“That is a truth,” Sam said, and turned off the video. “And now, Fleetlord, I am at your service.”
Atvar made the negative gesture. “On the contrary, Ambassador. I am at your service. It is a great honor to go before the Emperor. It is almost as great an honor to help prepare another for an audience. This says, more plainly than anything else can, that my conduct when I was in his Majesty’s presence was acceptable, and that he would be willing to have someone else imitate me.”
“Try to imitate you, you mean,” Sam said. “I am only an ignorant Big Ugly. I will do my best not to embarrass myself, but I do not know if I can be perfect. I fear I have my doubts.”
“Whether or not you have confidence in yourself, I have confidence in you,” Atvar said. “You will do well. You think like one of us. When the time comes, you will think like one of us in the Emperor’s presence.”
“I hope so,” Sam said. Atvar reminded him of one of his managers sending him in to pinch-hit with the game on the line, saying, I know you can rip this guy. And sometimes Sam would, and sometimes he wouldn’t. He always had hope. He always had a chance. He didn’t always succeed. If he failed here, the consequences would be larger than those of striking out with the tying run on third base in the ninth.
“And we do have these videos to take you through the procedure,” Atvar said. “They are not, of course, videos of actual audiences, but they should serve well enough for the sake of rehearsal. Real imperial audiences are very rarely televised. It is possible that Kassquit’s will be, and I am certain yours will, however, as it marks an extraordinary occasion.”
Sam grinned crookedly, not that the fleetlord was likely to note the nuances of his expression. “Thanks a lot. Make sure you put no pressure on me. Am I going to have a billion males and females with both eye turrets on everything I do?”
“Maybe more,” Atvar said. “This would attract considerable interest among the Race. And, of course, this event would also be broadcast to Rabotev 2 and Halless 1-and, I suppose, to Tosev 3 as well. But speed of light means viewers on other worlds will not see your performance for some years.”
“Oh, good,” Sam said. “That means I would not be known as an idiot on four worlds all at the same time. It would take a while for the news to spread.”
Atvar might not have recognized a crooked grin for what it was, but he knew sarcasm when he heard it. He laughed. “The simplest way not to have this problem would be to do well in the audience.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sam muttered darkly. But then, bones creaking, he bent into the posture of respect. “I am at your service, superior teacher. Let us watch these videos. You can explain the fine points to an ignorant foreigner like me.”
“Foreigner,” Atvar repeated in musing tones. “You may have noticed some archaic words in Gone with the Wind. Well, foreigner is much more old-fashioned than any of those. If not for the conquests of the Rabotevs and Hallessi, it would have entirely disappeared from the language.”
“This is not necessarily bad,” Sam said. “We Big Uglies have always needed the word. Foreigners are the individuals you fight with-when you are not fighting with friends and relations instead.”
“Our conquest would have been easier if you had not fought among yourselves,” Atvar said. “You already had armies mobilized and factories producing military hardware as fast as you could.”
“Truth. Friends of mine were thinking about going to work in them when the Race came,” Sam said. “But now-the videos.”
“It shall be done,” Atvar said, obedient and ironic at the same time.
He spoke to the computer, and done it was. Sam watched the ceremony-or rather, the simulation of the ceremony-over and over. He could pause whenever he wanted, go back and look at something again whenever he needed to, and skip whatever he already had down. After a while, he said, “I notice the male playing the role of the Emperor wears an actor’s body paint, not the gold paint the real Emperor uses.”
“Truth. In dramas and films, we allow that only on a case-by-case basis,” Atvar replied. “Here, it was judged inessential. Everyone knows whom the male is impersonating, whether the actual gold is seen or not.” He turned an eye turret toward Sam. “I suppose you will mock us for this sort of discrimination.”
“Not me.” Yeager used the negative gesture. “Instead of special body paint, our emperors would often wear special wrappings that no one else was allowed to use. That was one way you told emperors from ordinary males and females.” Ermine, the purple… If you wanted to paint your belly gold instead, why not? He couldn’t help adding, “In the United States, though, our not-emperor is just an ordinary citizen with a special job.”
“Snoutcounting,” Atvar said disdainfully. “Why you think this is a suitable way to rule a state of any size is beyond me. Why should a mass of males and females added together be wiser than the decision a ruler makes after consulting with experts in the field under consideration? Answer me that, if you please.”
“First, experts can be wrong, too. Look what the Race thought about Tosev 3,” Sam Yeager said. If that wasn’t a baleful stare Atvar sent him, he’d never seen one. He went on, “And second, Fleetlord, who says rulers who do not need to answer to those who chose them always consult with experts before they make their choices? Sometimes-often-they just do as they please. This is a truth for us Big Uglies. Is it any less a truth for the Race?”
“Perhaps a little,” Atvar answered, and Sam thought he might have a point. Except during mating season, Lizards were a little calmer, a little more rational, than people. As Sam had seen, both back on Earth and here on Home, they made up for it then. The fleetlord continued, “We are sometimes guilty of arbitrary behavior. If you will tell me the snoutcounting United States is not also sometimes guilty of it, I must say you will surprise me. You have seen the contrary for yourself.”
“Well, so I have,” Sam said gruffly. He’d almost paid with his neck for President Warren’s arbitrary decision to attack the colonization fleet. “We think our system does better than others in reducing such behavior, though.”
“You have been snoutcounting for how long in your not-empire?” Atvar asked.
Sam had to stop and think. To him, the Bicentennial had happened quite recently-but that ignored his cold sleep. It was 2031, not 1977. “A little more than five hundred of your years,” he answered.
Atvar’s hiss was a small masterpiece of sarcasm. “When you have five thousand-or, better, twenty-five thousand-years of experience with it, then you may claim some small credit for your system. Meanwhile… Meanwhile, shall we go back to preparing you for your audience with his Majesty?”
“Maybe that would be a good idea.” Sam had no idea whether democracy could lead humans to a state stable for millennia like the Empire. He had no idea whether any system could lead humans to a state stable for millennia. Humans were more restlessly changeable than Lizards.
Or, at least, humans with cultures springing from Western Europe had been more restlessly changeable than Lizards for the past few hundred years. That wasn’t always so elsewhere on Earth. It hadn’t been so in Western Europe before, say, the fifteenth century, either. If the Lizards had chosen to come not long after they sent their probe, they would have won everything their livers desired. That thought had given a lot of human statesmen and soldiers nightmares over the years.
Atvar started the video again. He made it pause in the middle of the ceremony. In thoughtful tones, he said, “I still do not know what we are going to do about the imperial laver and limner.”
“I am not going to go before the Emperor naked,” Yeager said. “That is not our custom. And I am not going to wear the body paint of a supplicant. I am not a supplicant. I am the representative of an independent not-empire, a not-empire with all the same rights and privileges as the Empire has. My president ”-he used the English word, which Atvar understood-“is formally the equal of the Emperor.”