by David Weber
“Thank you for that introduction, Speaker Gyrdan,” he said first, turning his head to give the Sarthian a human-style smile, and then turned back to the rest of his audience.
“Gentle folk of the Nonagon, I’m happy to say that we’ve made a great deal of progress during our time here on Sarth,” he began. After all, one had to be polite. “Not all of our diplomatic missions have been able to report equal levels of success, but in general, we’ve established what I believe are excellent relations with our hosts and I believe our understanding of one another has grown enormously.
“It’s partly because of the way in which that understanding has grown that I asked Speaker Gyrdan for permission to address you this day-half.
“As you know, we’ve maintained our official embassy here in Lyzan in order to emphasize that our mission is to your planet as a whole, not to any single Sarthian nation. I’ve made flying visits to the individual capitals of every member of the Nonagon and had the opportunity to meet personally with virtually all your heads of state, and in each of those meetings I have, again, emphasized that we are here to negotiate with your world as a whole. Obviously, when Sarth has no official, worldwide government, as we do in the Planetary Union, that means we must speak to—and listen to—all of your nations individually, and that’s what we’ve been doing over the last Sarthian year or so.
“During that time, we believe we’ve reached better understanding with some of your nations than with others. That’s probably inevitable, since we have different levels of contact and access, and since most beings interface most comfortably with those most like themselves. We work very hard to keep that in mind from our side, because one of the great lessons of our own often violent past is that assuming the other side of a dispute thinks and understands things the same way you do is an excellent way to create the sort of misunderstanding which leads to bloodshed and destruction. It’s true, however, that what one might call … compatibility is always a factor in the success or failure of negotiations.
“In our case, we are, frankly, more comfortable dealing with those of your nations whose governments most closely resemble our own. I would add that in forging the government we now have, it was necessary for many nations with very different traditions and forms of government to reach understanding and acceptance of the Constitution we ultimately adopted for our planet. As such, we fully understand that it isn’t always—or even often—a matter of governments which are superior or inferior; it’s simply a matter of governments which are different from one another. As I say, we work very hard to keep this in the forefront of our thinking, and we ask you of Sarth to do the same where we’re concerned.
“I say this because it’s become clear to me that there’s been some misunderstanding about the fashion in which we approach Sarth.”
He paused to let that settle in and allowed his eyes to circle the chamber while he waited. He deliberately didn’t look at the Qwernian delegation, but he didn’t have to, either. The Terran cameras which had been mounted to cover the Hall of Nations with the Nonagon’s approval took care of that for him, and his personal computer projected a window into the corner of his vision, showing him Yerdaz NorYerDar’s reaction. Judging from the dark-tinged red and yellow overlay, she knew exactly who he was talking about. Well, that was good. He had no intention of naming names or specifically singling out and embarrassing Minister Myrcal or Clan Ruler Juzhyr, but it was important for both of them to understand why Abu Bakr had reacted as he had … and that Dave Dvorak was in complete agreement with him.
“We’ve presented you with an extraordinarily complex problem,” he continued after several seconds. “We’re aware of that, and it is not our purpose—never has been, and never will be our purpose—to destabilize your world. Above all, we have no intention of inflaming existing national rivalries, and backing one Sarthian nation or alliance against another is not part of our mission to you. One of our great healers once said that a physician’s first responsibility was ‘to do no harm,’ and that’s how we approach Sarth. Much as it would grieve us, we would make none of our technology available to any Sarthian if we cannot make it available to all Sarthians.
“Moreover, we have learned the hard way—at the cost of countless wars and millions of human deaths—that binding international agreements must be openly arrived at. It took us far longer than it ought to have taken rational beings to learn that lesson, just as it took us far too long and far too much blood to grasp that binding international agreements which contain no effective enforcement mechanism are useless. If there is no effective enforcement mechanism, then rather than regarding the agreement as solemn, binding international law, it is regarded as something by which to abide only so long as it is expedient to do so. That, unfortunately, is a fundamental aspect of human thinking, and from our observations here on Sarth, I would say that it’s one of the things our species have in common.
“Please understand that I would never deny that the parties to a negotiation have every right to speak to one another in conditions of confidentiality. If one is to reach an understanding acceptable to all parties, then all parties to that understanding must have the right to express themselves fully, freely, and frankly without worrying about how their words might be twisted, taken out of context, misinterpreted, or used against them in some public forum. This has been part of our fundamental approach to these talks from the very beginning.”
He glanced at the window showing the Qwernian delegation. Yerdaz at least appeared to have herself under better control, and he hoped she’d caught his pointed emphasis that neither he nor any member of his delegation had any intention of running to the Diantians to tattle on Myrcal’s bald-faced bid to conquer the Republic in the Planetary Union’s name.
“We welcome and invite continued conversations—conversations which will not be communicated to any other party without permission and previous consultation—as our mission here moves forward,” he continued. “Any terms which are ultimately accepted, however, will be disclosed openly and completely here, on the floor of the Nonagon, where all of Sarth can witness everything which has been agreed upon. There are no other terms, no other basis, on which final agreement can be reached.
“Gentle folk of Sarth, we came to you because we believe we face a common threat. We’ve asked you to assume the risk of joining us in alliance against that common threat. For that alliance to succeed, it must be firm. It must stand upon bedrock, and that bedrock can only be created on the basis of mutual understanding and mutual trust. Moreover, that understanding and that trust must be strong enough to stand in the face of hurricane and earthquake. It cannot be—none of us can afford for it to be—based upon anything short of openness and honesty, because we can all be assured that if there is any weakness, any flaw—if at sometime in the future any member of that alliance discovers that it was ever lied to or betrayed by its other members—that alliance will crumble. We will all discover that it rested not on bedrock, but on sand, and the consequences will be a disaster for all of us.
“It will be far, far better for Sarth—and for us—to arrive at no final treaty of alliance than to arrive at one forcibly imposed from outside or reached by betrayal from within.
“Our missions will remain in your capitals, serving as our interfaces with all of your nations, but understand that they will take no binding position that isn’t openly disclosed here, before the Nonagon. We wish you to continue to speak with us frankly, assured that you speak in confidence, and I pledge to all of you that nothing any Sarthian nation says to any human representative will be disclosed without the prior consent of that nation, but no agreement will be final until it has been disclosed to all of your neighbors.
“I thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you, and to clarify our position in this regard. Believe me, we understand the … complexity of the situation you confront, but it is our imperative responsibility to be as open, above board, and honest as we possibly can.
“If we cannot gi
ve you those things, then any other ‘gift’ we might give you would be worse than offering you food and handing you poison, and the bedrock of our mission is ‘to first do no harm.’”
He let that fade into the stillness, then drew himself up and bowed slightly.
“Thank you,” he said again, and stepped back from the podium.
. XII .
PRIME DIRECTOR’S OFFICE, AND HIGH BEARER MYKAIR’S OFFICE,
CITY OF DIANZHYR, REPUBLIC OF DIANTO;
CITY OF KWYZO NAR QWERN, QWERN EMPIRE;
AND SOKYR CHELSO’S RECTORY, CITY OF MYRCOS,
REPUBLIC OF DIANTO,
PLANET SARTH
“What do you make of it, Zhor?” First Director Qwelth asked, nasal flaps half-closed in obvious unhappiness.
“I’m not exactly an alien mind reader, either, Qwelth,” Zhor ZhorSalDyr pointed out. The foreign minister didn’t look a lot happier than the first director, but ou managed to put at least a little humor into ous tone. Qwelth looked at oum, and ou waggled ous nasal flaps. “It sounds to me like somebody got caught trying to sneak into the syldak coop. And, if I had to guess who it was, it was probably Myrcal. Or ous idea, anyway.”
“But Secretary David—” Qwelth had learned to do much better with the Earthian name “—didn’t say anything about the Empire.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Zhor replied. “That’s not the Earthian way. He’s trying to save Myrcal’s face while simultaneously sending the message that the Earthians genuinely aren’t going to be signing any secret side deals with anyone.”
“I wish they’d sign one with us,” Swordsman Consort Bardyn muttered. Qwelth glanced at him, and the intelligence director’s nasal flaps grimaced. “I don’t trust Myrcal—or Juzhyr, for that matter—as far as I can spit. This ‘illness’ of Chancellor Erylk’s comes at a really bad time from our perspective. All our sources agree ou’s completely out of the equation for now, and that leaves Myrcal in the driver’s seat. We all know what ou’s like … and whatever else is going on, their military’s up to something.”
“What?” Qwelth asked sharply.
“If I knew what they were up to, I wouldn’t have called it ‘something,’” Bardyn retorted. “We don’t know. But we do know they’ve been passing a lot of signals lately. In fact, if I were a suspicious fellow—which Chelth knows I’m not—I’d say all the signal activity started about the time something apparently pissed off Secretary David.”
“You don’t think they’re planning an attack on the Earthians?” Foreign Minister Zhor demanded in a tone of considerable alarm.
“I doubt even Myrcal’s that stupid,” Bardyn replied. “The Earthians have been awfully careful about not waving weapons under our snouts, but you know they didn’t come without a lot more security than they’ve shown us so far. For that matter, I’ve been talking to some of the Fellows of the Academy. If they wanted to, they could just drop rocks on us.”
“Rocks?” Qwelth repeated blankly.
“Rocks. Or you can call them what we call them when one of them falls on us without anyone helping it along: meteorites. We still haven’t actually detected any of their ships, not even visually, but we know they have to be in orbit around the planet. That means they’re at the top of the ‘gravity well,’ and all they really have to do is drop something from that altitude to hit with more power than the biggest bomb we’ve ever built. According to the Academy, just one ‘kinetic projectile’ traveling fast enough could wipe out Dianzhyr completely.”
“Chelth,” someone whispered.
“More like Taysar’s lightning,” Bardyn said. “I don’t know if Myrcal and Juzhyr have had the same sort of conversation with their academics, but even if they haven’t, anybody smart enough to raise his kilt before he takes a piss should realize they don’t want to tangle with someone who can travel between stars and has landing ships the size of one of our battleships. If that’s how big their passenger craft are, I don’t think we even want to think about what their combat aircraft are like! To be honest, that’s what worries me. If the Qwernians are contemplating some sort of military action, I don’t think it could be directed against the Earthians. Which leaves only one other target, so far as I can see.”
“But why would they attack us?” First Sea Lord Hyrthah asked. “Now, I mean,” ou clarified when all of them looked at oum.
“I don’t know,” Bardyn admitted. “The only semi-plausible scenario I’ve been able to come up with is that they might hope for a lightning victory which removes us from the table as a potential rival for the Earthians’ affections.”
“I don’t think David would stand for that,” Qwelth said.
“I don’t think so either,” Bardyn agreed. “Unfortunately, what we’re talking about is what Myrcal and Juzhyr think. They may have misinterpreted David’s emphasis on not choosing sides or getting involved in local political squabbles to mean he’d regard any … changes on the ground as a purely Sarthian affair and none of his business. I think they’d have to be out of their minds to believe that he and the other Earthians would go along with their plan, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking that way.”
“Wonderful,” Qwelth muttered. Ou glared balefully at Bardyn. “All I can say is that you damned well better be wrong. But, in the meantime,” ou turned his attention to First Director of War Mynsaro, “you’d better put our frontier formations on alert. But for Chelth’s sake, do it quietly! The last thing we need is to be adding any fuel to whatever bonfire Myrcal’s decided to light.”
* * *
“I THINK IT’S time for a letter to Bearer Sokyr,” Mykair ChelMyk said to Nykar ChelNyk nor Chelth, ous senior secretary. The high bearer’s expression was not amused, and Nykar lifted one nasal flap in question.
“A letter, Holiness? Ah, what sort of letter did you have in mind?”
“What sort did you think I had in mind?” Mykair asked tartly.
“Well, Holiness, I was fairly sure it wasn’t to wish him happy natal day.”
“Such a mind reader, you are,” Mykair said in a slightly more amused tone. “And, no, it’s not a happy natal day card.”
“Of course, Holiness,” Nykar said in a much more serious tone. “Do you wish to dictate it, or do you want to give me an idea of its content and have me run up a rough draft for you?”
“I’ll dictate it personally.” Mykair curled ous nasal flaps. “But, before I do, I want you to pull all of my previous correspondence with oum. And then I want you to bring me the file folder on all those Chelth–damned ‘manifestoes’ ou’s been strewing about. All of them, mind you. I want to review them and I want to be properly pissed off when I get around to actually addressing oum.”
“Of course, Holiness,” Nykar said, but her nasal flaps showed her own satisfaction clearly enough. She was barely half Mykair’s age and only an under-bearer, but she’d been with oum almost half her own life, and she was fiercely devoted to oum. More than that, she’d had a front row seat to watch Sokyr and the rest of the Chelthists inflict their misery upon oum. Upon the rest of the Republic, too, of course, but Nykar was of the opinion that the rest of the Republic could look after itself. It was her job to look after Mykair.
“Don’t worry, Nykar,” the high-bearer said, reaching up to lay one hand lightly on her shoulder. “Our friend Sokyr is about to find out that even my patience has an end.”
“Good, Holiness.” Nykar didn’t even try to hide her satisfaction, and Mykair’s nasal flaps smiled at her.
She bent her head respectfully and withdrew, and despite the fact that she’d made no effort to conceal her satisfaction from Mykair, none of the other clerics and clerks she passed on her way to her own office could have guessed her elation from her expression. The High Bearer’s decisions were none of their business until ou chose to make them public, and Nykar took that seriously.
But inside, behind that expressionless exterior, vengeful approval sang a hymn of victory. She’d waited so long for the High Bearer she se
rved—and loved—to give Sokyr ous just deserts! The bearer had mistaken Mykair’s patience and sense of Chelthian charity for weakness, and it was long past time ou discovered how mistaken ou’d been.
Nykar had no doubt what had brought Mykair to decisive action at last. She could have guessed that even without ous request for the manifesto file. Sokyr and ous circle of sympathizers and sycophants had waxed more and more virulent in their denunciations of the Earthians as demons and agents of Shaymork. It was as if they’d realized their opposition to any “accommodation with evil” was doomed and the realization only fueled their desperation. It had been bad enough when Sokyr was simply thundering anathemas and calling down colorful curses, but over the last several day-halves, ou’d been straying into increasingly less subtle calls for “direct action.”
Nykar doubted that the mutinous bearer commanded more than a few sixteens of followers, so it wasn’t as if they could do much damage even if they heeded him. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t try, and Mykair took ous responsibility to protect the Earthians seriously. And, on a perhaps less lofty note, the High Bearer wasn’t about to let a bevy of Chelthist lunatics humiliate the Church of Chelth by demonstrating their stupidity and bigotry for all Sarth to see.
Which was just fine, with Nykar ChelNyk nor Chelth.
* * *
“IT’S NOTHING SHORT of an outrage, Clan Ruler!” Myrcal MyrFarZol nar Qwern exclaimed, ous nasal flaps closed tightly in anger, as ou stormed into the conference room.
“What is that?” Juzhyr asked. While Myrcal had had a lot to be upset about recently, Juzhyr was also well aware the foreign minister lived ous life on the edge of perpetual outragement and tended to view events from that perspective. Sometimes ous outbursts had to be taken with a grain of yden.
“The latest cable just arrived from the Nonagon, Clan Ruler. The head Earthian requested and received permission to address the entire assemblage. His whole purpose in this address was to issue a backhanded rebuke to us!”
