“We are used to war,” he told me, coldly. “It would be a foul betrayal of our ancestors to surrender to alien beings the inheritance which they left for us.”
I was tempted to challenge his assumptions about his so- called ancestors, but I didn’t want to antagonise him. I kept quiet, nursing a headache that was getting rapidly worse in consequence of the taxing discussion.
“In any case,” said Sigor Dyan silkily, “there are other factors in the situation which still remain to be considered, are there not? We know that there are other inhabitants of Asgard more advanced than the Tetrax or ourselves. It is entirely possible that our ancestors are still alive, far beneath us in the depths of our world. If our ancestors were now to emerge, to assist us in our hour of need, it would transform the situation dramatically, would it not, Mr. Rousseau?”
I realised then—perhaps belatedly—exactly why the invaders had been so very pleased to see me when Jacinthe Siani pointed me out. The way Sigor Dyan had things figured, I was the man who had talked to their ancestors . . . the messiah who had been in touch with their gods. I had been thinking in terms of alliances, assuming that the invaders were interested in their downside neighbours as potential allies. It hadn’t sunk in that their way of looking at things made me much more important than that.
I didn’t relish the idea of being cast as a messiah. It’s a dangerous job, by all accounts.
I nearly blurted out the fact that Aleksandr Sovorov and at least a dozen of their Tetron prisoners must also know the location of Saul’s dropshaft, but I bit my tongue.
I didn’t know how much they had already been told. If all the information they had came from Jacinthe Siani, it would be woefully incomplete. They probably had no idea what kind of deal I’d made with the C.R.E., and they also might not know that the way down to Myrlin’s biotech supermen had been very solidly blocked. I had to keep in mind the maxim that careless talk costs lives, and that one of them might easily be mine. I had to tread carefully until I found out exactly what they wanted from me, and exactly what they thought I could deliver.
“You don’t have any real reason to believe,” I began tentatively, “that the people down below are your ancestors. They could be just one more race planted in their own habitat just as you were. The fact that they’re technologically superior doesn’t mean a thing. Ask yourself, Mr. Dyan—if they’re just another captive race, would you be any better off becoming their underlings than you would becoming the underlings of the Tetrax?”
“That is exactly the kind of question, Mr. Rousseau, that we hope you can answer for us,” he said, his voice as sweet as the stuff he was feeding me . . . which, now that I had finished it, had left in my mouth a strange and not altogether pleasant aftertaste.
19
During the next exercise period, while I was temporarily let loose—presumably to think over all that had been said to me—I got my chance to talk to 822-Vela for a while.
We met by one of the observation windows, and as we spoke I was able to alternate my glance between his wizened face and the alien wilderness outside. There was a kind of swirling oily mist which made it difficult to see further than ten or fifteen metres, but there was a cluster of the dendritic structures close to the wall, and it was possible to make out, albeit vaguely, the small creatures fluttering amid the branches. The coloured lights which dressed the branches of the dendrites insinuated their soft radiance into the mist, creating rainbow hazes through which the fireflies danced and darted.
Why is it here? I wondered. Is it something so very unusual in the great universal scheme that it became precious?
822-Vela was explaining to me the policy that the Tetrax of Skychain City had decided to follow. “Essentially,” he said, “our strategy is one of calm reason, with a measure of stubbornness and a certain seductive appeal. We are trying to make clear the benefits that both the galactic races and the races of Asgard would obtain from a meeting of minds and a joining of resources. We stress the standards of behaviour which are required if a complex galactic community is to exist in peace and harmony. We have refused to tell the invaders anything about our technology, or about our discoveries on Asgard, or about the position of our other subsurface bases, unless and until they make some kind of treaty with us and allow us to restore effective communication with the starships in space.”
“Well,” I said, deciding that I could make a bid for prestige by name-dropping furiously, “1125-Camina and 994-Tulyar deduced that you would follow that policy, and are planning their own overtures to fit in with it. The problem is that the invaders won’t respond in any way to their calls, and without more information it was difficult to decide how to continue. With luck, one of our groups will have managed to renew communications, so that the people in orbit will be fully informed, but it’s not easy to see what will happen next. You can probably judge better than I whether 1125-Camina would think it appropriate to order some kind of military action.”
It’s no good fishing for information with the Tetrax. They’re too good at it to fall for any bait mere humans can deploy. All he said in reply was: “No doubt 1125-Camina will make the best decision. Can we assume that you, like Dr. Sovorov, will follow our directions in this matter? Many of your species-brethren are actively collaborating with the invaders—mercifully, few humans or Kythnans are in a position to offer effective assistance to them.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was implying that I was in no position to offer effective help to the enemy either, but I didn’t care. For a few moments I just looked out at the swirling mists, wondering whether this habitat, too, contained tens of millions of square kilometres of territory, and wondering what awesome variations the life-system might exhibit over the full range of its terrain.
When I did answer him, it was to say: “There may be gains to be derived from collaboration. As you say, my fellow humans are not in a position to explain Tetron technics to the invaders, so they can do little harm. They might, though, succeed in winning the trust of these people. We must remember that the discoveries they made in capturing Skychain City have upset their entire world-view. By the time my race ventured outside our solar system we already knew a great deal about the universe, and were forewarned of the fact that it was inhabited. Contact with the galactic community was not entirely surprising. These people have suffered a shock of far greater magnitude. It may be that they are reassured by their close resemblance to us, and that through contact with humans they can gradually become accustomed to contact with galactics in general. My species-brethren may be building vital bridges.”
I was proud of myself; I thought it a speech worthy of a Tetron in its delicacy and guile. No doubt 822-Vela wouldn’t agree, but a Tetron never will agree that anyone can play his own game half as well as he does.
“That would be a dangerous policy,” observed 822-Vela. “And we must remember, Mr. Rousseau, that you humans are not practised in the ways of diplomacy. Better, perhaps, to say nothing at all than to attempt a policy of friendliness which might easily do more harm than good.”
Or to put it another way: Don’t try to be too clever, human—you’re not up to it.
“I’m not sure that they’ll be prepared to be polite indefinitely,” I told him, not without a certain vindictiveness. “I think members of your own race might be in grave danger of harm. I think that it may be necessary to give these people some answers—and the answers we humans can give them may help to discourage them from attempting to extract information from you by violent means.”