“No,” Karlsarm said. “Not unless we absolutely must.”
“Thank you, sir! Those are… my people yonder.” After a moment: “They were my people.”
“They will be again,” Evagail murmured to Ridenour. “ff you help.”
“What can I do?” he choked.
She touched him. He winced aside. “You can speak for us,” she said. “You’re respected. Your loyalty is not in doubt. You proved it afresh, that night when—We don’t belong to your civilization. We don’t understand how it thinks, what it will compromise on and what it will die for, the nuances, the symbols, the meanings it finds
“Except to the Cities,” he said. “And now the Empire.”
“No, they threatened us. They wouldn’t leave our forests alone. As for the Empire, can’t it contain one more way of living? Won’t mankind be the richer for that?”
They looked at each other, and a thrumming aloneness enclosed them. A screen showed space and stars on the rim of the world.
“I suppose,” he said finally, “no one can compromise on the basics of his culture. They’re the larger part of his identity. To give them up is a kind of death. Many people would rather die in the body. You won’t stop fighting until you’re utterly crushed.”
“And must that be?” Her speech fell gently on his ears. “Don’t you Terrans want an end of war?”
An earthquake rumble went through the ship. Reports and orders seethed on the bridge. She was in long- range combat with a destroyer.
Undermanned, Isis could not stand off Cruz’s whole fleet. But those units were scattered, would not reach Freehold for hours. Meanwhile, a solitary Imperial craft went against her with forlorn gallantry. Her fire-control men wept as they lashed back. But they must, to save the women who held them.
“What can I do?” Ridenour said.
“We’ll call as soon as we’re finished, and ask for a parley,” Evagail told him. “We want you to urge that the Terrans agree. Afterward we want you to—no, not help plead our cause. Help explain it.”
“Opposition attack parried,” said a speaker. “Limited return broadside as per orders appears to have inflicted some damage. Opposition sheering off. Shall she be annihilated?”
“No, let her go,” Karlsarm said.
Ridenour nodded at Evagail. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.
She took his hands, gladness bursting through her own tears, and this time he did not pull away.
Isis swung back into atmosphere. Her turrets cut loose. A doomed, empty City went skyward in flame.
Admiral Fernando Cruz Manqual stood high in the councils of this Imperial frontier; but he was a Terran merely by citizenship and remote ancestry. Military men have gone forth from Nuevo Mexico since that stark planet first was colonized. His manner toward Ridenour was at once curt and courteous.
“And so, Professor, you recommend that we accept their terms?” He puffed hard on a crooked black cigar. “I am afraid that that is quite impossible.”
Ridenour made a production of starting his pipe. He needed time to find words. Awareness pressed in on him of his surroundings.
The negotiating commissions (to use a Terran phrase, the Free People called them mind-wrestlers) had met on neutral ground, an island in the Lawrencian Ocean. Though uninhabited thus far, it was beautiful with its full feathery trees, blossoming vines, deep cane-brakes, wide white beaches whtre surf played and roared. But there was little chance to enjoy what the place offered. Perhaps later, if talks were promising and tension relaxed, a young Terran spaceman might encounter a lightfoot outbacker girl in some glen.
But, discussion had not yet even begun. It might well never begin. The two camps were armed, separated by three kilometers of forest and, on the Terran side, a wall of guns. Ridenour was the first who crossed from one to another.
Cruz’s reception had been so cold that the xenologist half expected arrest. However, the admiral appeared to comprehend why he was there and invited him into his dome for private, unofficial conversation.
The dome was open to a mild, sea-scented breeze, but also to the view of other domes, vehicles; marines on sentry-go, aircraft at hover. Wine stood on the table between the two men, but except for a formal initial toast it had not been poured. Ridenour had stated the facts, and his words had struck unresponding silence.
Now:
“I think it’s best sir,” Ridenour ventured. “They can be conquered, if the Empire makes the effort.
But that war would be long, costly, tying up forces we need elsewhere, devastating the planet, maybe making it unfit for human habitation; they’ll retaliate with some pretty horrible biological capabilities. The prisoners they hold will not be returned. Likewise the his. You’ll be compelled to order her knocked out, an operation that won’t come cheap.”
He looked straight into the hard, mustached face. “And for what? They’re quite willing to remain Terran subjects.”
“They rebelled,” Cruz bit off; “they collaborated with an enemy; they resisted comtiands given in His Majesty’s name; they occasioned loss to His Majesty’s Navy; they destroyed nine Imperial communities; thereby they wrecked the economy of an entire Imperial world. If this sort of behavior is let go unpunished, how long before the whole Empire breaks apart? And they aren’t satisfied with asking for amnesty. No, they demand the globe be turned over to them!”
He shook his head. “I do not question your honesty, Professor—someone had to be messenger boy, I suppose—but if you believe an official in my position can possibly give a minute’s consideration to those wood- runners’ fantasy, I must question your judgment.”
“They are not savages, sir,” Ridenour said. “I’ve tried to explain to you something of their level of culture. My eventual written report should convince everyone.”
“That is beside the point.” His faded, open-throated undress uniform made Cruz look more terrible than any amount of braid and medals. The blaster at his hip had seen much use in its day.
“Not precisely, sir.” Ridenour shifted in his chair. Sweat priclded his skin. “I’ve had a chance to think a lot about these issues, and a death-strong motivation for doing so and a career that’s trained me to think in impersonal, long-range terms. What’s the real good of the Empire? Isn’t it the solidarity of many civilized planets? Isn’t it, also, the stimulus of diversity between those planets? Suppose we did crush the Free—the outbackers. How could the Cities be rebuilt, except at enormous cost? They needed centuries to reach their modern level unaided, on this isolated, metal-impoverished world. If we poured in treasure, we could recreate them, more or less, in a few years. But what then would we have? Nine feeble mediocrities, just productive enough to require guarding, because Merseia considers them a potential threat on her Arulian flank. Whereas if we let the
That may not be strictly true, he thought. The out-backers don’t mind acknowledging Terran suzerainty, if they can have a charter that lets them run their planet the way they want. They’re too sensible to revive the nationalistic fallacy. They’ll pay a bit of tribute, conduct a bit of trade. On the whole, however, we will be irrelevant to them.
They may not always be so to us, of course. We may learn much from them. If we ever fall, they’ll carry on something of what was ours. But I’d better not emphasize this.
“Even if I wanted to accommodate them,” Cruz said, “I have no power. My authority is broad, yes. And I can go well beyond its formal limits, in that a central government with thousands of other worries will accept any reasonable recommendation I make. But do not exaggerate my latitude, I beg you. If I suggested that the City people, loyal subjects of His Majesty, be moved off the world of their ancestors, and that rebels, no matter how cultivated, be rewarded with its sole possession… why, I should be recalled for psychiatric examination, no?”
He sounds regretful, leaped within Ridenour. He doesn’t want a butcher’s campaign. If I can convince him there is a reasonable and honorable way out—
The xenologist smiled carefully around his pipestem. “True, Admiral,” he said. “If the matter were put in
