Into the Light

by David Weber

  She was less viscerally aware of the degree to which the Earthians’ ground combat equipment outclassed its Sarthian counterparts. A tank was a tank, as far as she was concerned. From her perspective, it was basically a target. But she suspected that her ground combat counterparts would have been just as impressed by the huge “Abrams”—whatever an “Abram” might be—and its massive cannon as she had been by the Earthians’ aircraft.

  “I could see what the Earthians were talking about in terms of how much more effectively they’d applied the technical capabilities they had to their hardware,” she continued. “Those Shongairi landing craft should have been a lot more difficult to take down than they were, and anyone who could travel between the stars should have been able to build tanks more effective than the ones the Earthians could put up against them. It took a lot of courage for the Earthians to fight back at all, Kwysar, especially after the Shongairi’s initial bombardment destroyed virtually every organized military force on the planet before the Earthians even knew they were there! The fact that they fought so effectively for as long as what was left of their armed forces lasted says a lot.”

  “Agreed. But does it say enough?”

  “What do you mean, ‘enough’?” Feltik asked, gazing at the other male intently.

  “It’s just that as brave as the Earthians were, and as capable as their weapons were, how did they win?” Kwysar regarded his table companions intently.

  “Well, mostly by catching the Shongairi by surprise, I imagine,” Yerdaz said. “And it probably helped that the Shongairi must be dumber than rocks.” She twitched her nasal flaps derisively. “They obviously didn’t do a very good job of extrapolating what the Earthians’ weapons could do to them! Surely if they had, someone with their tech advantages should have been able to come up with counters for them ahead of time.”

  Feltik waggled his own nasal flaps in amusement, and even Kwysar twitched a brief smile, although, Yerdaz thought, what she’d just said was self-evidently true. And it was something the Earthians should bear in mind if it turned out that their purposes here on Sarth were less benign than they’d so far implied.

  The Shongairi might have been caught by surprise when it came to the Earthians’ combat capabilities, but it was obvious from the Earthian account that the initial strategic surprise had all been on the Shongairi’s side. The attackers’ pre-invasion bombardment had destroyed virtually all of the Earthian organized combat forces, leaving only fours and eights of Earthian aircraft and tanks intact. If they hadn’t, if the Earthians had been left with anything like the combat strength they’d had prior to that bombardment, the initial Shongair landings would have been a bloodbath. It was probable that someone who controlled orbital space would still have won in the end, but the initial price would have been exponentially higher. Indeed, it might have been high enough to leave the Shongairi with the choice of bombarding the Earthians back to the Stone Age out of simple vengeance or turning around and going home to come back and try again later.

  Sarth knew about Earthians. Sarth knew there were starships no Sarthian could see in orbit around their home world, or perhaps hiding behind one of their moons. And because Sarth knew that, virtually every Sarthian military—even that of the oh-so-pious Diantians—had gone to a high state of alert and dispersed its combat power as widely as possible. Which meant the Earthians would find it much more difficult to do to Sarth what the Shongairi had done to them. No doubt, like the Shongairi, they could still carry through to victory, assuming they were prepared to pay the price in blood and lives, but her impression was that they wouldn’t be. Judging from their reaction to what the Shongairi had done and what was probably a completely reasonable unwillingness to absorb enormous casualties after what had already happened to their entire species back home, they wouldn’t have the stomach for it. No doubt some of her fellow Qwernians would put that down to cowardice or despise Earthian timidity, but Yerdaz was less chauvinistic than that. It wouldn’t be cowardice or timidity; it would be a rational evaluation of cost-versus-benefit. And at least they seemed less likely to simply destroy Sarth in a petulant rage than the Shongairi probably would have been.

  In fact, the more she thought about it, the more like the Diantians the Earthians seemed. They preferred negotiation to conflict, they seemed to believe in the “rule of law” about which the Republic bleated so constantly, and so far, at least, it seemed unlikely that they would attempt to compel Sarth to accept their offers. That was the good news. Well, that and the fact that, again so far at least, she’d seen nothing to suggest they were liars. Not that she’d had a great deal of time to prove that one way or the other. But if the fact that they were unlikely to resort to coercive measures to force Sarth into agreement was a good thing, the fact that the same attitudes would almost certainly make the Republic a more congenial partner for them than the Empire was a very bad thing. Potentially, at least.

  “I agree that surprise was a major factor in their favor,” Kwysar said once his nasal flaps stopped quivering. “That wasn’t my point, though. You’re talking about how they won some of the battles; I’m trying to figure out how they won the war. Airplanes and tanks are all very well on the ground and in the air, but how did they capture invading spaceships? No matter how hard they fought, by their own admission, they were beaten on the ground, yet in the end, they won everything. So what turned that around? What let them defeat the Shongairi?”

  “I don’t have any idea,” Yerdaz admitted after a moment.

  “Neither do I,” Kwysar said. “Maybe they’ll get around to telling us that, but in the meantime, I have to wonder if there’s anything else they haven’t mentioned yet.”

  . VI .

  YERDAZ NORYERDAR NAR QWERN’S OFFICE,

  THE NONAGON, CITY OF LYZAN, RYZAK ISLAND

  PLANET SARTH

  “I appreciate your willingness to meet with me, Councilor Arthur,” Yerdaz NorYerDar said as one of her aides escorted the Earthian into her office. He was at least three or four kyrans shorter than Secretary David—Yerdaz was making a conscientious effort to learn how to pronounce the outré Earthian names—but even so, his disturbingly flat head was dangerously close to the chamber’s ceiling. The Earthian-style chair Yerdaz had procured was similarly outsized, taking up much of the private office’s floor space.

  “I was honored by the invitation,” the Earthian replied. His lips didn’t match the shape of the words, but Yerdaz was relieved to hear them in perfect Qwernian. She’d worried about not using her own translator, but she’d decided that relying upon the alien’s mysterious translating “software” would be a way of demonstrating her trust.

  “Our entire planet is honored—or at least considerably taken aback—by your people’s arrival,” she countered.

  “I can understand that,” he acknowledged, his lips moving in one of the still incomprehensible expressions of his people. Of course, with no nasal flaps, they had to make do as best they could, poor things. And the lines of down above their eyes seemed impressively mobile for such a limited facial feature. She simply hadn’t had time to figure out what all the wiggling around meant.

  “It occurred to me that formal settings aren’t the best way to get to know one another,” she continued. “And I think it’s especially important for the representatives of nations to have a direct and personal understanding of one another.”

  “The Secretary and I could not agree more with you about that,” the councilor said with another of those weird lip movements. “Obviously, formal addresses are all very well in their place and serve a vital function, as do meetings between actual heads of state. But it’s also crucial for there to be understanding at the lower levels of the process.” He started to nod, then stopped himself and shook his head. Yerdaz had noticed the Earthians doing that several times.

  “You’re too kind,” she said, and she meant it as he equated his own rank with that of a mere delegate.

  “Not at all,” he disagreed.

  �
��At any rate, I thank you,” she said. “And I must say that it’s been my experience, speaking as a Sarthian diplomat, that it’s possible to speak more frankly when one speaks face-to-face rather than through the interface of a formal body like the Nonagon.”

  “Earthian diplomats have always found it that way,” he said, shaking his head once more. “At most major multinational diplomatic sessions, the real work gets done in committees and side meetings because the heads of the delegations have too many formal duties. And—” those lips moved again “—frankly, there’s always the concern that the head of a delegation may inadvertently say something he didn’t mean to say, or be misunderstood to say something that he actually didn’t say. When that happens, it can confuse the other delegations as to what they can reasonably expect. Underlings, such as you and myself, can speak without that concern because we lack the authority to commit our superiors.”

  “Exactly!” Yerdaz shook her head vigorously.

  Thank Dwomo! After almost a double-eight day-halves of listening to Secretary David, she’d been coming to the conclusion that Earthians were even more like the Diantians than she’d feared. Everything David had said sounded exactly like those rules-worshiping sorqhs. She’d hoped, without a great deal of optimism, that that was mostly a concession to the Nonagon’s atmosphere and forms, and that was what she’d reported to Minister Myrcal. But clearly Councilor Arthur understood how practical diplomacy truly worked.

  She reminded herself not to read too much into a single conversation, but, really. When Secretary David’s councilor said something, it clearly had to be taken very seriously, indeed.

  “My Clan Ruler has charged me, as ous representative here at the Nonagon, to assure you of ous understanding of the enormous opportunity, and also of the potential risks, your visit to our world entails,” she continued. “Ou is most interested to learn more of the nature of this ‘Hegemony’ and also about the wonders of you Earthians’ technology. Obviously,” she waggled her nasal flaps in a knowing smile, “you aren’t going to want to tell us too much at this point—not until you’ve been able to reach the understanding you’ve come so far to gain. Before my assignment to the Nonagon, however, I was a pilot in our Army Air Force, so I’m sure you can imagine how awed I was by the arrival of your craft!”

  “I’m a diplomat, not a military man,” Councilor Arthur replied. “That isn’t really my area of expertise. However, I’ll readily acknowledge that our current capabilities are pretty astounding even for us, given how rapidly and how far they’ve advanced in just ninety or so of your years.”

  Yerdaz shook her head politely as the councilor skillfully deflected her probe, although the notion that the Earthians had made such huge strides in such a short period of time was, frankly, a little frightening. She couldn’t conceive of any Sarthian education system that could have made that much new information available to an entire planetary population in such a brief interval! But perhaps the Earthians hadn’t done that. Perhaps the full breadth of their acquired technology had been imparted on an emergency basis to a smaller group of scientists and scholars while the rest of their population acquired it more gradually. How many engineers would it have taken to design something like their “shuttle”? The laborers building it didn’t have to understand the principles involved; they only had to know how the parts went together. How many Sarthians really understood what happened inside a rotary aircraft engine, after all?

  “I can readily see how someone in your position would have less need to understand the nuts and bolts that an ex-aviator such as myself would be interested in,” she said. “I would be fascinated, however, by anything you could tell me about your people. For example, your family life. I’m sure you can understand how it would be very difficult for a Sarthian to visualize a child with only two parents!”

  “I doubt that that’s a lot more difficult than it is for us Earthians to visualize a child with three biological parents,” the Councilor said with another of those lip movements. Yerdaz was beginning to suspect it was the Earthian equivalent of a smile, although she reminded herself not to allow herself to be too wedded to the notion. “To be honest, we find the difference between Sarthian and Earthian biology to be fascinating, Delegate Yerdaz. Although there are huge numbers of different planetary ecologies and biologies in the Hegemony’s records, this is the first opportunity we’ve had to actually see one firsthand. For many of our centuries, Earthians believed we were the only intelligent life in the universe. Most of us realized how statistically unlikely that was, but it took a great deal of time to wean us away from it. Now, of course,” the Earthian made a soft sound, almost like a cough, “we’ve had entirely too much empirical evidence of just how wrong we were!”

  “So I understand,” Yerdaz said. “But, tell me, Councilor. Among Earthians, is one of your genders primarily responsible for child rearing?”

  “Well,” the councilor said after a moment, “in many ways, that depends upon the particular Earthian culture one is speaking of. You see—”

  . VII .

  CITY OF KWYZO NAR QWERN, QWERN EMPIRE,

  PLANET SARTH;

  AND PUNS OUTREACH,

  SARTH ORBIT

  “I don’t like it, Flythyr,” Myrcal MyrFarZol nar Qwern growled. Ou and Flythyr MuzTolFlyth, the third ranking member of the Qwern Ministries sat on the balcony of Myrcal’s favorite restaurant as the sun slid slowly towards the horizon. Watching it, Flythyr thought, it was hard to believe just how completely Sarth had been changed in so short a time. The Earthians had been on Sarth for barely a double eight day-halves, yet their arrival had overturned every Sarthian political and diplomatic calculation.

  “Which part of it, in particular, Tysan?” Flythyr asked. Technically, Flythyr was a flock lord, just like Myrcal, but Myrcal was ous title bearer, whereas Flythyr was simply a flock lord consort. More to the point, Myrcal was a bit of a stuck-up prig in Flythyr’s considered opinion. A very smart, very dangerous-to-cross stuck-up prig, but still a prig. Ou did like the occasional honorific—possibly even a little discreet groveling—from ous social inferiors. And the truth was that Flythyr didn’t mind giving ous ego an occasional stroke.

  “Any of it!” Myrcal stood, strode angrily to the balcony’s railing, and stared out into the heart of the setting sun as it poured molten copper down the heavens. “I don’t like any of it! We have enough purely Sarthian problems without adding this kind of excrement to the dung heap. And we only have their word for how badly they intend to ‘disrupt’ our society, now don’t we? I don’t trust them, Flythyr. I don’t trust them a single seqran. Not without some way to corroborate what they’re telling us.

  “‘Aliens’ would be enough to require the strictest possible skepticism—and security procedures, for that matter—at the best of times and even assuming they’d turned up armed only with offers of technological uplift. But these aliens—these Earthians—didn’t do that, did they? They came to us with these tall tales about tyrannical interstellar governments out to crush all innovation. And then they told us that they actually managed to defeat those cruel, technologically advanced monsters somehow, despite the inferiority of Earthian technology. And now they want us to join them as allies against their enemies. Wouldn’t you say that sums things up pretty well?”

  “I can’t think of anything you left out, Tysan,” Flythyr said frankly.

  “I’d be happier if I detected a little more skepticism in Yerdaz’ cables,” Myrcal muttered. The charioteer consort was one of ous favorite and most trusted envoys. She had a good head on her shoulders, and she was skeptical about anyone’s altruism. In this instance, though, ou suspected she’d been caught up in the stupid, fluttering, commoner enthusiasm for this “pivotal moment in history.”

  Ou closed ous nasal flaps in mingled disgust and self-anger. The truth was, ou ought to have gone to the Nonagon ouself, and ou hadn’t. That had been a mistake, if only because it meant ou hadn’t seen the Earthians’ initial presentation ouself. Ou had
to rely on other people’s reports, and from Yerdaz’ cables, ou suspected she’d been almost as overwhelmed by the Earthian David’s appeal as all the rest of the sorqhs. True, she had passed on Kwysar HalSyn’s suspicion that there was something the Earthians weren’t telling them, but she’d also pointed out that the aliens hadn’t had all that much time to tell them anything. Or perhaps what she’d really meant was everything. But it struck Myrcal that explaining exactly how they’d managed to defeat such an overwhelming foe was a fairly critical piece of information. It was definitely something ou wanted to know before ou recommended climbing any farther into bed with the Earthians. And instead of being in Lyzan to press for more information, ou was here in Kwyzo nar Qwern protecting ous dignity.

  Unfortunately, ou could scarcely climb on a dirigible and head for the Nonagon now without underscoring ous initial absence. Besides, ou’d never liked the damned Nonagon. The Empire had resisted its creation in the first place because it was based on paper laws, not the laws of blood and custom that truly counted. Unfortunately, Clan Ruler Juzhyr’s bearer had felt compelled to bend to the force of “international opinion” in ous efforts to play nice with the self-fertilizing Diantians. And the Republic had been using it to break the Empire’s knees ever since. That was why Myrcal had made it a point to avoid the Nonagon from the beginning of ous tenure as Foreign Minister. Ous view, and the Empire’s official position since ou’d assumed office, had been that the Nonagon was a purely consultative body and that any agreement had to be signed at the foreign ministers’ level—and finalized through the traditional diplomatic channels custom had hallowed over the centuries—to be binding. So how—

  Ous question broke off in mid thought. Yes, the Nonagon was the end-all and be-all of the sorqhs who allowed themselves to be herded by the Republic, but the Empire and its allies and client states had always been more resistant to that view. Perhaps it was time to remind the rest of Sarth about that.