by David Weber
It would be interesting, to say the least, he reflected, to see how humanity’s intrusion into Sarth’s long-standing international rivalries played out. He hoped devoutly that it would work out well for all concerned, but he was too much of a historian to even begin taking that for granted. His instructions had been formulated on the basis of what the Planetary Union could extrapolate from the Hegemony survey data, and he expected them to be generally applicable to the actual situation. There were going to be spots that needed tweaking, however, and as he looked at those images and thought of the task before him, he couldn’t avoid wondering if Earth’s diplomatic mission—which meant him, when all was said and done—would end up being the best thing that had ever happened to Sarth … or the worst.
. III .
CITY OF KWYZO NAR QWERN, QWERN EMPIRE,
PLANET SARTH
“Stop!” Clan Ruler Juzhyr XI thundered, ous nasal flaps tightly closed in anger. Ous nasal flaps stayed closed as ou glared at ous ministers. “I asked you here to discuss the arrival of the aliens, not to run around like syldaks with your heads cut off. If you can’t control yourselves, I have no need of your advice. Now either sit down like rational Sarthians or get out!”
Silence reigned in the chamber as the ministers looked at the floor or the ceiling—anywhere but at Juzhyr—and those who had launched themselves from their chairs sat back down.
“Now,” Juzhyr said once everyone was seated and the silence had gone on for several very uncomfortable seelaqs, “I would like to get your thoughts on what the arrival of these—” like the majority of the Sarthians, ou had trouble pronouncing the aliens’ race “—these ‘Earthians’ means to us. Erylk?”
Chancellor Erylk ErGarzHyn nar Qwern, Flock Lord Dyrzhyba, shook ous head in acknowledgment. As Juzhyr’s senior minister, ou had the privilege of speaking first. Ou also had the right to speak last, letting ous colleagues expose their arguments to ous fire first, and ou often exercised that right. Ou was, however, Juzhyr’s most trusted advisor, and Juzhyr, obviously wanted to hear from oum first.
“I would urge caution, Clan Ruler, before we make too many assumptions,” ou said. “We’ve only just been contacted by them, and we don’t know anything about them. We need to find out more about their intentions before we make too many long-term plans.”
“I would also counsel raising the alert level of the military,” Myrcal MyrFarZol nar Qwern, Flock Lord Hantyr, added. “We know they say they come in peace; however, that doesn’t necessarily mean they truly have peaceful intentions. All anyone needs to do is look at Dianto if they doubt the common sense behind that—Prime Director Qwelth keeps talking about how all Dianto wants is peace, but look at the alliance ou’s assembled! Dianto has ally nations across the entire globe!”
“I agree that would be wise, Clan Lord,” Flythyr MuzTolFlyth nar Qwern, Flock Lord Consort Pantyl, added. “I’ve already put our forces on a higher alert footing in case they’re needed. We might also want to activate some of our reserve forces—especially our special operations forces. They may eventually be needed, and we’ll want to have them in place, if they are.”
“Yes, yes,” Juzhyr replied, shaking ous head at the Minister of the Army in vigorous agreement, “it makes sense that we should do so.” Ous eyes moved on to take in the other ministers. “What I’m more interested in, though, is how we can put ourselves in a position of advantage, and what opportunities there are for us in these negotiations.”
“If nothing else,” Chancellor Erylk noted, “we’re on an equal footing with Dianto with respect to the aliens when we meet with them at the Nonagon. They’ve made it plain they’re here to talk to everyone, so for once we don’t have to worry about Dianto and its allies subverting the process—they won’t be able to use their vassal states to block us the way they do at most Nonagon meetings.”
“Regarding opportunities,” Herdsman Stal StalTarChal nar Qwern said, “I feel we need to take advantage of everything the aliens offer us.” The Minister of Industry raised both nasal flaps to smile at Juzhyr in obvious anticipation. “Given that they’ve crossed space to get here, their level of technology has to be much higher than ours. This represents opportunity.
“The more we can learn from them,” ou continued, “the more we’ll strengthen our position here on Sarth, as well as with the aliens. I would counsel that our answer be ‘Yes!’ to any offer the aliens make. Myrcal isn’t wrong in counseling that we keep our eyes open to ensure they are indeed what they say they are, but I feel we need to be open and accepting of any opportunities.”
“I agree,” Juzhyr said. “Not only ones that are offered in formal negotiations, but especially those we can broker out of sight of our enemies.”
“Especially any military opportunities,” Flythyr interjected. “We can’t allow Dianto to get any of the alien technology we don’t.”
“Agreed,” Juzhyr replied. “But I don’t want to focus solely on opportunities with military application. As Stal noted, the aliens crossed the stars to get here. It’s impossible to know what technology they have that will give us an advantage. Not every military victory comes through force of arms. Perhaps there will be a resource they need—like oil—which we have and Dianto doesn’t. Trading with the aliens might give us an economic advantage over the Diantians. Perhaps in return, the aliens will give us new technology that we can turn into military hardware.”
“That should definitely be part of our approach,” Myrcal agreed. “They say they’ve come here to find allies. Obviously, they need those allies badly or they wouldn’t have come such a vast distance to get them, and if we could acquire the new technology Stal and Flythyr are talking about and use it to gain supremacy over the Diantians, we could negotiate with them as first among the nations of Sarth. Given how sorely they seem to need allies, they might well welcome that sort of simplification of our planet’s politics. Especially—” ous nasal flaps smiled cynically “—if they don’t have to bring it about themselves!”
One or two of ous colleagues’ nasal flaps seemed more dubious than ous did. The clan ruler’s did not, however, and Chancellor Erylk shook ous own head in at least conditional agreement.
“It’s agreed, then,” Juzhyr said. “We will attend the meeting at the Nonagon, and we will be on the lookout for all opportunities which may come our way. Especially those which don’t involve the Diantians.”
* * *
HERDSMAN CHOLKYR CHOLANGEN nar Qwern, the Qwern Empire’s Minister of Agriculture, nodded ous head slightly as ou followed the rest of the ministers out of the room. No one noticed oum except during periods of famine and crop failure, and then it was only to make oum the scapesorqh and target of abuse. Ous opinions on matters often ran counter to those of the others, as well, which ou knew also didn’t help oum in the long run.
Sure, the Diantians and their treaty partners had amassed a large number of allies across Sarth, but was that because they really wanted to bully Qwern, or was it that they were responding to the threat of the Qwern Empire as they perceived it? They were merchants, after all, rather than the proud descendants of warriors, so it was more likely they’d rather have the smallest military they thought they could get away with—traders only looked at the price tag, didn’t they?—and militaries were expensive! Cholkyr was very familiar with the cost of feeding one; ou saw the figures on ous desk every day.
Cholkyr couldn’t voice that opinion in front of Myrcal, though—the other neutro was xenophobically suspicious of anyone from outside Clan Qwern, as well as anyone who stuck up for them. Mentioning that possibility would only get Cholkyr a massive amount of abuse from Myrcal—and probably Juzhyr, as well—and ou knew from past experience that no one would jump in to support oum. Why bother mentioning it, then?
Similarly, no one saw—or was willing to mention, at least—the logical fallacy buried in their proposals to “get ahead of the Diantians.” Yes, the Earthians clearly needed allies badly, but they’d also said they wanted to disrupt Sarth
ian society “no more than they had to.” Assuming they were being truthful about that, it struck Cholkyr as unlikely they’d be giving either side technology that could be used to gain supremacy over the other. Myrcal and his ilk could plot and plan all they wanted, but ou didn’t think it would work out the way they hoped, and ou was worried about what they’d do when that happened.
. IV .
THE NONAGON, CITY OF LYZAN, RYZAK ISLAND,
PLANET SARTH
Yerdaz NorYerDar nar Qwern, Charioteer Consort Zyr, reminded herself to watch her nasal flaps as she stood on the front steps of the Nonagon with far too many other Sarthians. She felt especially crowded because there was no one at all in Accord Square, the vast plaza in front of the Nonagon. That enormous sweep of colorful pavement lay bare and gleaming under the sun, without even the kiosks for food vendors or the scattered, welcoming clusters of dining tables which usually dotted its expanse. She knew why it was clear, but that didn’t make her any happier. She didn’t much care for being surrounded by a rabble which included so many commoners at the best of times, and given the ancient Qwernian tradition—no one would possibly do that now, of course—of resolving interpersonal problems with a discreet assassination, she felt particularly nervous surrounded by so many who wished the Empire such scant good fortune.
That reaction was a throwback to days long past, and most of the time she knew it. Today wasn’t “most of the time,” however, and she concentrated on looking suitably impassive and unimpressed as she and her fellow diplomats—and every other Syraq, Shyk, and Shydo who could find an excuse to be there—awaited the “Earthians’” arrival. Not that she was likely to fool anyone, but a noble of Clan Qwern was supposed to remember who she represented.
“Four kysaqs out,” someone murmured. Her head twitched, but she suppressed the reflex that would have looked in the speaker’s direction.
“I don’t see anything,” someone else replied.
“Me neither,” the first speaker agreed. “That’s what somebody just said, though.”
“Well, doesn’t look like they know anything more than we do. In fact—”
“Look!” another voice intruded. “There!”
As directions went, “there” wasn’t especially useful, Yerdaz reflected irritably. Not, at least, when it wasn’t accompanied by a pointing digit or something to give it what those in the diplomatic community liked to call “context.” The tart amusement of the thought—and of how unmercifully her spouses would have teased her over it—did more to relax her than she would have believed possible at a moment like this. Still—
Despite her earlier resolve, her nasal flaps flared as sunlight glinted far above. It was more nearly directly overhead than she’d anticipated, although perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised her. It was coming from outer space, after all.
She craned her neck, shading her eyes with one hand as she gazed at the rapidly growing sparkle of sunlight as avidly as any mud-footed peasant. Part of her really wanted to look away, if only to emphasize her poise, but she couldn’t. She truly couldn’t, and as she gazed, she suddenly realized one of the reasons she couldn’t.
Yerdaz NorYerDar was an accomplished pilot. In fact, Lance Yerdaz had been a major contributor to the Imperial Army Air Force’s development of close support doctrine when she’d been on active duty, back before Flock Lord Hantyr had lured her away to a diplomatic career. She was licensed in both single and multi-engine aircraft, and she’d helped write the IAAF’s syllabus for dive bombers. She was intimately familiar with what aircraft could and couldn’t do … which meant that unlike many of the sorqhs around her, she knew they couldn’t do that.
That … vehicle—she wasn’t prepared to call it an “aircraft” at this point—wasn’t circling as it descended, wasn’t losing altitude as it approached. It was simply coming down. Straight down, like an elevator, and a tiny, irrational part of her insisted that meant it was about to crash. Only it obviously wasn’t doing that, either. Instead, it was simply sliding smoothly down that invisible elevator shaft in an obviously controlled descent. And as it got closer, she began to realize just how enormous it actually was. She’d thought it was at a much lower altitude, but it just continued to grow and grow and grow.
The biggest combat aircraft the IAAF owned—the twin-engined Haruk bomber—was less than two cherans long. Even the mammoth four-engined Great Starth transport was only a bit over two cherans. But this thing—this “shuttle”—was stupendous. In fact, she realized with a sort of numb disbelief as it slid into a smooth—and impossible—hover directly overhead, its length was within a couple of tyrans of the Diantian Navy’s Hydak-class dirigibles, the biggest aircraft ever built on Sarth. But this was no dirigible, no lighter-than-air ship with its gas cells filled with hydrogen. Just one of its wings was as long as two Great Starths laid end-to-end! And as she stared at the preposterous monster, she wondered why it even had wings, since it obviously didn’t need them.
* * *
“THINK THEY’VE ABSORBED the message, Dad?” Captain Malachi Dvorak asked with a grin, looking out the Starlander’s window at the throng of Sarthians below.
“I know not this message of which you speak.” His father gave him his best innocent look, and Malachi snorted. He had his mother’s coloring and, Dave Dvorak thought sadly, her obvious lack of respect for his own august dignity.
“The message where we hover overhead like the hammer of doom,” the youthful Space Marine said helpfully.
“Like I told them, we come in peace,” Dvorak replied. “And I hardly think you can call an unarmed shuttle the ‘hammer of doom,’ Malachi.”
“I’ll give you ‘unarmed’ in terms of bombs, ground attack missiles, and things like that,” his undutiful offspring said. “I see that you somehow managed to miss mentioning the Starhawks, though. For that matter, if any of them try shooting at us they’re going to find out that things like point defense autocannon do a damn good job of strafing, too.”
“There was no need to mention the ’Hawks to them. They can’t see them with anything they’ve got, so it’s like they were never even there. Unless we need them of course. And I’m sure we won’t. Says that right in the mission plan somewhere.”
“What was that Burns poem you always liked to recite to us when we were kids? Something about ganging agley, I think?”
“Disrespectful young whelp, that’s what you are!” his father said with a grin, although Malachi had a point.
This wasn’t a standard Starlander, and there was plenty of room to hide things like retractable point defense systems in a six-hundred-foot-long fuselage. And the quartet of Starhawk transatmospheric fighters flying top cover—mere minnows, almost fifty feet shorter than an old jumbo jet—could have turned the entire city of Lyzan into a parking lot.
Not, as he’d told his son, that they had any intention of letting something like that happen.
“Just doing my job, Mister Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Sir. Mom told me to keep you humble. And my point stands.”
“The one about messages?” His father joined him, looking down on the beautifully manicured grounds of the Nonagon, and shrugged. “Probably. Couldn’t hurt anything, anyway.”
“I’d feel a lot better if you’d let me bring my Heinlein.” Malachi’s tone was more sober than it had been, and his father looked at him. “Mom also told me to be sure you get home in one piece,” his son said. “She said something about the last time she let you and Uncle Rob out of her sight unsupervised.”
“Damn. She is never going to let me live that one down, is she?”
“Not after you scared the shit out of her that way, no. Not so much. Or not until twenty-three minutes before the energy death of the universe, at least.”
Dvorak snorted, but a part of him agreed Malachi had a point. On the other hand, the whole notion of “coming in peace” might seem just a tad undercut if his son accompanied him to the first meeting wearing the equivalent of a main battle tank. And there was no way to
disguise someone in Heinlein battle armor as anything but what he was: the most lethal individual soldier in the history of humanity. On the other hand …
He glanced over his shoulder, and Jasmine Sherman smiled blandly back at him. There was security, and there was security, he reflected, and returned her smile before he turned back to the window again. He gazed out it for several more seconds, then inhaled sharply and looked at the Navy commander standing beside him.
“Tell Lieutenant Theodore she can go ahead and set us down, Commander. I’m sure she’ll be happy about that.”
“Yes, Mister Secretary.” The commander came briefly to attention, then keyed his personal com link. “We’re authorized to land, Lieutenant.”
No one else could hear the pilot’s response, but the Starlander resumed its smooth descent, and Dvorak turned back to the window once again.
The Starlander was capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, especially with its improved and more efficient counter-grav, but most pilots preferred to make an airfoil approach. That was why they had wings, after all, and even with human-engineered counter-grav, a Starlander could carry twice as much cargo on an airfoil flight profile as it could relying solely on counter-grav. Cargo weight wasn’t really a factor this time around, though. There were barely sixty people in his entire entourage—he liked that word: entourage. It carried such implications of pompous importance!—so there was plenty of reserve grav lift for the vertical approach he’d decreed. And while he himself would never have been so crude as to use phrases like “hammer of doom,” Malachi had grasped the essential purpose behind his decision.
Sarthians were accustomed to dirigibles, so in one sense “lighter-than-air” might not be all that impressive to them. But they weren’t accustomed to heavier-than-air aircraft that could simply hover above them, and it wouldn’t hurt a thing for them to have a visual reminder that the aliens about to land among them weren’t the sort of people you really wanted to piss off.
