Aftershocks c-3

by Harry Turtledove

  At last, silence fell. Nobody’d shot anybody, not so far as Mordechai could tell. But he hadn’t the faintest idea what had happened-he hadn’t been able to make out the words-or why they’d started screaming at one another in the first place, either. All he could do was sit there in the darkness and wonder and wait.

  Instead of waiting, he fell asleep. He didn’t think he’d been asleep very long when the door flew open. One of the bully boys shined a flashlight in his face. Another one growled, “Come on. You’re going to see the boss.”

  “Am I?” Anielewicz yawned and rose and did as he was told.

  He was still yawning when the two toughs escorted him into Benjamin Rubin’s presence. Rubin didn’t beat around the bush: “Is it true that, if we surrender, we can surrender to the Lizards and not the damned Nazis? And there’s supposed to be a safe-conduct out of here and a pardon afterwards. Is that true, or isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s true,” Mordechai answered, more than a little dazed. “Does it matter?”

  “It matters,” Rubin said bleakly. “On those terms, we give up.” He took a pistol off his belt and handed it to Anielewicz. “Here. This is yours now.”

  Two more of his followers brought in the Lizard Mordechai had heard. It wasn’t Nesseref; he would have recognized her body paint. “I greet you,” he said. “Are you Gorppet?” When the Lizard made the affirmative gesture, Anielewicz went on, “They are surrendering to the Race, in exchange for safe-conduct and pardon. Will you go make the arrangements for picking them up and getting them out of the Reich?”

  “It shall be done,” Gorppet answered. “And you have no idea how glad I am that it shall be done.”

  “Oh, I might,” Anielewicz said.

  One of the Jews who followed Rubin led the Lizard toward the front door. It opened, then closed again. Rubin said, “I’m counting on the Race to keep its promises.”

  “It’s a good bet,” Mordechai said. “They’re better about things like that than we are.” He raised an eyebrow. “What made you change your mind at last?”

  “What do you think?” Benjamin Rubin said bitterly. “We tried to touch off the damned bomb, and it wouldn’t work.” He looked as if he hated Anielewicz. “These past twenty years, I thought you were taking care of it.”

  “So did I,” Mordechai said. “But do you know what? I’ve never been so happy in all my life to find out I was wrong.”

  “Well, there is one crisis solved.” Atvar spoke in considerable relief. “Solved without casualties, too, I might add. That is such a pleasant novelty, I would not mind seeing it occur more often.”

  “I understand, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “I hope such proves to be the case.”

  “So do I.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. So much time on Tosev 3, however, had turned him from an optimist to a realist, if not to an outright cynic. “I would not bet anything I could not afford to lose. Given the present sorry situation on too much of Tosev 3-and, indeed, throughout too much of this solar system-my larger bet would too likely prove doomed to disappointment.”

  His adjutant made the affirmative gesture. “I understand,” he repeated. “Shall we now proceed to the rest of the daily report?”

  “I suppose so,” Atvar replied. “I am sure I will not like it nearly so well as the news from the Reich.”

  Next on the agenda was the latest news on the fighting in China. Atvar promptly proved himself right: he didn’t like it nearly so well as he’d liked the news from the Reich. From somewhere or other, the Chinese rebels had come up with revoltingly large quantities of Deutsch antilandcruiser rockets and antiaircraft missiles. The fleetlord had a strong suspicion where somewhere or other was: the SSSR, with a long land border with China, seemed a far more likely candidate than the distant, shattered Reich. But he couldn’t prove anything there, the Race’s best efforts to do so notwithstanding. And the SSSR, unfortunately, was able to do too much damage to make welcome a confrontation without secure proof of wrongdoing. Molotov, the SSSR’s not-emperor, had made his willingness to fight very clear.

  “One thing,” Atvar said after reading the latest digest of action reports from China. “Fleetlord Reffet can no longer object to recruiting members of the colonization fleet to help defend the Race. A few more campaigns like the one now under way there and we will not have enough males from the conquest fleet left to give us an armed force of the size and strength we require on this world.”

  “As a matter of fact, Exalted Fleetlord, Fleetlord Reffet is still objecting,” Pshing said. “If you will see item five of the agenda-”

  “I shall do no such thing, not now,” Atvar said. “Reffet is welcome to hiss and cough and snarl as much as he likes. He has no authority to do anything more. If he tries to do anything more than object-if, for example, he tries to obstruct-he will learn at first hand just how significant military power can be.”

  He relished the thought of sending a couple of squads of battle-hardened infantrymales to seize Reffet and force him to see reason when it was aimed at him from the barrel of a rifle. If the fleetlord of the colonization fleet provoked him enough, he just might do it. So he told himself, at any rate. Would he ever really have the nerve? Maybe not. But thinking about it was sweet.

  He needed a few sweet thoughts, for the next agenda item was no more satisfactory than the one pertaining to China: the American Big Uglies were going right ahead with their plan to turn small asteroids into missiles aimed at Tosev 3. Probes had found several new distant rocks to which they’d fitted motors, and analysts were warning in loud and strident tones that they were sure they hadn’t found them all.

  “Spirits of Emperors past turn their backs on the Americans,” Atvar muttered. He swung an eye turret toward Pshing. “Our analysts believe the Americans will resist with force if we try to destroy these installations, even if no Big Uglies are presently aboard them. What is your view?”

  “Exalted Fleetlord, it might have been better had we not threatened them with war if they attacked our automated probes out in the asteroid belt,” his adjutant replied. “Now they can reverse that precedent and hit us in the snout with it.”

  “No doubt you are right about that,” Atvar said unhappily. “But I am more concerned with practical aspects than with legalistic ones here. If we ignore the precedent and resort to force, will they respond in kind?”

  “By every indication from Henry Cabot Lodge, they will,” Pshing said. “Do we wish to ignore the express statements of their ambassador? Can we afford to ignore those statements? If we ignore them and find we were mistaken, how expensive and how embarrassing will that prove?”

  “Those are all good questions,” Atvar admitted. “They are, in fact, the very questions I have been asking myself. I wish I liked the answers I find for them better than I do.”

  “And I also understand that,” Pshing said. “The more technically capable the Big Uglies become, the more difficult in other ways they also become.”

  “And the more unpredictably difficult, too.” Atvar swung both eye turrets toward the monitor. “Why are so many American and Canadian manufacturing companies suddenly ordering large quantities of a particular small servomotor from us? To what nefarious purpose will they put the device?”

  “I saw that item, Exalted Fleetlord, and checked with our Security personnel,” Pshing said. “The stated reason is, this motor will be the central unit in a toy for Tosevite hatchlings.”

  “Yes, that is the stated reason.” Atvar bore down heavily on the word. “But what true reason lurks behind it?”

  “Here, I believe, none.” Pshing spoke to the monitor, which yielded Atvar a view of a goggle-eyed, fuzzy object that looked like a cross between a Big Ugly and some of the large wild beasts of Tosev 3. “This thing is called, I believe, a Hairy. By the excitement with which the Tosevites speak of it, it is already remarkably popular, and seems on the way to becoming more so.”

  “Madness,” Atvar said with great conviction. “Utter madness, and an utter
waste of good servomotors, too.”

  “Better they should go to fripperies than to devices that truly would trouble us,” Pshing said.

  “Well, that is a truth, and I can hardly deny it.” Atvar looked at the next item on the agenda. It involved talking with Reffet about recruiting males and females from the colonization fleet. “Reffet is a nuisance, and I can hardly deny that, either. Go call him, Pshing. Perhaps the shock will make him fall over dead. I can hope as much, at any rate.”

  “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Atvar’s adjutant said, and went off to do it.

  Reffet remained among those breathing. Atvar had known his untimely demise was too much to hope for. “I greet you,” Atvar said when his opposite number’s image appeared in the monitor. He’d given up trying to be friendly to Reffet. Perhaps he could still manage businesslike. “Have you seen the latest casualty figures from my males trying to put down the Chinese revolt?”

  “They are unfortunate, yes,” Reffet answered. “This planet should never have cost so much to pacify.”

  “If you know how to make the Big Uglies ignorant, perhaps you will tell me,” Atvar said. “Since we must deal with them as they are, though, perhaps you will draw the obvious conclusion and stop obstructing what needs to be done.”

  More earnestly than Atvar had expected, Reffet said, “Do you not yet grasp how alien this world is to me-indeed, to all the colonization fleet? Do you think we imagined independent Tosevite not-empires, spacefaring Big Uglies armed with explosive-metal bombs, when we set out from Home? Do you think we imagined how disrupted our carefully planned economy would become when we discovered that the Tosevites were already doing so much of the manufacturing we had expected to have to do ourselves? Do you think we dreamt of the staggering effect ginger would have on our whole society? Can you truthfully say you looked for any of these things before going into cold sleep?”

  “I looked for not a one of them. I have never claimed otherwise,” Atvar replied. “But what I and what the conquest fleet as a whole have tried to do is adapt to these things, not pretend they do not exist. That pretense is what we see too often from the colonization fleet, and what infuriates and addles us.”

  “How long did you take before you began to adapt?” Reffet asked. “If you tell me you did it all at once, I shall not believe you.”

  “No, we did not do it all at once,” Atvar said, relieved to find Reffet so reasonable. “But, because we were so outnumbered, we could not pretend that the Big Uglies are in fact what we wish they were, an attitude we have seen too often among you colonists. Sooner or later, we shall grow old and die off. Sooner or later, you will have to defend yourselves. Such is life on Tosev 3, like it or not. Until such time as this planet is fully assimilated into the Empire-if that day ever comes-we shall have to maintain our strength, because the wild Big Uglies assuredly will maintain theirs.”

  Reffet sighed. “It could be that you are right. I do not say that it is, but it could be. But if it is, this world will be a long-lasting anomaly within the Empire, with a permanent Soldiers’ Time and with the disruptions springing from ginger. If you think I like or approve of this, you are mistaken. If you think I am incapable of dealing with it, however, you are also mistaken.”

  “Do you know what?” Atvar said. Without waiting for a reply, he went on, “I have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting that, Reffet. On that basis, I think we can get along well enough. I certainly hope we can, at any rate.”

  Atvar knew he sounded surprised as well as pleased. So did Reffet: “I also hope so, Atvar. Let us make the effort, shall we?”

  “Agreed,” Atvar said at once. After he broke the connection, he stared at the monitor in astonished delight. Maybe we really can work together, he thought. I never would have believed it, but maybe we really can. And maybe, just maybe- a stranger thought yet-Reffet is not an idiot after all. Who would have imagined that?

  A moment later, Pshing’s face appeared on the monitor. His adjutant said, “Exalted Fleetbord, you have a call from Senior Researcher Ttomalss. Will you speak to him?”

  “Yes, put him through,” Atvar said, and then, as he and Ttomalss saw each other, “I greet you, Senior Researcher.”

  “And I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. “As you will know, I have been examining the ways in which the Big Uglies administered their own relatively successful empires, in the hope that we might learn from their history. In this effort, the empire administered by the Big Uglies called Romans has proved perhaps the most instructive.”

  “All right, then,” Atvar said. “How did these Romans administer their empire, and how might we imitate their example?”

  “Their most important virtue, I think, was flexibility,” Ttomalss replied. “They treated areas differently, depending on their previous level of civilization and on how well pacified they were. They had several grades of citizenship, with gradually increasing amounts of privilege, until finally the inhabitants of a conquered region became legal equal to longtime citizens of their empire. And they did their best to acculturate and assimilate new regions into the broader fabric of their empire.”

  “These sound as if they may be ideas we can use,” Atvar said. “The concept of multiple grades of citizenship strikes me as particularly intriguing, and as being worth further exploration. Please prepare a more detailed report and send it to me for consideration and possible action.”

  “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss said. “I thank you.”

  “On the contrary, Senior Researcher: I may be the one who should thank you,” Atvar said. After Ttomalss was off the line, Atvar made the affirmative gesture. Maybe, just maybe, the Race would find ways to incorporate Tosev 3 into the Empire after all.

  Liu Han sat behind a table on a dais. A disorderly crowd of city folk and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army filled the hall. Here and there, braziers had been lit, but they did little to fight the chilly wind that howled in through shattered windows. Liu Han brought her hand down sharply on the tabletop. The noise cut through the babbling of the crowd. People looked her way. That was what she wanted.

  “We are ready to bring in the next defendant,” she told the soldiers nearest the table. “His name is”-she glanced down at a list-“Ma Hai-Teh.”

  “Yes, Comrade,” their leader said. Then he bawled out Ma Hai-Teh’s name at the top of his lungs. More soldiers dragged a man through the crowd till he stood in front of the dais. He wore a frightened expression and the filthy, torn remains of a Western-style business suit. His hands were bound behind him.

  “You are Ma Hai-Teh?” Liu Han asked him.

  “Yes, Comrade,” he answered meekly. “I want to say that I am innocent of the charges brought against me, and I can prove it.” He spoke like an educated man-and only an educated man was likely to have, or to want, Western-style clothes.

  “You don’t even know what those charges are,” Liu Han pointed out.

  “Whatever they are, I am innocent,” Ma replied. “I have done nothing wrong, so I cannot possibly be guilty.”

  “Did you serve as a clerk for the little scaly devils while they ruled Peking?” Liu Han asked. “Did you help them rule Peking, in other words?”

  “I moved papers from one folder to another, from one filing cabinet to another,” Ma Hai-Teh said. “That is all I did. The papers were school records, nothing more. Nothing in them could possibly have harmed anyone.”

  Liu Han nodded. Ma looked relieved. That was a mistake, and would doubtless prove his last. Now she wouldn’t even have to bother calling wit-nesses to confirm that he had been a clerk for the scaly devils. She said, “You have confessed to counterrevolutionary activity, and to being a running dog of the little scaly imperialists. There is only one penalty for this: death. Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, take him away and carry out the sentence.”

  Ma Hai-Teh stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his ears. He hadn’t understood what sort of trial this was, and he wo
uld never get a chance to improve his understanding. “But I am innocent!” he wailed as the bored-looking soldiers dragged him off.

  A minute later, a volley of gunfire outside cut off his protests. Liu Han looked at the list again. “Next case,” she said. “One Ku Cheng-Lun.”

  Unlike the luckless, naive Ma, Ku Cheng-Lun labored under no illusions about the sort of proceeding in which he found himself. As soon as he had given his name, he said, “Comrade, I used my clerical position to make as many errors as I could and to sabotage the little scaly devils every way I could.”

  “I suppose you have some proof of this?” Liu Han’s voice was dry. She supposed no such thing. She’d listened to a lot of running dogs and lackeys trying to justify their treason to mankind. She’d heard a lot of lies.

  But, to her astonishment, Ku, whose hands were also bound, turned to his guards and said, “Please take the paper from my shirt pocket here and give it to the judge.” When a soldier did so, the clerk went on, “Comrade, this is a reprimand from my supervisor, warning me not to make so many mistakes and saying I put his whole department in danger because I did. But I kept right on, because I hate the little devils.”

  “I will look at this paper.” Liu Han unfolded it and rapidly read through it. It was what the prisoner said it was, and was even written on the stationery of the Ministry of Public Works. Had he written it, to protect himself after the scaly devils were expelled from Peking? Had his boss written it because he was nothing but a lazy good-for-nothing? Or was he really a patriot and a saboteur, as he claimed?

  He spoke now with unhesitating pride: “I am not a traitor. I have never done anything but fight for freedom, even if I did not have a rifle in my hands.”

  “I suppose that is possible,” Liu Han said: as great an admission as she’d made in any of these summary trials. She scratched the side of her jaw, considering. After half a minute or so, she said, “I sentence you to hard labor, building roads or entrenchments or whatever else may be required of you.”