were equally able to see that robbery often yields more fun and profit than honest labor, or to fear becoming victims themselves. Humans have tended to handle resultant troubles by subjugating the troublemakers. But Beronnen had no government to establish a hegemony. The legions were the closest thing to governed organizations, and they were autonomous. They hired out to whoever would pay, on whatever terms could be mutually agreed on—though never to anyone who attacked Beronneners.
Less developed areas found it worthwhile to engage these crack troops, or detachments thereof. They got protection, plus valuable civilian services; a legion was by no means exclusively military. They also got trade with Beronnen and each other, and access to the learning and technology that centered around Sehala.
It was a good idea to meet at intervals, exchange information, negotiate accumulated disputes, plan joint undertakings. Sehala was the natural if not the invariable site for this. A society might send its leaders) or might send diplomatic representatives… or some thing else. It might dispatch a single person or several. Formulas evolved for apportioning votes reasonably fairly, irrespective of numbers. But the assembly was not a legislature. It recommended.
True, the recommendations were normally followed, by legions and nations alike. A dissenting minority would find it more expedient to obey majority will than to risk being left isolated. The soldiers regarded themselves as custodians of civilization, but—in contrast to counterparts throughout human history—not as being on that account its policy makers. (Longevity helped. An officer of Larreka’s age had seen countless issues burning for a while, ashes not long after-ward.)
Thus the Gathering was different things to its different members, not to mention outsiders. Their languages included names for it which were not mutually translatable. To some folk it was a kind of police; to others it was the bearer and preserver of everything important; to some, this gave it mystical significance; to others it was a foreign culture, not inherently superior, whose captaincy it was good, or at least prudent, to acknowledge; and on and on.
To the Valenneners—scattered, anarchic, backward—it was an alien, which sent traders and, reasonably enough, guarded these… but which replied to attacks with punitive expeditions whose targets were shrewdly, if not always correctly, picked… and which forbade with its garrisons and patrol ships the good old custom of raiding… and which, while it kept its strength, would never let them take new lands, distant from the Cruel Star…
Owazzi finished. The consensus appeared to favor Jerassa. Of course, nobody could compel the Zera Victrix to come home, and perhaps those who had much to lose in Valennen would support it, did it choose to stay. In any case, it had independent income, from services which personnel of it performed in many separate places. But the bulk of this assembly felt that it should urge the legions to pull in closer to the heartland; and probably Larreka’s colleagues would rather do this than join him in a doomed cause; so was it not best that Larreka reconsider? That was the general feeling, Owazzi said. A minority had been pointing out that the kind of military aid the humans would give had not been specified, and should be before any further thinking was done. Would the speaker for Primavera, if such he was, care to comment?
“I must,” Sparling said harshly.
He wished he were on a Terrestrial-type stage, safe behind a lectern, not surrounded by these eyes and eyes and eyes. As was conventional, he faced the Lawspeaker, He filled his lungs and said to her old face:
“I think most of you here will understand how grieved we are at the tidings I bear. Prepare yourselves.” Useless human phrase. Ishtarians speak straight out in public matters. They save oratory for art, where it belongs. “Very lately we have gotten word that our hands may be tied for years to come, in helping you in any way.
“Any way. I do not know when work can continue on my dams, nor does Jane Fadavi know when she can get the air seeders to abort tornados, nor have we prospect of synthetic food and prefabricated shelters being sent for refugees in the near future, nor aircraft to evacuate them from stricken parts, nor—anything. Including weapons.
“At best, we can do minor jobs, we can advise, we can try to keep Primavera going. I do say this: We will not abandon you. For hundreds of us, this is our home too, and you are our people.
“You have doubtless guessed the reason. You know that war goes among the stars, between our world Earth and another. Thus far, action has not been intense. Both sides were busy marshaling their forces. Now it is in earnest, and will consume resources we had counted on.
“But I have worse news yet. Part of Earth’s effort involves establishing a base on this world. Be not afraid. You are remote from the fighting. The base is not necessary. We of Primavera will strive to persuade the overlords of Earth that it is not necessary.”
Shall I tell them the war isn’t? No, not here. They’ll soon observe our bitterness.
“If we succeed in that, we will at least release our home production. For instance, the dams can then be finished in time. But unless the war proves brief, we cannot expect shipments from Earth as early as we had planned. And we may not be able to stop construction of that base. We will almost surely be in no position to help you fight. Oh, I suppose we can keep our private guns and vehicles, and you can keep those you already own. But a few small arms, a few cars and flyers, will not check the barbarians.
“I do not know what will happen. Conceivably this will all end in short order and we can go on as we’d hoped. But I think we had better batten down against the worst.”
Sparling stopped. Lousy rhetoric for a human audience, he thought. How good for a mixed bag of Ishtarians? Not awfully, I’m afraid.
Into a terrible hush, Owazzi took the word. “We must think a multitude of stiff thoughts over again. No doubt this assembly will stand for longer than expected, to consider ways, means, and contingencies with our human friends.” The language allowed her to separate those, by a suffix, from human unfriends. To him; “I wonder, though, since Larreka accompanies you, I wonder what your ideas are about holding on in Valennen.”
Taken by surprise, Sparling stammered, “I, I don’t know, I’m not a soldier, not competent to say—”
Jerassa spoke from the floor: “The Lawspeaker is right; we must more than ever move carefully toward judgment. But does it not seem, colleagues, that this triples the reason for recalling our forces to Beronnen?”
Protests arose in a storm-wave. Nobody wanted the legions to withdraw from his or her country. Yet—voices were sufficiently soft for Sparling to make out what individuals said—few opposed the principle that civilization should pull its outposts closer in and, specifically, abandon all holdings north of the equator.
Owazzi ended the low hubbub by signaling Larreka to the dais.
When he had silence, the commandant said, flat-toned for an Ishtarian:
“No. I tried to explain earlier, and you still don’t see. This is not a question of protecting a few commercial interests. It’s a question of heading off a conqueror. I know that, I tell you. know it from military intelligence and from what’s lately been happening and from a cold shiver that a lifetime on the frontier has taught me how to feel.
“If we can’t get human war-aid, we’ll not just be wise to stick in Valennen, we’ll have to. Else the enemy can strike however he feels like, throughout the Ehur and Fiery Seas. He can throw more against an island than we can put on it; and when the garrison’s been reduced, he can go on to the next. A battle or two won by us won’t mean a futtering thing, long-range, when he’s got a whole mainland to withdraw to and we no troops there to welcome him.
“Soon we’ll lose those waters. Soon after, he’ll be harrying North Beronnen while his ships range west into the Argent and east into the Cyclonic Ocean, picking off whatever he pleases, raising allies, breeding fighters—And maybe afterward we can keep him from taking over this half of this continent, but we’ll’ve had to haul in everything we’ve got left to defend it.
“Which’d be the end of the Gathering. Civilization might limp on, but only in South Beronnen. And only for South Beronnen. Doom and blast, can’t you see the Gathering is what this cycle’s all about, the best thing we’ve got to pass on to the next?
“Yes, you can stay safer for a while by letting Valennen go. My judgment as a soldier is, it’d be better to let several of your homes go, and send the strength to me there that I need to clean the place out. But vote as you please. The Zera stays.”
TEN
