The Board of Adjustors did respond within an hour of the broadcasts starting. It wasn’t clear if the delay was because they were being stubborn, or it had taken that long for the implied message to sink in that they were being threatened with a far greater calamity.
The message arrived in a Thandol language message. “Federation negotiators, I am the Master Negotiator of the Thack Delos, Stendal Gelander, appointed by our Board of Adjustors. I request a prompt cessation of your self-negotiated contract Implementation. We will modify our previous offer as required to meet your terms or demands, to be established through immediate negotiation. There is no profit to be gained by you, not if you eliminate even the possibility of our future payments to you.”
Mirikami promptly established a group link before allowing a reply. “People, I think we may have received an offer of an unconditional surrender. Pull back for now, and cease fire unless fired upon. Even then, destroy only the ships that continue to fight.”
Sarge still had his blood lust up, and wasn’t eager to stop. “More than half the ships at Ver are still intact, Tet.”
“Same at Gen, but I want to prove that we’re listening, so we’ll respond. I haven’t changed my position. Half their fleet will be eliminated today. They don’t have to be crewed to do that, if they give them up through negotiation.”
“Roger, we’re micro Jumping out of range.”
Mirikami deferred to Maggi, to reply on the same frequency the Thack Delos had used. “You’re our Ambassador at Large, and Stewart gave us authority to set our terms. Have at them.”
She activated her translation subroutines. “This is Maggi Fisher of the Galactic Federation, I am what you would call a Mistress of Negotiation. I will inform you of what I require of you before we halt Implementation.” She was attempting to use phrases they would understand.
There was a longer pause than expected, and the response, when it came, sounded decidedly confused. And it wasn’t only because it was a multiple translation, first from whatever tongue the Thack Delos spoke, into pigeon Thandol, and then into Standard. There was also a bit of a cultural divide.
“I am unsure of your demand. Is one of our males expected to fertilize you before you lay an egg clutch?”
“What? No. I’m a Mistress of Negotiations.”
“Which is as you told us at first. You are rejecting a male then? Is a female required?”
“No. I will negotiate with either gender.”
“It appears that what you require is something we cannot possibly provide, regardless of gender. We are a very different species. Cross fertilization is impossible, no matter the gender you require. How will we arrive at an agreeable contract with you if you make demands for payment that cannot be met? Are you determined to resume the same vigorous negotiations, and the destruction of our fleet, or our worlds?”
“How did cross fertilization enter the discussion?”
There was more confusion expressed. “Because you proposed to arrange to mate with one of us, a male we assumed if you are a mistress, before your fleet would cease the destruction of our fleet.”
“Are you a Master Negotiator?”
“Yes, of course. The Board of Adjustors appointed me a short time ago, to assume this duty for the urgent contract negotiation needed. Our former Master Negotiator proved to be unreliable at this task, when dealing with an alien representative.”
“Then I am your female equivalent from the Federation, appointed to negotiate with you.”
“Then why did you identify yourself as a Thandol concubine, seeking to contract for payment for mating with us?”
There was a brief background noise on the frequency, which sounded like a strangling animal, before the signal was abruptly muted, but not disconnected.
Maggi was more than pissed off. “Holy crap! Control yourself Tet. It wasn’t that frigging funny. The same for you other male idiots. I can’t hear you, but I know damned well you’re rolling on the decks.”
The Master Negotiator addressed the abrupt silence, concerned this vital negotiation had ended before it started. “I was perhaps misled by your words. The title Master applies to any gender that we appoint as Master Negotiator. The Thandol have no word for a female negotiator, and your word of Mistress means something very different.
“Thandol females have few responsibilities of greater importance than arranging profitable mating, and negotiating the price their family receives in compensation for their services to Herd Masters. No Thandol would speak to any negotiator of ours if they suspected they were a female. They cannot see the differences.”
Mollified by that explanation, Maggi replied. “In that case, I am a female Master Negotiator. We do not have a database of your language for a direct translation from my language. There may be other confusing mixtures of meanings by our forced use of the intermediate Thandol language. If either side finds the other side’s words confusing, we must pause to gain clarification. Many of your people’s lives, and vast profits are at risk. This could well be the most vital contract your species has ever negotiated. It should not become your last negotiation simply because of misunderstandings like this one.”
She thought, I may as well keep them worried about planetary destruction if they screw up this contract.
As the dry discussions proceeded, there were a few isolated incidences of enemy missile launches or fired energy beams, which because the Kobani were all watching, resulted in examples of massive retaliatory overkill.
Mirikami paid little attention to the payments of precious and rare metals Maggi demanded from them, to be paid to New Glasgow, and he only monitored closer when she mentioned several non-negotiable conditions to a cease fire. Such as an absolute ban on their use of nuclear weapons, no attacks on, or attempts at intimidation or tax collection from other species, although they could buy and sell goods with them. He heard her tell the Master Negotiator about Mirikami’s demand, that their fleet must be reduced to half of its strength. Although, being referred to as the Federation’s Contract Implementer was slightly discomfiting.
The number of ships agreed for them to retain was half of those they possessed when the Kobani had arrived this cycle. He was content when he heard they were not being as resistant as he’d expected.
Nevertheless, he was startled when nearly a thousand explosions around the surface of Gen drew Jake’s notice. “Sir, many hundreds of the grounded Thack Delos ships have just exploded.”
“What? Who fired on them? How many were hit? Maggi is still in negotiations. This is showing bad faith on our part.”
“Sir, I detected no missiles, beams, or gravity rods, and black holes do not produce explosions like these. It was not a result of actions by ships of our fleet.”
Maggi looked surprised at something she heard on her now private Comtap link with the Thack Delos. She turned to her husband. “Tet, you won’t believe this! They just announced the destruction of nine hundred eighty-four warships and commercial ships, to meet your fleet size reduction demand.”
“I do believe it! Jake just reported it to me. But wait! I didn’t say commercial ships. I only wanted their fleet of warships reduced. Is that another language misunderstanding?”
Maggi laughed this time. “No. I think these clever negotiators avoided clarifying that detail on purpose. If you check, I’ll bet you’ll find a disproportionate number of destroyed ships were cargo freighters, and probably most of the warships blown up were old models or those needing extensive repairs. I’ll bet they matched the numbers of half their fleet, just as you demanded.”
“What if I say that isn’t what we meant? I intended to reduce their warships.”
“You were imprecise in the details described to me, and I told them what you said. They quickly grasped a perceived loophole, and promptly executed that contract clause. To keep them honest for the rest of the agreement, we need to honor what we asked of them. I’ll be more careful from now on when I negotiate with them. Anyway, it doesn’t alter in any sign
ificant fashion our major victory here, does it?”
“No, not really.”
“Fine. Before we leave, I’ll arrange for delivery of their penalty payments to us, so that we’ll pass them on to New Glasgow, to pay for rebuilding there. Then I’ll make sure to issue your trademark warning.”
“What warning?”
“We will be watching you.”
****
The Kobani clustered near the outer part of the Delos system, more to confer than to observe, since they were forty light minutes away from Gen, and even farther from Ver. Just as they had done when visiting the Ragnar and Finth, they had left a stealthed patrol boat in the gravitationally stable L5 Lagrange point of the home planet, to passively monitor communications and the tachyon wave traces of any traffic that Jumped into or out of the system. Using a Prada com set for an instantaneous link to the patient but low grade AI, they could literally watch activities of each of the former Empire Security forces.
Eager for another confrontation, where their technology greatly outmatched their foe, Sarge asked, “Who do we hit next? Emperor Farlol the Dumbest, or Emperor Trindal the Last?”
“Neither one. I’ll send a couple of Scouts to check on Wendal from a distance, and perhaps another two pair to search for which of the Thandol settled worlds Trindal took his portion of their fleet. I don’t want us to be noticed, and with their new sensors we can’t draw too close or they’ll detect the ships. Scouts are still the most difficult to see, and they leave no tachyon wakes.”
“Why don’t we reduce their two fleets, like we did the Thack Delos?”
“You have too short a memory, Sarge. I think we and the PU lost enough ships and crews at Wendal despite having a technological edge in that battle. I don't want to lose more people in a fight just to prove we have balls, and enjoy a turkey shoot.”
“They still have about thirteen thousand ships.”
“Split into two nearly equal opposing groups. Plus, we only came with five hundred ships, and thus far we can take them all home with us, with only minor damage, lives intact.
“I don't want to give high ranking Thandol nobles, with divided loyalties in each camp, a motive to overthrow and kill one of the emperors, then offer to reconcile their differences to face a returning external and common foe. They each will want to restore the Empire under their own banner, and are willing to fight one another for dominance. That’s to our advantage. Why spoil that?”
“So, we just go home?” He sounded dejected.
“Only for resupply. There are twenty-two other species, besides the four bullies, which live within the Empire. I want us to directly contact every one of them. Those species living closest to the Thandol we can’t help very much yet, but they can be given Prada communicators to contact us, and let us know what the Thandol are doing. Those species located nearest the former security forces can be protected from their abuses, and we’ll suggest that as the Federation grows, they might eventually become members.”
Maggi suggested, “You might try leading some of those contact teams Sarge. It could be interesting. You might learn something besides how to pull a trigger.”
Thad sounded enthused. “It’s what Marlyn would have loved doing. I’m up for it, and I already know my three kids and their entire generation can’t wait to jump in a Scout and go meet new species, and wander the galaxy.” His wife, lost when fighting the Krall, had been an explorer at heart.
Maggi added her opinion. “Expansion won’t proceed fast by human standards, but these are species that endured thousands of years of Thandol rule. Look at our own citizens, the Prada, Torki, Raspani, and Krall’tapi. They suffered worse and longer under the Krall, and are now free because of us. Yet, they’ll each tell you that they feel dizzy at the crazy pace at which we live, expand, and change.
“The Olt’kitapi, finally building Excelsior after nearly a twenty-thousand-year delay, had over a hundred thousand years of development before we even left our caves. They say they will join the Federation as soon as they finish their own habitat. That massive multi species habitat will draw representatives of other races there, and thus to the Federation. We might become the seed for a truly galactic wide civilization. A civilization that will need a police force, which we Kobani are well suited for, and at times, perhaps an army and a navy.”
Mirikami was ready to go. “We want to stop at Excelsior on the way home, so we can discuss our future role in the Milky Way with the Olt’kitapi. I want to see what they think. Set your coordinates, I’ll have Jake signal our Jump.”
****
Prola and Frithda waited in front of the inflated dome. The female raised a digit in greeting. “Friend Tet, I confess that our detecting so many ships arrive in what appeared to be an attack formation close to Egg, caused me to briefly regret our earlier decision not to evacuate.”
“I’m sorry Prola. I didn’t think to advise you we were pausing on our return home to see you. We stayed such a short time after you dismantled the planet that I wanted to see your progress.
“Uh…,” he paused to consider what she said, “you said you detected our arrival? I know we have five hundred ships, but we were still in stealth mode when we departed the Thack Delos. None of your tool ships were in orbit here. Do you monitor for stealthed arrivals? We do use your design for our stealth system, so I suppose you can detect us easily.”
“We could do that, but there is an even deeper and more secure stealth possible than that, so we might possibly miss visitors if they used a more advanced method. We watch for anything that is brighter or dimmer than the universal residual radiation. What you call the cosmic microwave background radiation, at an average of 2.726 Kelvins, using one of your human temperature scales. It is most difficult to limit a hull’s radiation to exactly match that average spectrum.
“Even if that’s effectively done, looking towards a ship that did that, it would not match the normal speckled background pattern of that ancient radiation in your own sky, which isn’t precisely the same temperature from spot to spot. The ship would be a speck that didn’t match what was previously there in the background when you look at it from multiple perspectives. We watch the sky from multiple perspectives. Your ships looked like many new speckles, and larger ones at that, because they were close to us and not cosmological.
“The older clanship stealth system emitted more energy in a different spectrum, and that is what the Thandol copied for their systems. They are not very good at innovating.”
Mirikami felt foolish. “I guess we aren’t all that innovative either. We also copied what you do on clanships, and then on Dismantlers.”
“No. You are an innovative species. Your youth, and lack of time using new technologies has prevented you from exploring the myriad ways the technology you possess can be used. We required far longer than you humans needed, to reach our present state of technology. We also borrowed technology from other older, and now extinct species, so we do not claim to have invented every technology we use.”
“You are being kind to us, and I appreciate your patience.” He shifted to the subject he’d said they come to observe.
“From space, when I was with our other ships over Egg, the glowing streamers of gas, and brighter lumps of material do resemble a string of assorted sized beads near your sun, in the same orbit as the former planet.”
“We can see it ourselves from the ground, when our position around Egg Mother permits us to see the star.” They were in the shadow of the giant planet for now, and it was slightly cooler than on their last visit.
“We have needed to use Dismantlers in a fashion we did not expect. The gases from the atmosphere did not cluster as we expected, and we are using projected gravity fields to gather them, before the star’s solar wind pushes them too far apart to easily catch them. We will need to either hold them together with artificial gravity where they are, or tow them farther from the star’s modest heat for safer storage. Like you humans, we too experiment and learn. We just do not
do so at your fast pace, and make fewer sharp turns.”
Then she shifted the conversation herself. “We described to you before you departed for the Empire, that the next phases of our project would be slow and unremarkable, even to us, as we sort materials and distribute them around their present orbit for stability. You knew this would require multiple orbits to achieve, and no building or even forming of habitat panels will be started during this period of organization.
“What is the true goal of your politely structured approach to the real purpose of your visit? I do not truly think you returned this soon to see sights that have changed so little.”
As Mirikami hesitated, Maggi forged ahead. “He’s seeking your opinion on what our wider role should be, the role of humanity that is, as many people transition to become Kobani. Not our role just in Federation and Human Space, but in the Milky Way, as time passes.
“Tet thinks he’ll sound too grandiose or pretentious, if he suggests we might become a sort of police force and, if needed, the military arm of a future large multispecies governing body. We originated in a small region of stars, and suddenly in a short time on a galactic scale, we hold sway over many more stars. Not only in the small Orion Spur where you, and later the Krall, represented the most influential species. Now, we are the dominate influence within an even larger volume, that of the fragmented Thandol Empire, along part of the Sagittarius Arm.”
Prola looked at the suddenly shy seeming Mirikami. “Are you seeking our opinion, or our approval? We couldn’t prevent the Krall from doing what they did, and probably could not have stopped a Thandol annexation without the Krall’s help, even had they all become Krall’tapi and used our technology. You humans defeated both, without our expressing our approval or an opinion. Why do you seek those now?”
Koban: When Empires Collide Page 48
