Birthright

rightful position of primacy among the sentient races, and the prevailing mood was almost akin to that ancient credo of “Manifest Destiny.” And, indeed, it was fast becoming manifest that Man had served his galactic apprenticeship and would no longer be content to play a secondary role in the scheme of things.

It was at the height of this crisis of conflicting philosophies and overviews that Joshua Bellows (2943-3009 G.E.) began his meteoric rise to power. Immensely popular with the masses, he was originally opposed and later lauded by certain elements within his own party. For if it is true that great events summon forth great leaders, then... —Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement ...That Bellows had considerable charm and charisma as a politician cannot be denied. However, those writings and tapes of his that still exist would seem to imply that he had neither the capacity nor, originally, the motivation to have accomplished what he did without

some powerful behind-the-throne assistance...

...Although the Democracy survived him by more than twelve centuries, there can be no doubt that Bellows was responsible for...

— Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 8 Josh Bellows sat behind a huge desk, its shining surface dotted here and there with papers and documents, a score of intercom buttons by his right arm. Immaculately tailored and groomed, he presented the ultimate picture of dignity, with his heavy shock of gray-black hair, the firm, hard line of his jaw, and the tiny smile wrinkles at the corners of his clear blue eyes. He looked every inch a leader of men, which was in fact what he was.

“So how's it going?” he asked.

The figure approaching his desk was almost his antithesis in every respect. Clad in wrinkled, crumpled clothes, squinting through lenses so thick that one couldn't see his eyes behind them, what hair he still possessed in total disarray, he seemed as out of place in these majestic surroundings as anyone could be. “The natives are getting restless,” said Melvyn Hill, pulling up a beautifully carved chair of Doradusian wood and unceremoniously putting his feet on the desk. “The natives always look restless when you're staring down at them from the top,” commented Bellows. “When I was one of them I was restless too. That's how I got here.” “That was a little different, Josh. You were restless for power. They're restless for you to exercise that power.”

“I know.” Bellows frowned. “But what the hell do they expect me to do? Declare war?” “No,” said Hill. “Although,” he added thoughtfully, “not one out of five would be adverse to it.” “I won the Governorship of Deluros VIII with sixty-four percent of the vote,” said Bellows. “I think that shows a mandate of some sort for my judgment.” “I'll agree with the first half of it, Josh,” said Hill. “It shows a mandate of some sort.” “You know,” said Bellows, “you are the one member of my staff who continually makes me wonder about the wisdom of not surrounding myself with yes-men and sycophants.” “You're paying me too much to simper and suck my thumb and tell you that everything you do is right,” said Hill, swinging his feet back to the floor with a grunt. “Someone in this damned Administration ought to tell you the truth.”

“Which is?”

“Which is that you are in considerably more danger of impeachment than you realize.” Bellows just stared at him for a minute, his face expressionless. “Nonsense,” he said at last. Hill got to his feet. “Let me know if and when you want the rest of my report.” He turned to leave. “Hold on a minute!” snapped Bellows. “Get back in your chair and let's have this out.'’ Hill returned and

took his seat again. “Shall I begin?” he asked.

Bellows nodded.

“All right, then. You ran for the Governor's chair based on a campaign of human primacy. So did your opponent, but it was you who began proclaiming that it was manifest destiny that Man once again rule the galaxy.”

“Just politics,” said Bellows.

“No, sir, it wasn't just politics. Just politics would have been promising to exterminate the Lemm, or some other race who's been a thorn in our sides. A quick little battle like the one we fought a couple of centuries ago against Pnath; it had no business taking place, but we won pretty easily and everyone felt pretty cocky about it.That's politics. You've done something more. You've given them a dream, a promise that our race will return to its former position of supremacy. You hammered away at it for almost a year. Now, I'll admit that you were forced into it or else you'd never have won, but your constituency put you here, and they're getting a little restless waiting for you to lead them to the promised land. You've been in office almost three years now; that's sixty percent of your term, and you haven't produced yet. “So,” he continued, “they're taking matters into their own hands. There have been pogroms on a number of worlds which we cohabit with other races, there have been some minor skirmishes in space between ships from our outworlds and those of various aliens, and your legislature has been dragging its feet on every recommendation you've sent them. The human race has a standing battle force of some sixty million ships and ten billion men throughout the galaxy, and they're getting restless. “As for your impeachment, the media is just now starting to talk about it, but I've done a head count, and they're only about a dozen votes short.” “Twenty- eight votes,” said Bellows.

“That waslast month,” persisted Hill. “Josh, you just can't sit on your hands. You've got todo something.”

“Like what?” said Bellows softly. “What the hell do they want me to do—launch a sneak attack on Lodin XI and the Canphor Twins? Am I supposed to kill off every alien in the galaxy just to make them happy? I'm not the President of the human race, you know. I'm just the Governor of one world.” “Deluros VIII is more than one world, and we both know it,” said Hill. “Since we moved our bureaucracy here from Earth, we've been the social, political, and moral headquarters of the race of Man. For centuries the Governor of Deluros VIII has been the most powerful human in the galaxy; for all practical purposes, the job is identical to being President of the human race. If you give an order, every military unit from here to the Rim will obey it without question; if our economy goes up or down, every other human world follows suit in a year or so. We set the fashion, physically and philosophically, for every human everywhere. So don't hand me any of that crap about being the leader of one small, insignificant little world.”

“All I ever promised was to give Man back his dignity,” said Bellows. “I said it was our destiny to rise to the top of the heap, and it is—but not by pulling the other fellows off. We'll do it by working harder, producing more, being smarter—”

“Bunk! You couldn't deliver on that promise if your term of office was ten thousand years and you lived

to the last day of it. Look,” said Hill, clasping and unclasping his hands. “You were born handsome,

articulate, and likable. I mean it. I've always liked you, and I like you even now, when you're throwing both our careers down the drain. You come on like a forceful but benevolent father that everyone automatically trusts. Just give the mess to Josh; he'll take care of it. The problem is that you've never had to use that thing you call a brain a day of your life. Everything comes easy to Godlike father images, and when you needed some dirty work done, someone like me has always been around to do it. Not that we've minded. But now you're Governor of Deluros VIII, and there's no higher office a human can aspire to the way the Democracy's set up. Now you've finally got to deliver instead of going after the job of the guy who's next in line above you. And if you can't make the decision and take the kind of action that's required, then let me or someone else do it in your name, or that handsome, noble face and lordly demeanor are going to get expurgated from the history book faster than you can imagine.” “Well, I'm sure as hell not going to go down in history as the man who started the first galactic-scale war!” said Bellows. “I don't plan to be remembered as the greatest genocidal maniac of all time.” “It's not a matter of genocide,” said Hill. “It's simply a matter of testing the opposition, pushing and probing until you find a weak spot, then plugging the gap and looking for more. No one's advocating cutting off our noses to spite our faces; we need the other races as much as we ever did, perhaps more. But we need them on our terms, not theirs.” “We've been through all this before,” said Bellows, glancing down at his appointments calendar. “Evidently it hasn't done much good up to now,” said Hill. “Dammit, Josh, I know that you've got reservations about it, but the Governorship is no place for vacillation. Sooner or later it's got to come, and it might as well be sooner.”

“If it could be bloodless, I'd have no hesitation,” said Bellows. “But these are sentient beings, Mel, not so