The one nearest to him and Morah moved to a small device and extended a flowing stalklike appendage until it reached the box and actually seemed to enter it through a small compartment on the side. A speaker crackled.
“So this is the one who caused so much trouble, Morah.” The voice, totally electronically synthesized, sounded eerie as the dank enclosure added reverb to its already inhuman tones.
Morah bowed slightly, although whether or not the gesture had any meaning to the creatures couldn’t be known. “He wished to meet you prior to the talks.”
“Why?”
The question seemed addressed to either one of them, and so he answered. “Partly curiosity. Partly to add to my knowledge. And partly because protocol demanded it.”
“Ah, yes, protocol,” the alien replied. “It seems important to your people.” It paused a moment. “You hold yourself well. In many ways you remind us of the one called Kreegan.”
“We were from the same place and in the same profession originally,” he told the Altavar. “I suspect we thought more alike than either of us would have admitted. You respected Kreegan, I know. I hope that I may earn a measure of that respect tomorrow.”
“You and he wished to save your people. This is a normal and natural thing to us, and we weakened out of our compassion. We hope sincerely that we did not err on that basis, for the cost will be far greater to you and infinitely greater to us if we did. It was our original intent, you know, to eliminate a number of your worlds in a carefully measured pattern so” that your technological capabilities would be broken for at least three centuries. This would have allowed us the necessary time to complete this phase of our task.”
He was appalled at this revelation, and the casual way in which it was delivered,’ appalled as Marek Kreegan must have been many years ago when, assuming his rank as Lord of Lilith, he had first met this or some similar Altavar. Say there were nine hundred human worlds, seven hundred of them the civilized worlds. Three billion per civilized world, and an average of a half-billion for the others, would be—The Altavar was talking about eliminating over one trillion, three hundred and twenty billion people! And now, the creature had said, the risk was far greater than that!
He drew in his breath and swallowed hard. “Let me get this straight. You wished to eliminate over a trillion of us so that we could not interfere with your activities for three centuries?”
“It has worked in the past,” the Altavar said calmly. “The last time we did not do it with a civilization it cost us dearly in time, lives, and materiel, and your own civilization is easily ten times the largest we have encountered before.”
So calm, so natural and normal, so clearly confirming much of his thesis about the Altavar and their motives.
“We hope that this time we may reason with your leaders, and avoid all war, but this may not be possible,” the creature continued. “We have studied your people well, and we understand you.”
“Do you, really? I wonder.” All he could see was not a terrible, gruesome alien form and stench, only an entire race of Talant Ypsirs, shorn of any need to be cheery, political, or human in any sense. The Medusans called them demons with no real understanding of how right they were.
“We know your concern,” the Altavar told him. “Once, you see, our race was much like yours. We grew from a single world not unlike your own, although, obviously, evolution took a different path. We breathe the same sort of air, we drink and are made up of the same water. Our cells would be understandable to your biologists. Only the most warlike, competitive races survive to expand, so do not think us any different from you there, either. We, too, had our empire of several hundred worlds. And when faced with threat, we, too, fought. Because our history is so much like your own, we know full well what your Confederacy will do, how it will behave. But we are far older than your kind. Our objectives have changed, our purpose is firm and sure, our entire race committed to a single set of goals and objectives, while yours exists only to exist and to no real purpose. We desire none of your worlds. We desire none of your territory, nor your people.
“But your people will never believe that, for they know no higher purpose. They will not accept, or countenance, our great task, nor understand it. This is sad, for if there was any way to avoid the spilling of blood we would do so. That, we think, is why we were willing to allow Kree-gan his chance. That and the fact that we had the luxury of time. We still have some time, but we fear his plan has achieved instead this current situation. Tomorrow we will begin to resolve it.”
He nodded. “Yes. Tomorrow. Thank you for speaking to me.” He looked at Morah, who nodded, turned, and walked out without another word. He followed, remembering that the Altavar didn’t stand on protocol.
It took a little while of breathing good air before his stomach would settle down enough to have any sort of conversation. Morah waited patiently for him to recover.
“Well, did you find any surprises in your pet theories?”
He thought a moment. “Yes and no. It depends on just how well that thing translates. I heard the right words, but words can mean different things to different people.”
“Tell me,” the security chief said, “just out of curiosity—and if you can without giving away your own position. Just why do you think that the Altavar are so obsessed with the Diamond?”
“Huh? I assumed it had something to do with reproduction, but if I heard that thing correctly it may not. What did I miss?”
Morah thought his answer over carefully. “Then my guess was correct. You are a good agent, Carroll, and you have the most brilliant deductive mind I have ever encountered, Kreegan included. Do not feel badly. You labor under a handicap impossible to overcome.”
“I knew I missed something—but you still haven’t told me what, yet.”
“I think not. Not at this time. If anything, the true answer would make even the slender hope of settlement impossible. Reproduction is a good theory, and you should stick with it. The Council will understand it, perhaps accept it, and it will do as a basis for negotiations. The true answer, however, they will never accept, for they share your fatal flaw—and mine, too, for I had to be shown to believe.”
He looked at Morah, frowning. “Then at least tell me the flaw.”
“These are aliens, Mr. Carroll. They are, as the old one said, far closer to us than their hideous appearance and smelly hides admit, but they are alien all the same. They were shaped by a history that went vastly different from ours, and they reacted in a way, I suspect, that we could not. It should be obvious that their values, their institutions, their way of looking at things is very different from our own and would require a mind-wrenching adjustment to understand.”
“Do you understand it?”
“Sometimes I think I do, but I cannot really say so truthfully. I know what they are doing, and why they are doing it, but that is not the same thing as understanding it. I think it is time we both turn in, Mr. Carroll. Tomorrow, we settle it, and, in a sense, I fear that the hopes of Kreegan and, in fact, myself, will be dashed. I know those people too well, those high and mighty Confederacy leaders. You see Talant Ypsir and see a monster. I look at the Council and the Congress and the planetary leaders and I see a great gathering of Talant Ypsirs, and would-be Talant Ypsirs if they thought they could get away with it. That is the true reason they established the Warden Diamond; you have only to recognize it yourself. They wanted a place of security, refuge, and escape in case they were caught. The Four Lords of the Diamond are not truly any different from the Nine Hundred Lords of the Confederacy, who are merely greater hypocrites.” He turned to go, and the agent reached out and softly took hold of his arm for a moment.
“Morah—I have to know. Just whose side are you on?
“What is your ultimate game? You hate the Confederacy, but you have the same contempt for the Four Lords and the Diamond systems. You hoped that Kreegan could save humanity, yet you work for the aliens. What is your game?” The chief of security s
ighed. “Once I had a game, Mr. Carroll. I don’t any longer. I am trapped in a near-endless madhouse of a universe I did not make and cannot control or truly influence. From our viewpoint the Altavar are incredibly wise and totally insane, but insanity itself is a matter of degree. I am certainly insane by the standards of the Confederacy. Think of me as you would yourself. Neither of us asked to be here, nor did we fight for the responsibility that has been dropped upon us. Both of us do what we must because we are here, not because we are even the best people to be here. And, being totally insane ourselves, while we do not wish the ruin, carnage, and senseless violence that impends, we will both, wearily and without joy, work like hell to pick up the pieces.”
“That’s a pretty shitty universe you live in.” Morah grinned. “I wouldn’t bring this up tomorrow, but, for the record, the Altavar have three sexes. One contributes sperm, one egg, into a third who bears the young. And given a near-perfect medical knowledge, they live about three times as long as we do.” And with that, Yatek Morah went off to bed.
The conference was an awkward affair, but it was the best that could be done on short notice. He wondered from the start why such a minor moon, ill-suited for this sort of thing, should have been chosen, but suspected it might have been to accommodate the Altavar.
The technicians had rigged a screen at each end of the “conference room” and a similar setup, but not two-way, for the aides and assistants and others in the dorm next door. Inside the room sat the four current Lords of the Diamond dressed in their best, or most dramatic, as well as Dumonia and “Mr. Carroll,” the last two facing the rest despite the fact that Laroo was really Dumonia’s surrogate. Morah, it seemed, didn’t fully believe his statements on Dumonia’s power and neither recognized it nor told the others. Dumonia, for his part, was happy to be there as a representative of the Confederacy, although he found that concept highly amusing.
To the Lord’s right, on the screen, was an Altavar, possibly the same one he’d spoken to the night before. To their left the screen showed two men and a woman, all civilized worlders, dressed in formal robes of office. These were the senior ranking members of the Council, the rest of whom watched on a larger screen in an adjoining room back in the Confederacy.
He surveyed the Four Lords and shuffled his note cards nervously. Several times he tried to catch Ypsir’s eye, but while the Medusan kept taking sidelong glances at him he otherwise would not acknowledge the agent’s existence.
When both sides’ comtechs certified all was ready, Morah began the meeting, as he represented not only Charon but also, to some extent, the Altavar themselves.
“These proceedings are open at ten hundred Base Mean Time. I am Yatek Morah, acting Lord of Charon. To my right is Talant Ypsir, Lord of Medusa, then Wagant Laroo, Lord of Cerberus, and, finally, Duke Hamano Kobe’, Lord of Lilith. We speak with full authority for the populations of the Warden Diamond. Across from me sit Mr. Lewis Carroll, authorized agent of the Confederacy, and Antonini Dumonia, the Confederacy’s resident agent on the Warden Diamond.” Morah kept a straight face but Dumonia almost broke up. “Representing the Party Council are Senators Klon Luge, Morakar O’Higgins, and Surenda Quapiere. Representing the Altavar Managerial Project staff and with full authority to represent all Altavar involved in this spacial sector is Hadakim Soog. The name is an attempt to represent the actual name in our speech, and is used simply because the Altavar translating devices will recognize those syllables and transliterate them into Altavar and vice versa. There being no neutral parties present, I will assume the chairmanship for the time being, if there is no objection.”
Nobody spoke or moved.
“Very well, then,” Morah continued, “we will proceed. Mr. Carroll, will you please state your position?”
He smiled and nodded. “There is no use going into all the circumstances that brought us to this point. If we didn’t all know them, and if it wasn’t now a matter of record at all governments concerned, we wouldn’t be here. It is the Confederacy’s position that there is nothing here to fight about, put as simply and bluntly as possible. As far as we can determine, the interest of the Altavar is entirely in the Warden system, as are the interests of the Four Lords of the Diamond. The Confederacy is a very large group not in conflict with the Altavar or any other territory, and, therefore, believes that this matter may be settled simply. We are prepared to cede and concede to the Altavar sovereignty of the Warden solar system for a distance of twenty light-years from its sun, and we are further prepared to guarantee that no people or vessels not now belonging to those in residence in the system will encroach upon this zone, nor will Altavar access or egress from the system be in any way impeded even if it cuts through regions under Confederacy sovereignty. The four worlds known as the Warden Diamond, and their posssessions and colonies, will be given free, unconditional, unilateral independence and may work out whatever arrangement they like with the Altavar. If the Altavar are sincere in stating that they have no interest in Confederacy space beyond the Warden system, this should be sufficient. Any violations, of course, would constitute an immediate act of war, but the vastness of the surrounding zone would provide ample warning.”
He looked around to see how this was being taken—he had hashed it out on the security band well into the night with the Council and Krega—but saw no emotion whatever on the intent listeners. Well, not quite all—Ypsir was cleaning his nails with a small pen knife.
“In exchange for this,” he continued, “the Confederacy expects an immediate and total cessation of hostilities now underway against it by the Four Lords of the Diamond with the acquiescence of the Altavar, withdrawal of all such agents to the Warden Diamond, and a formal agreement that any future territorial or interest conflicts between the Confederation and the Altavar be settled by arbitration with both sides renouncing the use of force against the other. We feel this is more than fair.”
Morah waited a moment to see if he was finished, then saw his nod that he was. “Very well, then,” the Charonese said, “do you have anything to add, Doctor?”
Dumonia shook his head negatively.
“All right. I sense some objections among the Four Lords, but I will defer them at this time, and ask the Council to confirm this offer.”
“We do,” Luge’s voice came to them after a momentary delay caused not by interstellar communications but by the lag from the subspace relay they were using on the picket ship. “In fact, the offer was approved twenty-one to four by the full Council and thus is binding upon us if accepted.”
Morah nodded and turned to the impassive Altavar. “Manager Soog, are you prepared at this time to answer the offer?”
“We are,” the eerie synthesized voice responded. “We would very much like to accept the offer, which answers our basic needs and our objections to the current arrangement. However, we feel we cannot do so. The history of the human race argues against you, Confederacy. It is a most consistent record, no matter the technological or social levels. From the very beginnings of your history you have shown yourselves to be totally intolerant of those who are different. The record is a clear record of repression. Treaties are signed and sworn to and systematically violated at the first opportunity. You persecuted your own for a mild difference in skin color or bone structure, or because some worshiped a different god, or even the same god by different names. Treaties between nations held only so long as both nations felt so strong that they could destroy the other. Not once do we see social or political agreements made and held by mutual respect, only by mutual fear—and then with all the efforts of both sides devoted to destroying even that balance.
“You took these attitudes with you into space,” the creature went on, “and continued them for a while, until the years and the practicalities of distance and the advance of technology merged you racially and culturally. Still, the fact of this merger only caused redirection of this trait. Fully a dozen nonhuman races were discovered in your outward expansion. None equaled your power or emulated
your culture. Five you utterly destroyed simply because you could not understand them. The other seven you conquered ruthlessly, and imposed your culture and your system upon them by force. With two of those you first concluded treaties of peace and friendship and the exchange of ambassadors and technical skills, because they were spacefaring races. But as soon as you decided that they could be no threat to you, you ruthlessly rushed in upon them and crushed them, ignoring your treaties. Understand that we do not necessarily condemn this trait, nor condone it, for it is natural to an expanding spacefaring culture and we have seen it before. We were even guilty of it ourselves, once. But you see where this leaves us in the current situation.
“Your treaties are worthless, until you know our strength and power, knowledge those treaties buy you because they buy you whatever time is needed. Sovereignty so easily given away may be more easily taken back. Nor can your military and government leaders rest easy as long as we are hidden behind a shield of their ignorance. Unless we show you all, you will try all the more by any means to learn and thus interfere. If we did show you, either you would determine us too weak and thus rush in to crush us, or we would be too strong, in which case you would spare no effort to catch up, then surpass us technologically and militarily. Your proposal, then, simply buys you the time you need to gain advantage, or it puts off the war, allowing you to build up and improve your forces. It offers us nothing of substance, and we must reject it.”
The three Councillors looked extremely distressed and uncomfortable at this assessment, and Dumonia leaned over and whispered to the agent, “Take ’em off the hook, son. They’re outclassed.”
He nodded. “Then do the Altavar have a counterproposal to avoid war?”
The creature did not hesitate. “We see only one possible guarantee of our own security and safety. The Confederacy will turn over to us control of all spacecraft of whatever size or type capable of interstellar travel, and will build no more. All interstellar travel and communications between human worlds and all forces capable of harming us will be entirely under-our control and supervision for a period of three hundred and fifty years from the date of commencement of the agreement. We will guarantee to maintain all existing passenger and freight routes and establish whatever added schedules are needed for the maintenance of the economy and the well-being of the people. We will not interfere in the internal political affairs of the Confederacy in any way. Expansion or the possession or control of any spacial weapons for the interdicted period will not be permitted.”
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