Welcome to the President and the Plenipotentiary Congress
"What's a plenipotentiary congress?" Miranda demanded, staring over Jupiter's shoulder.
"It's what it says," he told her. "It's a congress of everybody important on World. It's just been called. As soon as they spotted the Chinese ship, Big Polly got on the communications channels. See, now we can do it!"
"Do what?"
"Why, declare war," Jupiter said gleefully, and was pleased, if a little astonished, to see that her breath came a little faster again. Her dour expression melted into almost a smile. He debated, then decided against, patting her again and instead said, "We're all going to be in session right away."
"Who's 'we all'?" she asked suspiciously.
"Oh, you too, I guess," he said. "Maybe even Tsoong Delilah. I don't know. Everybody!"
And everybody it turned out to be. Not merely the Congress. Most of them were already there, for every nest on World had been getting its Senators and Congress-ones there as rapidly as they could, ready for the return of the Real-American party and the President's expected address. That wasn't all, because the nests had also sent as many senior sisters as there was room for, and all the adult males. Nothing like it had ever happened on World before—at least not during the Yankee tenancy of World— and the mood was festive.
It was also serious, because there were serious decisions to be made. Big Polly had outlined the two main areas of decision making on the communications channels: to decide what to do about the surprising ethnicity of two of the President's party; and to prepare to meet and overmatch the threat from the Han Chinese on Earth. They were two quite different subjects, to be decided in quite different forums. The war plans would be made by the joint Yank and erk military council ; as a serving officer Jupiter could attend that, his right beyond question. He had no right to sit in on the sessions of the Congress of the United States (in Exile), however, and was thrilled to find out that as Miranda's jailer, with Miranda's presence essential, he was allowed to go along. There were no erks in Congress sessions, which were held in one of the old city assembly rooms. The trouble with that was that dumb erks didn't realize they were excluded, and so they were underfoot and being shooed out all through the half hour when Senators and Congressones drifted in to take their places. At the last there was a small procession: Miranda with her guard Jupiter; followed by Tsoong Delilah and her two erk guards, to take their places in the front of the room, but off to one side; then, walking together, Big Polly and the President to mount the dais, sitting on paired inkling-leather armchairs, to call the session to order. It didn't take long. The verdict of the Congress was simple: The President was the President. His executive authority, however, would not come into force until Real America was recaptured. Feng Miranda was a true and loyal American. Tsoong Delilah—
Well, Tsoong Delilah did not help her own cause a bit. Yes, she said, she was the only legitimate Secretary of State, but on the other hand the nation of "America" didn't really exist; and she held to that in spite of questioning and pleading. The questions came from Feng Miranda, and they were pointed and cruel. The pleading came from President Pettyman, who seemed to regard her intransigence as one of those silly womanly notions that were, most likely, associated with a premenstrual biochemistry. She would not recant. The Congress decided, after all, to leave that question open.
The Congress recessed itself, and all of its members moved joyfully to the larger chamber where the erks of the War Council waited for them. Had not really waited, exactly. The erks tolerated Yankee political rituals, even found them quaintly endearing, but while the Congress was in session the erks had been taking the practical steps necessary to make war planning mean something.
The session lasted five minutes. The smart erk named A-Belinka reported that the Han ship was being tracked and soon would be captured. Big Polly proposed a state of war. It was passed unanimously, with one abstention. But as the abstention was only the sulking Secretary of State, chin on hand, staring angrily out the window, it was not even recorded.
A-Belinka and Big Polly between them quickly appointed a Committee for the Conduct of the War. Jupiter wasn't on it, but Feng Miranda was. And that, he told himself, was almost as good, because although Jupiter the cocky young male from a minor nest had no claim to such exalted rank, he had now risen above that station. He was now Jupe-the-Jailer. He was the keeper of the sworn (but possibly deceitful) ally Feng Miranda; and whither she went there would go Jupe.
It was almost as good as being on the committee in his own right, he told himself and tried to make himself believe it was so.
She still did not wish to copulate. She insisted on sleeping alone that night. She had been given a room actually inside the old erk city, and although Jupiter would normally have had no difficulty in inviting some sister or other to his bed, the layout of the rooms made it awkward. Annoyed, he slept that night rolled up in blankets just outside Miranda's door. Alone.
The next morning, though, he was all cheer and pleasure ; they were to go to the vehicle-assembly sheds and discuss armaments and strategies. He hurried her through breakfast and commandeered a hoverplatform to carry them, spraying clouds of dust in all directions, to the hangar where the ship she had come in was housed. "What have they done?" Miranda demanded, staring around as they entered the huge shed. It was a rhetorical question. What they had done lay spread out before her. The ship she and the others had flown from Earth had been carefully, cautiously taken into its component parts. All the weapons that Tchai Howard and Manyface had concealed in its hull and drive systems and storage spaces had been dissected out. They stood alone now, a battery of murderous machines. Lasers of ionizing radiation. Missile projectors like the 75-millimeter cannon of bygone wars. Rocket launchers, both chemical and nuke. Even Miranda had not realized how lethal the spaceship had been. "They could have wiped you out!" she exclaimed, and the smart erk A-Belinka, scurrying over the spread-out pieces of a fire-control radar, wiggled his vibrissae at her in agreement.
"They could have destroyed our ships, yes," he chirped. "They could even have destroyed the spaceway—not by attacking the transportation field itself, of course, for that is not material, but by destroying the scout ship that generated it. But sooner or later, Miranda, our numbers would prevail. Once they were on this side of the spaceway they would have had no choice but to surrender—as they will have no choice again!"
Miranda looked at him doubtfully. "How can you be sure of that? What if they do shoot up the scout ship? Then you can't reach them at all, isn't that true? Not until you send another ship at slower-than-light speed with a new, what do you call it, spaceway?"
The erk's vibrissae flailed wildly. "They won't!" he shrilled. "They mustn't! What a terrible thing that would be! Jupiter, we must keep them from doing that!"
Miranda looked wonderingly from the little creature to her official guard. She shook her head incredulously. "I can't believe you people," she said. "God! Well, I see there's no help for it—I'm going to have to tell you how to run this war. Start by telling me all about this 'space-way' thing, and we'll figure out how to handle the Chinese as we go along."
A-Belinka wasn't offended. He was entirely happy to explain whatever Miranda wanted to know. Communication by means of the spaceway, he told her, was circumscribed by the laws of physics and by the distances involved. Right, the spaceway could be generated only by material means—its generator was among the apparatus the scout ship carried. Right, in order to get a space-way to any point in the Galaxy at all, it had to be carried there—and if there was no other spaceway already in place, it could be carried only by a conventionally propelled slower-than-light vessel. Right, if the scout ship was destroyed, all the erk and Yank plans would be set back by nearly half a century, because that was how long it had taken to get their spaceway-bearing ship into orbit around Earth's sun—and how long it would take to replace it if lost.