“—in former cycles, I agree we would have been wise to keep a foothold in Valennen, perhaps actually increase our troops there if Commandant Larreka is right about a leader who has been uniting the wild folk for purposes that go beyond pillage. Yes, as long as we possibly could, we should have held the gales against a migration such as we believe helped bring down earlier high cultures.
“But our lifetimes are blessed. To our aid have come powerful allies. Formerly we hoped that, thanks to the legions and to provisions like well-guarded stocks of food, civilization might survive, might keep its continuity, in some countries. But then the humans arrived. We now have hope, yes, expectation that the Gathering will survive substantially unharmed and over a broad range.
“Granted, what the humans can do for us is limited. They have explained that they cannot get large support from their home world. Perhaps more important, they are few; and only they can operate certain devices, or plan the best use of these. Still, a single armed aircraft of theirs is mightier than a legion, let alone a barbarian horde.
“Therefore, I submit that Valennen is not worth keeping. We can return at our convenience. Meanwhile, what have we lost? Luxury items like skipfoot leather; fisheries, which the Rover will make unprofitable anyway; and, to be sure, minerals and materials like phoenix, for which we have use. But we can get along without those if need be. Besides, after the Valenneners have broken themselves on the defense line which, with human help, we can hold—I predict they will become desperately anxious to trade with us.
“I submit that we have better work for our people to do, closer to home. The role of the legions in this latest chaos time is likely to be more civil than military, more engineering than fighting. Let us not merely refrain from asking any second legion to join the Zera Victrix in Port Rua; let us request the Zera itself to come back. We need it here, not there.”
Jerassa had seen Sparling and Larreka, who did not go into the tiers but stayed at the entrance. He must have adapted his speech immediately, for he ended:
“You have heard an abundance from me. Here is a spokesman for the humans. Is it your will that he address you next?”
“Aye,” sang from the hundred on the floor, while a murmur went through the watchers above. Jerassa bounded off the dais. Owazzi the Lawspeaker said formally, “Welcome. Ian Sparling. Is it your wish to address us?”
Like hell, the man thought. And a big reason is you, old girl. You’re among the half dozen in this universe I’d least want to hurt. “Yes,” he said, advanced, and mounted.
Owazzi and he clasped shoulders. Hers felt saddeningly fragile. Ancient even on Ishtar, she must have been aging doubly fast under the news of the last few years. That meant she had not long to be, and knew it. For as if a hypothetical deity wanted to make amends for Anu, her race was spared the slow decay which can take half a human’s lifetime, and the final horror of senility. She regarded him through clear eyes in a face gaunted but unwrinkled. Her pelt remained bright greenish-tawny, her mane golden-tinged red—young.
“Do you know what has gone on here?” she asked.
“A little,” Sparling said; then, to buy time: “Best would be if you told me.”
She launched into a crisp summation of proceedings since the assembly convened. This was part of her duty. Though the original function of the Lawspeaker—to know all the codes in the Gathering—had diminished after literacy became widespread, an excellent memory and a gift for seeing the total picture remained essential in the person who presided over these meetings. She had for three hundred years, and nobody had yet suggested retiring her.
Sparling half listened, half struggled to arrange the words he must soon voice. His problem was not realty to put a hard truth into soft language; it was to move his hearers toward decision and actions that might ease the span ahead. But what decision? He couldn’t be sure. What actions? This was not a parliament. Almost its sole power was moral.
I’ve been twenty years on Ishtar, and made myself into a xenologist in order to know better what I could best do as an engineer. But a lot of my studies were done in countries far from here. And in any case, I’ve never had to play local politics. My politicking has been back on Earth, to get okays and funds for my work. Therefore, I have got to bear in mind that the Gathering is not an empire, not a federation, not a set of alliances. Or—no—it is certain of those things, in a certain wise, to certain of its members. But the rest see it quite differently. What common terms do these delegates have? Why, many of them aren’t even delegates! And he rehearsed the accounts of the past and present as if he were newly arrived and hearing them for the first time.
Civilization in South Beronnen did not perish utterly when last Anu came near. Folk had built storehouses, fortresses, yes, vaults where books and instruments could be preserved; and they had a few legions. Longevity helped, too. A bright young Ishtarian might study under a master, be in the prime of life when the catastrophes began, and survive to teach in the next cycle. (Also there seemed to be the factor of creativity. If most men are at their most original between the ages of, say, twenty and thirty-five, the corresponding Ishtarian ages would be about fifty to one hundred fifty, with all the advantages of accumulating experience and insight.)
Civilization thus could rebuild and then expand vigorously, exploring, trading, colonizing. This meant guardians were needed. Ishtarians might have less innate violence, power hunger, and general irrationality than men; but they 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…