Birthright

by Mike Resnick

  “All right,” said Ngana. “I imagine we ought to begin by having Psychology eliminate all those worlds that won't have the gumption or the temperament to stand up to us. That should knock about half of them out. As for the others, we'll start squeezing them so hard they can't quit.” “You're looking at it all wrong,” said Renyan. “They don't want to quit. They want more powerwithin the Republic, not total independence from it.” “I know,” said Ngana. “But first we have to weaken their bargaining position.” “And we have to do it without cutting the Republic's financial throat,'’ pointed out Renyan. “I don't know how to put this diplomatically,” began Ngana, “but...” “But what?” asked Renyan.

  “But you've got a remarkable facility for pointing out the obvious. I don't mean to hurt your pride. You were chosen for your post because you're a fantastic administrator. But solving this problem is simply

  beyond your realm of experience. May I respectfully suggest that you leave it to your Brain Trust?”

  “Meaning you?”

  “Meaning me and my staff. You can modify our solution to suit the political and diplomatic and administrative necessities of the moment, but I'll get a lot more accomplished by returning to my own office than by jawboning here with you.” “You know what I hate about you, Kip?” said Renyan. “What?”

  “You can be the politest sonofabitch in the world when you're trying to prove a point to me, but when we both know you're right you can become one of the most distasteful individuals I've ever met.” Ngana flashed him a smile and returned to his office. He assembled four senior members of his extensive staff, explained the problem to them, and set them to work coordinating various details of the plan he had devised. That done, he had Psychology give him a thumbnail sketch on the characteristics of each race he would be dealing with. Some were loyal to Man, some were unable to summon the emotional independence to offer the Republic an ultimatum, and some simply didn't care. What remained were worlds that could and would do all within their power to gain enfranchisement. Enfranchisement, of course, was merely a word, a harbinger of things to come. But its meaning was absolutely clear: the ultimate passing of political power from Man to non-Man. It was a knotty problem, and full of political obstacles. The Republic had no desire to keep the alien worlds in line through overt military force. After all, there were well over a billion suns in the galaxy; almost half of them possessed planets, and an average of one out of every twenty planets held life forms that were either sentient or someday would be. That was a lot of life forms to have massed against you. Also, there were the 2,500 sentient races that had not yet accepted commerce with the Republic; throttling their brother creatures in too obvious a manner wouldn't exactly entice them into joining the Republic's economic fraternity.

  And, finally, there were the potential Fifth Columnists, the humans who felt that the alien worlds had every legal and moral right to enfranchisement and a say in the political future of the galaxy. They would be the most bothersome obstacle, for Man needed to keep his exclusive little fraternity tightly knit at this point in his history; there were just too many outside interests picking away at him to allow internal strife to weaken his infant primacy in the galaxy. Yes, the solution must definitely handle the sympathetic humans with tender kid gloves. The brass knuckles, he decided, would remain hidden for the time being. Reports began coming back to him. Gamma Leporis IV couldn't make any trouble they were still entirely aquatic and could be cut off from all communication with the rest of the races. The Denebian Colonies were a trouble spot; it was suspected that they had nuclear weapons, and the capacity to deliver them. Binder VI's economy depended on atomics, but they possessed no native fissionable material; an embargo would probably bring them into line. Canphor VI and VII could withstand an embargo for more than a decade; they had a viable political system, and the last two governors had run on a platform of enfranchisement. And so it went, planet after planet, race after race, economy after economy. By the end of the week the truth began to manifest itself to Ngana: There was indeed no way to keep the 845 worlds, and very likely all of them, from their share of the spoils. It was possible on a short-term

  basis, to be sure, but other than total assimilation, the only answer was total political and economic

  disenfranchisement.

  “And that,” concluded Ngana to his subordinates, “is the proverbial Pandora's Box. Ultimately half the worlds would revert to economic and possibly social barbarism. But the other half would eventually unite as a competitive entity. The competition would be economic in the beginning, but would sooner or later spread over into political and military competition as well. And Man simply cannot buck those odds at this point in history. I think we're better off to make the best accommodation we can, and make the transition slow enough and difficult enough so that Man can gather his forces and energies for another try at primacy sometime in the future. Any comments?” “I'd hate to be around after the next election!” said one man fervently. “We'll carry the next election, and the next twenty after it,” said Ngana. “There's going to be a change in the power structure of the galaxy, a huge and vital change, though, let's hope, a temporary one; but none of us will be alive to see it. Surely you don't think we're going to turn the reins of government over to them without putting up a little resistance, do you? No, gentlemen, we are not. Our recommendations will be as follows:

  “First, that the sectors of representation be redivided in the most favorable way. The ancient word for it was gerrymandering. This, plus a few rule changes in electoral procedures, will secure political power for us indefinitely even if all the nonhumans in the galaxy are given the vote tomorrow. “Second, that no assimilated world will be enfranchised without paying a modest fee. The figure I propose is thirty-three percent of its Gross Planetary Product for a period of twenty years. “Third, that representation be based on a planetary ratio, rather than a racial ratio. Thus, Man would be represented by almost ten thousand planets and colonies; no other race would have more than two dozen.”

  “They'll scream bloody murder on that one,” said one of the subordinates. “Let ‘em. It'll take them fifty years to knock it down; that's fifty more years we've bought for Man. “Fourth, that all military forces be placed under the rule of Man.” “They'll knock that one down, too,” said the subordinate. “Legally, yes,'’ said Ngana. “But what human commander is going to turn his fleet over to an alien simply because an alien-dominated government tells him to? “Fifth, and last, that a census be taken prior to enfranchisement. That'll buy us another twenty years or so.”

  The proposals were written up and submitted to Renyan, who, with the aid of his legal staff, worded them subtly, diplomatically, and legally. They were then sent to the Secretary of the Republic, who eventually gave them his stamp of approval and had them made into law. The aliens weren't happy about it, but it was better than nothing, and one by one, world by world, they agreed to the terms. Which, decided Ngana, made a considerable amount of sense; not being enfranchised, they hardly had the power to object.

  Weeks later he was summoned to Renyan's office, where once again he met Agatha Moore, now in

  charge of the newly formed Commission of Alien Rights. A brief discussion of minor problems followed, after which Renyan broke open a bottle of his finest liqueur, and passed glasses around. “To Man,” he said, raising his glass, “who may not have come out of all this smelling like a rose, but who came out on top all the same.”

  “Do you really think so, Mr. Renyan?” asked Agatha Moore. “Absolutely,” said Renyan expansively. “In one fell swoop we've added twenty percent to the Republic's annual income, nipped what amounted to an insurrection in the bud, satisfied if not delighted our fellow races, and secured Man's political power for the foreseeable future.” “And what do you think, Mr. Ngana?” she asked. “I think Man has had it,” he replied bluntly. "What?"demanded Renyan.

  “Oh, not tomorrow, or even a century from now. I bought us quite a bit of time,” said Ngana.
“But the handwriting is on the wall. We expanded too far too fast, tried to do too much too soon. In a matter of four or five hundred more years we'll have run out of stepping blocks to throw at the other races and we'll be out in the cold. I've secured us enough military might so that we'll survive. In fact, we'll do more than survive; we'll thrive and prosper. What we will not do is rule the galaxy with an iron hand. Not yet, anyway. The first chapter in Man's galactic history is coming to an end. The best we can do is consolidate what we've got and try to hang onto it for a few millennia; then we'll be ready to move forward again.”

  “You sound as if we're about to enter a galactic Dark Age,” scoffed Renyan. “No,” said Ngana. “But our first Golden Age is going to get rather tarnished in the years ahead. Am I correct, Miss Moore?”

  “Absolutely,” said Agatha Moore.

  “Well, I'll be damned!” snapped Renyan. “You make it sound as if you sold us out!” “Not at all,” said Ngana. “I simply postponed the inevitable for as long as I could, and got us the best bargain I could manage. The problem was a fault inherent in our basic dream of Empire ... and make no mistake about it: Empire is what we were dreaming of. To control a world, you must control its economy, but for a world to have an economy it must be enlightened enough to ultimately desire fair payment for its labors. They happened to pick this point in history to demand that payment. “If it will make you feel any better, Man will continue to be the most potent and powerful single race in the galaxy. But a millennium or so from now, he will stand alone and apart from a galaxy that will be more or less united against him, or at least a galaxy with goals considerably different from his. Then Man will begin the second stage of his destiny. The first was to overcome the obstacles of Nature, and he succeeded with consummate ease. The next step will be to overcome the intelligent races of the galaxy, some of them a by-product of Nature, some bastard stepchildren of an illegitimate union between Man and Nature, for many of them would not have had their annoying drives and ambitions without our

  guidance and example. I'll be surprised if Man accomplishes that step as easily as he took the first one,

  but if he's to be the true master of the galaxy he'll have to do it sooner or later.” “Probably later,” said Agatha Moore.

  “Don't count us out too soon,” said Ngana. “And now, if you will excuse me, I'm afraid I must return from the remote future to the problems of the here and now. The natives of Pinot VIII don't seem to give too much of a damn for the value of a credit these days, and since I'm still on salary, I imagine I'll have to look into the matter.”

  And, so saying, the man who had extended the life of the Republic while simultaneously signing its death warrant scurried back to his office, thoroughly enmeshed in his newest problem. The future would have to take care of itself; as for the present, he had work to do. THIRD MILLENNIUM: DEMOCRACY

  6: THE DIPLOMATS

  ...It soon became apparent that the Democracy had taken on the proportion of a Frankenstein monster unleashed by Man upon himself. Almost every galactic office of influence was held by nonhuman races, and Man found himself dealing from a position of weakness heretofore unknown to him. To retain what political and economic power still remained, the diplomats took on new powers and functions, becoming not merely ambassadors but actual policy makers, as in the case of... —Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement ...Never one to take setbacks lightly, even those that occurred as a result of a galaxy-wide enfranchisement and the subsequent democratic restructuring, Man soon developed his Diplomatic Corps. Ostensibly they were ambassadors of goodwill whose sole purpose was to make new allies and iron out misunderstandings with old ones, but in actuality... —Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 8

  Eleven hundred years, reflected Hermione Chatham-Smythe, was a long time to be without glory. She looked at one of the viewing screens as her ship sped through space, and a thousand million stars blurred into one huge sparkling curtain. Some of those stars Man had lost, others he still held. But he hungered for all of them, hungered so greatly that he could almost taste them. The empty, gnawing lust was not new. Man had felt it before, had probably been born with it. And like a strong young giant, he had stalked across the galaxy, grasping at all within his reach. But in his youthful eagerness, he had grabbed more than his hand could hold, and bit by bit it began slipping away. Where once he had held twelve thousand worlds in his hand and reached for more, now he possessed a mere nine hundred, and had been seeking, for fifty generations, only to regain what had formerly been his. The worlds were valuable in and of themselves, but were even more valuable as a symbol, a testament to Man's primacy.

  And Man would get them back. Even now, with his back to the wall, he dreamed not of survival, but of laying claim once again to his galactic birthright. Success wouldn't come as easily as it had in the heyday of the Republic, but it would be built more carefully this time, more solidly; it would be built to last as long as Man himself.

  And Man planned to last a long, long time.

  The first steps were simple: Man consolidated what holdings remained to him. Bit by bit he began

  expanding again, but never did he move on to a new world or system until the last one was made secure. And always in Man's mind was the knowledge that pitted against him was an entire galaxy, a galaxy he had helped to unite in opposition to his claim upon it. It was a galaxy that, in whole or in part, still needed his trade, his science, his drive. But it was also a galaxy that was no longer playing by Man's ground rules.

  Which, sighed Hermione, was whereshe came in. She flicked an intercom device beside her and spoke into it. “Much longer?” “About two more hours,” replied the pilot. “Are there any final orders concerning our approach?” “Not if our information was correct. As soon as we're close enough to see or sense what's going on, come to a dead stop.”

  She turned back to the viewing screen. Somewhere up ahead was her destination, the site of a very minor little war between two very minor little races. And the powers-that-be on Deluros VIII (Earth had not been abandoned, but the bureaucracy had long since outgrown it) had decided that one or both races needed a friend. At least one thing Kipchoge Ngana had predicted two millennia ago had come to pass: Although Man's military and economic power was minimal compared to that portion of the galactic races that were arrayed against him, he was still the single most powerful race around. Which meant, of course, that as long as his relations with other races were on a one-to-one basis, he was usually able to call the shots.

  Just under two hours later the pilot informed her that they were entering the system that housed the Ramorians’ home planet. Hermione sent for Commodore Lucius Barnes, her young, super-efficient military adviser. “Does our basic information check out?” she asked when he arrived. “Pretty much so,” replied Barnes. “Ramor is not too different from Earth: about ten percent smaller, slightly higher oxygen content, rotates on its axis once every nineteen hours, solar year seems to be about 322 days or thereabouts. Theoretically, at least, they speak Galactic-O.” That last was a relief. No single language could be accommodated by all the varied races of the galaxy, but great strides had been made in the field of communications, foremost of which were the development of Galactic O, C, M, G, and N, the letters standing for Oxygen, Chlorine, Methane, Guttural, and Nonclassifiable. Almost ninety-five percent of the sentient races breathed either oxygen, chlorine, or methane, and one couldn't expect a crystalline methane breather to be able to produce the same explosive sounds as a carbon-based oxygen-breather, and so on. So five forms of Galactic had been developed, and most of the races were capable of speaking in at least one of the variations. There never had been, and probably never would be, a translating mechanism that would instantaneously, or even slowly, translate the sense of every native language, but every galactic traveler possessed an incredibly miniaturized T-pack which could give immediate translations of Galactic. No more than one race in five even knew of the existence of the Galactic languages, but even that per
centage made the traveler's work much easier.

  “Can we assess the situation yet?” asked Hermione. “Yes, ma'am,” responded Barnes. “There are six planets in the system. Ramor itself has two moons, and the fifth planet, a giant, has eleven. Most of them are colonized, and our spectroscopic analysis indicates that all of them could be mined for iron and some of the rarer metals, which is probably the purpose of

  the colonies. At this moment, the third and seventh moons of the fifth planet are under attack by what

  seems to be a rather small expeditionary force.” “That would be the Teroni,” interposed Hermione. “What have we got on Teron, ma'am?”

  “Chlorine-breathers. Teron is in the nearest star system, some two parsecs away. We once controlled the fourth planet from their sun, but never had any interest in Teron, which is the ninth planet. From what we've been able to determine, Teron and Ramor had an agreement that allowed Ramor to mine the second planet in Teron's system, while the Teroni were given mining rights to the moons of Ramor's fifth planet. We don't know exactly what happened next, but six years ago all mining forces were withdrawn, all embassies closed, and all diplomatic relations broken off. Since that time there have been a number of minor skirmishes between the two races, but no all-out war as yet.” “Why not?”