“Even in translation I do not understand this idiomatic expression.”
“It means that our meeting has reached that point where we must be frank and open with each other,” said Baird. “And since you still seem somewhat dubious, I'll begin. Through various contacts I have in the Navy, I can present our side with a force of approximately twelve million men, about two million ships, and a considerable arsenal. No single unit will amount to more than five percent of the whole. They are scattered around the galaxy, but this may prove to be an advantage, as they will thus prevent the Commonwealth from massing its forces. Now, how many planets do you control or can you influence?” “I find it interesting that you speak in terms of numbers of beings, while I am expected to reply in terms of planets,” said Brastillios.
“I am speaking in both cases in terms of strategic units,” Baird pointed out. “I fully realize, as you must, that neither my humans nor your allied races can militarily overthrow the Commonwealth as things stand now. But a well-orchestrated series of attacks and rebellions may give other Men and aliens the idea that it can be done.”
“Why would other Men come over to your side?” asked Brastillios. “Why would they not defend their primacy to the death?”
“Men side with winners,” said Baird. “And they wouldn't view it as surrendering their primacy, but as overthrowing an unpopular government. So I repeat: How many worlds can you influence?” “Perhaps three thousand, perhaps more,” said Brastillios. “There can be no terms such as ‘perhaps’ involved,” said Baird. “We've got to coordinate this entire operation down to the last detail. Each rebellion, both in the Navy and among the nonhuman worlds, must appear spontaneous, and they all must be strategically mapped to cause the most difficulty and confusion to the Navy. Nor must they all be military actions; we don't want the first ten planets that rebel to be blown to kingdom come—it would discourage the rest of them. Now, what kind of weaponry do you have at your disposal?”
The Canphorite listed the contents of his arsenal and made some educated guesses at what the other alien worlds possessed. Baird was surprised to find them so well armed, but said nothing. After all, it just made his job that much easier.
“Your history books will not speak too highly of what you have done today,” remarked Brastillios, when the broad lines of the strategy had been agreed upon. “If we win, I'll be the author of those books,” said Baird. “And if we lose, someone else will overthrow the Commonwealth sometime in the future, in which case I'll be considered a visionary born before his time. If we take a smashing defeat, what will the books say about you?” “They have been written for millennia,” said Brastillios. “We have only been awaiting the proper time to publish them.”
For just a fleeting instant Baird thought he might have bitten off more than he could chew. Then he shrugged. The aliens wouldn't cause any problem. They'd be in the vanguard of the fighting for the next few centuries, and if they still were feeling their oats after the remnants of the Commonwealth had decimated their ranks ... well, Man was not totally without experience in dealing with alien races.
Brastillios stared hard at the Man. He, too, had his doubts about this alliance. Men, after all, were Men.
Then he, too, shrugged. This temporary partnership was a necessary evil, no more, no less. Sooner or later there would be a redress of power in the galaxy, and if some Men wished to bring it about sooner while helping to destroy others of their race, why should he object to it? They made arrangements for a series of future meetings at which every minute detail would be hashed out. Then, for the first time in galactic history, Man and alien shook hands in mutual friendship and brotherhood.
Both of them had their fingers crossed. SEVENTEENTH MILLENNIUM: ANARCHY
23: THE ARCHEOLOGISTS
...Thus, as Man's empire dwindled, no central governmental body was formed among the other races, and a galaxy-wide state of anarchy came into being.... It was during the Seventeenth Millennium (G.E.) that the race of Man, no longer possessed of its once-mighty military and economic power, turned toward more peaceful pursuits. There was a general reawakening of interest in the species’ racial roots, and Earth and the early colonies were at last thoroughly explored and examined by scores of archaeologists. One of the most successful of these was Breece, a female from Belthar III, whose published works are still read today.... —Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 9 Breece stood on Earth and wondered where the tens and hundreds of centuries had gone. Earth was not deserted—exactly; and the race of Man was not on the verge of extinction—exactly. But oh, she reflected, how the mighty have fallen! So high had Man ascended that it had taken him many long millennia to lose every last vestige of his primacy, his power, his property. In fact, some tiny portions of the latter still remained: the Deluros system, a series of ghost worlds, all shining and efficient and unused; Sirius V, whose frontiers had retrogressed until it now housed only one vast city; Caliban, a still-living, still-functioning anachronism, a mechanism that would wait for all eternity to report the movements of a Navy that had been dead and forgotten for centuries; the Floating Kingdom, its imperial palaces converted into factories, its motive power no longer operational, doomed to float aimlessly from system to system until some star finally reached out and dragged it to its bosom; the Capellan and Denebian colonies; some four thousand scattered worlds; and ancient old Earth itself. Over the ages, after the fall of the Commonwealth—or the Monarchy, as it had come to be known—race after race began reasserting itself, taking back some or all of what Man had appropriated. Many of them didn't really care about Man or what he had done to or for them, but there were those—the Canphorites, the Lodinites, the Elmrans, and a hundred others—who cared passionately enough to make up for the lethargy of the other races. Bit by bit, with the patience of Job and the skill of Grath, they had begun pushing Man back, forcing him into planetary alcoves, denying him access to a world here, a system there, nationalizing a factory on this world, destroying a laboratory or college on that world.
Man fought back, as Man would always fight back. At first his losses were minimal, but he had reached his peak, had held the galaxy in the palm of his hand, and there was no place to go but down. He did it much the same way he had gone up: scrapping, fighting, bluffing, lying, with just enough isolated instances of nobility and of barbarism to make the galaxy wonder if he was either a god or perhaps some demon straight out of hell, rather than just another sentient race.
And indeed, reflected Breece, Man wasn't just another species to be recorded and forgotten in the
history books. He was something special, something very different. No other race was capable of such generosity, such idealism, such achievement; and, too, no other race could produce such examples of pettiness, bestiality, dishonor, and dishonesty. Whatever else could be said for Man, he was unique—which, when all was said and done, was why she stood on Man's mother world, cold and rain-soaked, searching for whatever it was that had given shape to this strange, intelligent ape, that had made him better than the galaxy's best, poorer than its worst, had made him reach out to the stars and scream his defiance in the face of Destiny. She stood in the twilight, staring out across what had once, eons ago, been the Serengeti Plains. This now-barren piece of land, stretching from the still-picturesque Ngorongoro Crater to the dry bed of Lake Victoria, had seen almost all the history of Man while he was still Earthbound. Here he had been born, had first invented the wheel and the bludgeon, had first discovered fire. Here he had pitted himself in naked battle with the legendary black-maned lion, and had sold his fellow Man into bondage. The First and Fourth World Wars had extended far enough south and east to turn the Serengeti into a temporary battlefield. It was here, six hundred years before the beginning of the Galactic Era, that Man had exterminated the last of his competing land-dwelling species, and it was here, a century later, that the initial research was done on the Tachyon Drive. And now the Serengeti stood lonely and deserted again, knee-high in jungle grasses, bordered by wait-a-bit thorn trees, hiding a million years of human debris and artifacts beneath its soil. It seemed a good place to search for answers. With a sigh, Breece turned and walked back to her dome. Tomorrow, if the rain let up, she'd begin digging, marking, cataloging. And maybe, just maybe... She jumped as she heard the cracking of some twigs behind her. “Who's there?” she demanded.