Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

key element here, since all this implies that space travel and terra-forming and computers are essential to their reproduction. It is patently absurd to think of such a race, since how did it get born or evolve in the first place?

Of course, if we just accept the idea that their civilization is far older than ours, this problem partly resolves itself. After all, human beings now reproduce in technologically perfect genetic engineering laboratories throughout the civilized worlds. A race just coming upon the civilized worlds and ignorant of our history and of observing the “natural” way on a frontier world or the Diamond might well have the same puzzle the Altavar present to me here. They would wonder how we ever reproduced before we had the technology the bioengineering labs implies. Much the same must be at work here. This is not how they evolved or how nature intended them to breed, but it is the way they choose to do it now—because, for them, it’s better, easier, more efficient, or whatever. Take your choice.

Summary: The aliens created the Diamond worlds as incubators and new homes for their young. They are slow-breeding and long-lived, and thus this must represent a whole new generation for a large mass of Altavar. They can not retreat or back down without abandoning their young, and while I doubt that the Diamond is the only breeding ground for them, it is of sufficiently large size and scope that anything interfering with the hatching and development of the young would be tantamount to genocide in their minds.

When humans showed up, the aliens used their mechanism—the Warden organism—and their planetary computers to understand, evaluate, and assess our entire civilization. As long as the hatching, or whatever it is, was sufficiently far off, they had plenty of time in which to do so. But we obliged them by sending our greatest criminal minds and political and social deviants to the Diamond, and their attitudes shaped the human societies that grew on all four worlds. As a result, their picture of us is rather negatively slanted, to say the least. The hatch time approached—although it may still be a decade or even longer away—and they had to decide what to do. Whether for science, or study, or just out of scientific mercy, they contacted the Four Lords with a view to saving the Diamond population. But it was then also communicated to the Lords that the rest of humanity was simply too great a threat and would have to be wiped out.

Kreegan, upon becoming Lord of Lilith, came up with and proposed his own scheme to the Altavar, who were willing to let him try it but neither expected it to work nor concerned themselves with the fates of the Four Lords. But because the Four Lords made a mistake, the Altavar now feel backed against a wall. To their minds, delaying much longer will risk genocide of their young, and if it’s them or us, they’ll naturally choose us. They know our military strengths and weaknesses, our weaponry, our military mind, and everything else an enemy dreams of knowing. Apparently none of that worries them. They are confident that they can crush us, and I believe they will attempt to do so by preemptive strike, after the Four Lords campaign has wreaked as much damage and disruption as it can. I think we are no more than weeks, and perhaps only days, away from a total war that may result in the near elimination of human—or perhaps both—civilizations.

Conclusions and Recommendations: I think they not only can beat us, but I suspect they have fought at least one such war before. They are too supremely confident. However, we as a race would survive. We are too numerous and located on too many worlds over too much space to be wiped out totally. Pushed back into barbarism, the collapse of interstellar civilization and the death of at least a third of humanity would be the least I would expect in such a conflict, but we would survive. Our only recourse would be that we could, obviously, destroy the Diamond with a concerted, possibly suicidal all-out revenge attack—the thing they fear most, and so do I. Such an attack would enrage them and rob them of their next generation; it would be our last blow, but much of their force would remain intact.

I may be totally wrong, and they may think in so alien a manner that they will not react in a way I can predict, but I feel I must point out how we would react under such circumstances and urge that we act as if they’re more like us emotionally than unlike us. If the situation were reversed: if humans beat the hell out of the Altavar but, in the process, the Altavar managed to destroy every human being’s ability to create children by any means, thereby ending the race in slow agony, we would then seek out Altavar wherever they were, in their ships, on their worlds, and once they were beaten and defenseless, we would then systematically wipe them out to the last one. In-other words, destroying the Diamond might well result in total human genocide.

Obviously I’m telling you that we can not win in this situation. If you refuse to face that fact, refuse to accept my report and its conclusions, then I believe both races could die. The impossible, the unthinkable, will happen. When man first went into space and colonized other worlds, a great pressure was lifted from the collective psyche. The human race would not be totally destroyed by itself in war, at least not easily. And when, finally, we grew so large and so expansive and merged into the single system that the Confederacy represents, we thought we had put any possibility of racial destruction behind us. People could die, even whole suns could explode and take their worlds and populations with them, but humanity would survive.

If this chain is now started, it will be impossible to stop. We have finally come face to face with the horror once again, and we have only ugly choices.

The Four Lords are now meeting in Council and are waiting for my call. The only hope we have is to do everything right, and, therefore, it is essential that you follow all of my recommendations immediately and without fail.

(1) No matter how this sabotage campaign is going, it is essential that only reports of complete disarray and disaster reach this picket ship, which is totally infiltrated with the robots. At all times from this point the Four Lords and the Altavar must be convinced that Kreegan’s war is winning, that his plan is working perfectly. If the Altavar receive the slightest hint that it is not, they will probably launch a massive preemptive strike on us.

(2) Negotiations must be opened immediately. I will be the go-between, because, having three surviving alter egos down there, I will be one they will trust. However, we must be linked directly to the Confederacy Inner Council, who must all be on call to appear on visual transmission. It must be clear that they are dealing with someone—me—^: who speaks for the Council and that I have the force sufficient to make my agreements binding on the Confederacy.

(3) As much of the fleet as can be depended upon not to be needed for emergency actions against the current war campaign must be rushed to the Diamond on full alert. Only with the threat of immediate destruction of the Diamond will we have any leverage at all. Put your best military minds in that fleet and get it here—fast, and on full war alert. You can expect ship-to-ship attack if negotiations fail or if they decide to test us.

(4) No matter what you think of the Four Lords and their organizations, they are not stupid and they will not be lulled into any false agreements. They know that their own worlds are on the line, which will keep them honest, but as agents of the Altavar they also know our real position, which isn’t great. They have also, obviously, been promised safe evacuation in the event of an attack by us, so they are only concerned about their populations, not their own hides. I must warn the Council that the demands the Altavar will make will be stiff and severe. We must negotiate and be prepared to give up a great deal, perhaps much that we hold dear. But we must find a solution that will result in the Altavar feeling safe and secure—and we must mean it and guarantee it with our actions, not just words. They know us too well to accept our promises or a treaty.

This is Warden Control, awaiting your decision and instructions.

“Well? What do you think?”

“It is the only logical solution given the data,” the computer replied. “You should have been a computer.”

“High praise. Well, they got it now. How do you think they’ll take it?”

“They will refuse to accept your conclusions, of course, but they will play along with you and the Four Lords for now. Did you expect anything else?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt it. Given what you know, can you compute the current probabilities of all-out war?”

“Too many variables. But I would say you have a ten-percent chance of pulling something, out of this.”

He sighed. “Ten percent. I guess that’ll have to do. Wake me when they call back.” He paused a moment. “Well, it doesn’t look like you will be ordered to kill me, anyway.”

The computer did not reply.