bear and from many other places in space as well. Every emission from the ship was sampled and exhaustively analyzed by the Colonists’ computers. Scientists scrambled through the accumulated knowledge of millennia seeking correlations between the ship’s shape and performance and anything that might possibly offer a clue to the drive’s function. Hypotheses were formulated, argued violently, modified, discarded and formulated anew.
So far, nothing. The scientists and savants talked at great length of what they learned, but none of them could offer the slightest clue as to how the drive might work. There seemed to be nothing in any library anywhere which could shed the slightest clue as to how the drive worked.
For now their best hope, their only hope was to induce them to part with it.
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey told the alien, “but our Council has decided to leave discussion of our star drive until a later expedition. Personally it was not my choice, but . . .”
There was a pause while the computer translated the statement and a longer pause while the alien considered it. Aubrey did not realize that the word the humans translated as “council” referred to a governing and arbitrating body between different, independent groups.
“You represent different lineages, then?” the Colonist asked.
“No, we aren’t related, if that’s what you mean. We are many different races and several nationalities.”
The Colonist stood with his head cocked to one side for a long time, apparently listening to a complex translation. When he spoke, he spoke at length and the translation was slow in coming.
“How do you resolve conflicts, then?”
Aubrey looked embarrassed. “We try not to let such notions interfere with us. We strive to work together in peace and harmony.”
Aubrey didn’t realize that the sentence translated into, “We must work constantly and strenuously to achieve an absence of open conflict within our primary group and to find a stable orbit.” Even if he had, he probably would not have seen the difference in the sentence.
The alien froze. He stayed motionless so long Aubrey wondered if something had gone wrong with the video. Then the Colonist flicked his nictating membranes over his eyes and his mouth moved.
“You strive for this?”
“We try to achieve it, yes.” Aubrey sighed. “It is not easy for us. We are a young species and we tend to be combative.”
“It is not good to be too combative,” the alien said without special emphasis.
Yes! The Council President replayed the transmission for the fourth time and tried to stifle the excitement welling up in him.
He had it, he realized. The answer was unbelievably simple and now he had it!
The aliens did not represent a single lineage. There were many lineages and they were bound together by only the most rudimentary agreements. They seemed to have no Covenant at all. Not even for their species as a whole!
As a result they were in constant conflict w
ith one another. Their lineages were weak and seemed unable to enforce more than the most rudimentary discipline. It was not necessary to deal with these creatures’ entire lineage. They could be dealt with individually. One by one they could be bribed, suborned, coerced and threatened into giving up their most precious secret.
And, most incredibly of all, from the sound of it, it could be done with ease. These aliens had no real concept of security. Their channels of communication were almost completely unguarded and their computers were poorly protected.
The Council President spared a thought for the society that lay behind this starship. How had the leaders of their lineages survived so long? It was insanity to send out a ship with so little protection and a crew so hopelessly disunited. Did the Elders of the Inner Grove simply not care what happened to these ships? Incredible. But then the entire situation was incredible.
It really did not matter. They were here, they were as they were and they carried with them a thing of great value. It would be a simple matter to get that information from them now that he had the key.
Turning individuals against their lineages was a technique which had been old among them long before this system was founded. Yes, the Council President thought, the weapons were well in hand to take what was wanted from these strange beings.
He turned from the recorder to the map inlaid on the wall behind him and thrilled again at the vision of power it spread out before him.
There were complications, he admitted to himself. He was sure this same recording was being played and replayed in every Colony in the system. The others were undoubtedly aware of the same weakness and they would move to exploit it.
That would not be easy to control. Concessions would have to be made, of course, and the full Council authority doubtless invoked to keep the colonies from trampling each other in their haste to take advantage of this. But ultimately the Council President had no doubt in his ability to perturb the orbits to his benefit. As always in the scramble of bargaining, coercion, cajoling and arguing, he would emerge on the upper branch. And his lineage would benefit accordingly.