by Howard Marsh
Brad’s response was direct and to the point. “If you want a world to live on, you will listen to our proposal and think very carefully before rejecting it. I guarantee that if you attempt to take our planet by force, you will find that you cannot live here. We have prepared biological weapons that are buried deeply, all over the entire planet. We can render the planet uninhabitable for your race for at least one million of our years.”
For a moment, there was silence and then Akaree Daru Novata replied, “We doubt that your buried weapons can withstand the intense thermonuclear bombardment that we can send if we are not able to defeat you with our heavy plasma and microwave weapons. We will sterilize your planet and then spend enough time in near light speed travel, so when we return, the world will be safe for us.”
Brad shook his head and replied, “Do you think that we are fools? Haven’t you learned that we can think as well as you can? We have many layers of robotic weapons. Some would activate immediately after an invasion or many years after a thermonuclear attack, when the radiation levels have decreased enough for you to return. Others are programmed to wait for subsequent bombardments or when your machines are detected as they arrive on Earth. Then there are other layers, many others. You could bombard Earth time and time again, but there would still be weapons remaining, waiting for the events that cause them to activate. They are tended by robots that have unbounded lifetimes, and the pathogens that they will release are far worse than the ones that we sent in our first biological attack. Even one of these canisters can release enough pathogen to contaminate the entire planet within one or two months. If you win the war, you will lose the chance to live here forever. That’s why you should listen to what we have to offer.”
Brad then explained what Earth was willing to offer and showed maps of the areas that had been set aside for the Chanreeks’ temporary home while Mars was being prepared for them. They listened silently while he spoke and for several seconds after he finished. From the expressions on their faces, and from their body language, Brad and Harry could tell that their earlier arrogance and assuredness had changed to concern.
Finally Akaree Daru Novata spoke, “We will take your proposal under consideration. You will be taken back to your ship until we are ready to resume our discussions.” Then they left and the screen went blank.
“So, that was interesting,” Brad said as he got up from his chair. What do …”
Harry interrupted, “En Español, Brad.” Both of them were fluent in Spanish, and Brad realized that Harry switched language so the Chanreek translators wouldn’t be able to follow their conversation.
“OK,” he replied in Spanish. “What do you have?”
“I was able to make contact with Robby. He’s still operating, and our software is still functioning, so he’s recording everything that interests us as it comes across the robot network. That’s their main network for planning and for recording meetings, so it’s better than when we just read their message traffic. We’re tapped into the mother lode of information. I can see in their planning and analysis records that they aren’t as confident as they made out to be. They’re pretty sure that they can overpower us and that the warships that we already sent at them are most of what we have, but they’re not one hundred percent confident, more like about eighty percent. Some of their military leaders think that we may be keeping the big planetary defenses hidden, so that we can surprise them again.”
“So we still have some leverage?”
“It looks that way. But they do have a plan for a massive thermonuclear attack. They had robots outfit some of the contaminated transports with a large number of weapons, and they’ll use robots as crews. That part of what they said is true. They also figured that we might use biological weapons to contaminate Earth, so they do have a plan for multiple bombardments, spaced at about ten thousand years. They’re preparing four bombardments, all of them done by robots that would return to the solar system in three waves after the first bombardment. If they resort to this attack, they would return to settle on Earth about one hundred thousand years from now. This isn’t a problem for them since almost no time would elapse on their ships.”
“I thought that they no longer had enough survivors to be able to leave on an extended trek.”
“That’s only if they were searching for a new home world. When they do that, they have to loiter for quite a few years while they search an area. They can’t do that anymore since they have very limited long term life support. Their agriculture and environmental sustainment capabilities are almost zero. They also have very few scout ships to do the exploration. But if they’re just trying to kill time by traveling fast, none of this matters.”
“OK, I see. So what can you tell about their response to our proposal.”
“From what I’ve seen, I think that they’ll realize that our offer is probably their best chance of surviving. Wait. I’m getting new information. They’re discussing this now, and the meeting is being recorded in real time. I’m like a fly on the wall, listening in through Robby’s monitoring of the robot network. This is one big piece of luck.”
Harry was silent for about a minute, leaving Brad to wait for the next bit of news.
“They’re leaning toward accepting our proposal, but they’re suspicious of our intentions. They worry that we will invite them to land on Earth, and when we have all of them here, we’ll release the pathogens. They don’t trust us, for obvious reasons. I think that we’d feel the same way. So we need to give them some assurance that we’re being honest about having them as guests while we terraform Mars.”
Brad thought about this for a few seconds and replied, “Why don’t we suggest that they use their robots and their thermonuclear weapons as guarantees that we’ll play fair? They have the power to destroy Earth whenever they want to, so if they send their robots off at near light speed and have them return from time to time to check things out, that should give them some assurance that we’d want their people living here in peace whenever the robots returned.”
“They had the same idea,” Harry answered. “They think that all they’d need is about one hundred years before they could be sure of the situation here. But they’re not going to tell us about that plan. They’re afraid that if we knew, we might be able to build planetary defenses that could stop the robot attack. But the good news is that they seem to be willing to continue the negotiations, not just reject our proposal out of hand, which was their original intention.”
*
Back at Nebula Prime, Seduro, Billingsley, and the other senior members of the staff spent most of the time in the large conference room, waiting for word from Brad and Harry. Radio transmissions from the Chanreek fleet would take about a day to reach them, so the tension built as the hours passed.
Finally, three days after Brad and Harry had left on their mission, a message arrived and was displayed on the large screen on the wall of the conference room. It reported that negotiations were concluded after a day of very tense discussions. The Earth’s proposal was finally accepted, on condition that a Chanreek inspection team could visit each of the territories that had been set aside and then meet with the Earth’s leadership to iron out final details. Brad and Harry were already on their way back and would arrive a few hours after the message. The Chanreek inspection team would be ready to come to Earth about a day later and would wait beyond the orbit of the moon for further instructions from Nebula on the procedure for traveling to Earth.
“So what leadership will they meet with, and where?” Billingsley asked.
“They’ll meet with us, at Ops,” was Seduro’s reply. “We can’t take the chance that a meeting with the heads of state could unravel everything. And we don’t want to show them the true state of Earth’s technology outside of Nebula’s. We’ll send a transport to their ship and take their team to Ops. When they see the warships in the hangar area, it should continue to give the impression that we have forces that they wouldn’t want to contend with. As far as t
hey’re concerned, we’re the leadership on Earth, and I have to say that this isn’t too far from the truth. The governments will do whatever we tell them to do. So we’re the boss, at least until things settle out. Then we can decide later on our relationship with the governments for the longer term.”
Billingsley nodded, “OK, meeting over,” he said. “Let’s everyone get back to work. We need to prepare for our visitors. Alert the personnel at the bases in the Chanreek resettlement area that they can expect a Chanreek inspection team in a few days. They need to get everyone who shouldn’t be there out as soon as possible. Only trained Nebula personnel are to have any contact with the Chanreeks. Everyone knows the plan, so let’s get to it.”
At that, the meeting ended, and everyone left to prepare for the arrival.
*
Nebula sent a large transport ship to meet the Chanreek ship when it stopped just beyond the orbit of the moon, and the delegates were transferred to the Nebula ship for the short flight to Earth. They arrived at Ops and were greeted by Seduro, Billingsley, Haverford, Brad, and Harry, the latter two mainly since they had already met and would provide continuity in the discussions. The Chanreek delegation consisted of five Chanreeks, led by General Kragin and Minister Naroo. The other three were introduced as scientists who would collect data in each region and advise the two leaders on the ability of their people to live for an extended time in those places. Both the humans and Chanreeks had translation devices.
“Welcome to Earth,” Seduro began. “I trust that the accommodations in our transport ship were suitable.”
“Dispense with the pleasantries,” Minister Naroo replied. “The trip took only a few minutes of our local time, so adequacy of the accommodations is irrelevant. We came here to inspect the areas of your planet that you propose for us to settle, not to engage in idle chatter. So let us proceed without wasting time.”
Seduro glanced at Billingsley. “Diplomacy certainly wasn’t one of their major strengths,” he silently said to himself. Billingsley nodded as if he could read Seduro’s mind, and had precisely the same thought in his own mind. Brad and Harry just smiled a bit. They’d been dealing with these aliens for more than a day and knew how abrupt and disrespectful they could be.
“Fine,” Seduro replied. “Then let’s get on with it. We’ll go first to the region in the north, near a body of water that we call Hudson Bay. The climate can be a bit cold in winter, but we will assist you to establish suitable structures and to modify some of the local areas to support agriculture or whatever else you need to live comfortably. Then we will show you the second region, in another place that we call Siberia. It is also cold in the winter, but we can assist you there as well. Then we will go to a region that is more temperate, but very dry. This is part of a territory that we call the American Southwest. We have means to provide any amount of water that you need, so you will find this very suitable for types of agriculture that are not possible in the colder climates. We chose these regions for two reasons. One is that they will give your people sufficient variety of climate to suit all your needs. The second is that these places are not populated as densely as others, so we can minimize the disruption to our own people when we have to relocate them to make room for your people.”
“Very well,” Minister Naroo said. “We will see these places and determine if they are suitable.”
Harry noticed, from the body language, that General Kragin seemed somewhat uneasy during the exchange. His manner wasn’t belligerent; it seemed more that he was uncomfortable with the way that Minister Naroo was speaking. He would have to try to speak with the general and get a better sense of what was going on.
*
The inspection tour took three days, one at each location to allow a very through exploration and the collection of samples of soil, air, water, and a variety of plant life.
The three Chanreeks who accompanied Naroo and Kragin had the duty to collect all the samples and to make detailed recordings of all the environmental conditions, including videos wherever they went. The two leaders directed them but did little other than that, except to scowl occasionally. During the three days, they rarely spoke except to give orders. One humorous exception was when a large bear wandered nearby during the visit to the Canadian territory. The five Chanreeks were startled and apparently had never seen such a large animal. There was a lot of commotion until Nebula’s military escorts shooed it away. Naroo grumbled that the humans would have to provide a means for defense against beasts such as this. The others continued as if nothing had happened.
On the second day, while they were exploring one local area in Siberia, Harry had a chance to speak with General Kragin while Naroo was a distance away, with one of the scientists. “What is your impression so far?” he asked.
“I am impressed by the very large amount of territory that you say you will provide for us. We expected less.”
“Well, we do want you to be able to live in relative comfort while we prepare Mars as the longer term world for your people. We realize, as I think you also do, that this war was a very bad mistake. If you had come in peace, we might have been able to avoid all the death and destruction.”
“Yes,” Kragin replied. “I agree. We, in the military, did recommend that we send a delegation to try to negotiate with you before resorting to war. But the politicians like Minister Naroo and Prime Minister Akaree wouldn’t hear of it. They don’t understand war and the misery that it can bring. They only understand power, and they wanted to overpower you, to destroy your people, and to take your world by force. They wouldn’t listen to us, and we have a duty to obey their orders. Isn’t it the same with your people?”
“Our military does have to obey orders, but our politicians aren’t quite that bad, and they do listen to advice. But what do you think your politicians will decide about our offer?”
“It’s hard to say. I think that they may accept the offer. Even Minister Naroo seems to be impressed by what we are seeing, but Prime Minister Akaree and some of the others on the council are against it, and they have the power to make the decision. I know that I will recommend it very strongly, and while advice from the military is often ignored, I think that what I say and what the scientists report will have some influence. But you do understand that we do not trust your people and that we will be very careful in how we respond and how we maintain some degree of assurance that you are dealing with us fairly.”
“We do understand that,” Harry said. “You would be fools to just trust us with the safety of your entire population, especially after the biological attack that killed most of them. We know that you will prepare some way to assure that we don’t do something like that again. Once we begin to work together, and once the terraforming of Mars begins, I think that the trust between our people can grow.”
“Let’s hope so,” the general responded. “But remember that it was our people who suffered most from this war, so we’ll need a lot of time to build that trust.” Then he turned away and both he and Harry rejoined the group with Minister Naroo and the scientists.
Chapter 17
The Chanreek delegation departed as soon as the inspection tour was completed. Seduro and Billingsley had expected them to remain for another day or two to discuss some of the issues that they might have, but Naroo said that this wouldn’t be necessary. They asked to be taken immediately back to their ship so that they could report in person to the council.
Once they had returned to the Chanreek fleet, Naroo went straight to the council room, where Akaree and several others had gathered. General Kragin and the three scientists accompanied her.
Kragin could see that the prime minister was in a very bad mood. This surprised him, since a message had been sent prior to their departure from Earth, and it gave very positive information regarding the three regions that the humans had set aside for them. The mood certainly should have been less grim. He sat down at his usual place at the conference table and waited for the prime minister to speak.
/> “I see that the humans put on a good show for you,” she began. “But did they offer to let you see anything other than what had been prepared? Did you get any impression that they were hiding something from you?”
“We saw only what they had told us they would show us,” Minister Naroo replied. “We were kept in relative isolation for the entire visit. We spoke only to a few humans, and we were heavily guarded by armed escorts the entire time. We were not taken to any places other than those that are being prepared for our occupation, but we were able to go anywhere in those regions that we wanted to see. But, to answer your question, yes, they definitely did conceal much of their planet from us. We saw their military facility, and did see some of their warships, but only the types that we already saw in battle.”
General Kragin then spoke. “Madam Prime Minister, my impression is that the humans are being honest with us. I had several opportunities to speak with the one called Harry Ambrose, and I came away with a feeling that we can trust them and that they regret the loss of life that their biological attack caused. You recall that we intended a similar attack on them, and it was only through their clever trickery that we suffered the loss and not them. You also will recall that we kept the two humans in isolation when they were here. We saw much more of their planet than they saw of our fleet. I recommend that we accept their offer and proceed according to the plan that we have formulated. If they do prove to be dishonest, then both our species will die, but I think that they realize this. Harry Ambrose spoke vaguely about their understanding that we would have some sort of assurance against attacking us when we are living on Earth and exposed to another plague or some other type of attack. They know that we are smart enough to have some means to protect ourselves. So I say that we should go ahead and take the offer. It is a generous one and probably the best that we can hope for.”
